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SHILLONG, India (AP) — Tambor Lyngdoh made his way through the fern-covered forest, naming plants, trees, flowers and even stones, as if visiting elderly relatives.
The network leader and businessman was a child when his uncle brought him here and told him: “This forest is your mother. “
This sacred space is in the village of Mawphlang, nestled in the verdant Khasi Hills in the northeast Indian state of Meghalaya, whose name means “abode of clouds.” On an overcast day, the forest, a bumpy 15-mile drive from the state capital of Shillong, was tranquil but for the sound of crickets chirping and raindrops rustling the bright green foliage.
The floor, carpeted with dead leaves and green shoots, was dotted with moss-covered sacred stones, which for centuries served as sacrificial altars and receivers of songs, chants, and prayers.
Mawphlang is one of more than 125 sacred forests in Meghalaya, and arguably the most famous one. These forests are ancient, virgin woodlands that have been protected by Indigenous communities for many centuries; comparable tracts have been documented in other parts of India and around the globe, from Nigeria and Ethiopia to Turkey, Syria and Japan.
In Meghalaya, these forests constitute an ancient culture of environmental conservation, rooted in indigenous devotional ideals and culture. For many years, other people have come to sacred groves to offer prayers and animal sacrifices to the deities who live there. Any form of desecration is taboo; In the highest forests it is even forbidden to pluck a flower or a leaf.
“Communication between man and God takes place here,” says Lyngdoh, a descendant of the priestly family that sanctified the Mawphlang forest. “Our ancestors created those groves and forests to symbolize concord between man and nature. “
Many of these forests are the main water resources for the surrounding villages. They are also treasures of biodiversity. Lyngdoh has at least four species of trees and three types of orchids that are extinct outside the sacred grove of Mawphlang.
Today, climate change, pollutants and deforestation threaten these spaces. They were also affected by the conversion of the indigenous population to Christianity, which began in the 19th century under British rule. Christian converts have lost their spiritual connection to the forests and their traditions. said H. H. Morhmen, a retired environmentalist and Unitarian minister. Meghalaya is 75% Christian in a country that is almost 80% Hindu.
“They saw their newness as Gentile and those rituals as darkness, paganism, even evil,” he said.
In recent years, environmentalists working with indigenous and Christian communities, as well as government agencies, have helped spread the message of why forests, which are invaluable to the region’s ecosystem and biodiversity, will need to be maintained. Morhmen said the paintings are paying off in rural communities.
“Now we see that even in places where other people have converted to Christianity, they take care of the forests,” Mohrmen said.
The village of Mustem in the Jaintia Hills is an example of this. Heimonmi Shylla, leader of the village, which has about 500 families and a deacon, said nearly all of the citizens are Presbyterians, Catholics or members of the Church of God.
“I don’t consider the forest to be sacred,” he said. But I have wonderful respect for that. “
It serves as a source of drinking water for the village and is a sanctuary for fish.
“When the weather gets really warm, the forest keeps us cool,” he said. “When you breathe in that fresh air, your mind becomes fresh.”
Shylla worries about climate change and insufficient rain, but he said there are plans to promote tourism and “make the forest greener” by planting more trees.
Petros Pyrtuh takes his six-year-old son, Bari Kupar, to a sacred grove near his village, also in the Jaintia Hills. He is a Christian, but he says the forest is a component of his life; He expects his son to be told to respect him.
“In our generation, it is not the abode of the gods,” he said. “But we maintain the culture of protecting the forest because our ancestors told us not to desecrate it. “
B. K. Tiwari, a retired professor of environmental science at North Eastern Hill University in Shillong, is comforted to find that conversion to Christianity has completely disconnected the population from the earth.
“In the Indigenous religion everything is sacred — animals, plants, trees, rivers,” said Tiwari, who has studied the biological and cultural diversity of Meghalaya’s sacred forests. “Now, they may not feel any connection with the divine or spiritual, but as a culture, they understand their roles as the custodians.”
Donbok Buam, a Jaintia Hills resident who still practices the indigenous faith, explained that in his village’s sacred forest, rituals are held at the confluence of three rivers in honor of Goddess Lechki, the forest dweller and mother of the village.
“If other people have a challenge or an illness or if women are struggling to conceive children, they go there and make sacrifices,” Buam said.
One of the rituals is to bring water from the river beforehand and offer it to the goddess in an express position in the forest. The water is poured into gourds and placed next to five betel nuts and five betel leaves (4 for the rivers and one for the sacred grove. A white goat is sacrificed in honor of the forest deity, he said.
“We, the goddess, walked through the forest, even today,” Buam said.
The Nongrum extended family is one of three extended families that tend to the sacred grove of Swer, near Cherrapunji, a domain about 35 miles southwest of Shillong, which is among the wettest in the world. They adhere to the pantheistic Seng Khasi religion, according to which God exists in everyone and everything. The forest is a temple where its deities reside, and rituals are carried out to protect them from war, famine and disease, said Knik Nongrum, chairman of the local committee that cares for the forest.
“When there is a healthy forest, there is prosperity in the village,” he said, vowing that this forest will continue to thrive because his clan is determined to carry on the traditions established by their ancestors.
Like most sacred groves, this one is not easily accessible from the road. It is situated at the top of a steep hill whose terrain can become dangerous if hit by a downpour, as it does. It is highly unlikely to enter the forest without feeling the rubbing of twisted branches, breathing in the smell of flowers and herbs, and being watered through the water droplets churning between the leaves.
The component of the forest that other people consecrate is a patch covered with leaves and surrounded by tall, thick trees.
Most rituals are performed only in turbulent times; The ultimate recent tribulation has been the global coronavirus pandemic. A specific ritual, the sacrifice of a bull, is carried out through the head priest once in his lifetime, a practice that provides him with the strength to carry out other rites for his community.
Jiersingh Nongrum, 52, pointed to the sacrificial altar just outside the forest, which has a crater in the middle where the animal’s blood collects. He was 6 years old when he witnessed this exclusive sacrifice.
“It was a very intense experience,” he said. When I think about it now, I feel like I have a vision that I can’t even describe well in words. “
Some sacred groves also serve as ancestral burial sites, said Hamphrey Lyngdoh Ryntathiang, the custodian leader of one of the forests in the Khasi Hills. He practices the Khasi religion and his wife is a Christian.
Each forest has its own set of regulations and taboos. In this forest, other people can take the fruit from the trees, but they are forbidden to burn anything, he said. In others, the fruit can be picked from the tree, but it is not to be eaten in the forest. Deities are believed to punish other people for rioting.
Lyngdoh from Mawphlang is Christian, but he participates in the forest rituals, invoking the deities believed to appear as a leopard and snake. He also sees the effects of climate change on forests in the area, and noted the invasive birds, fungi-infested trees and disappearing species.
In rural Meghalaya, the poorest people rely the most on land, Lyngdoh said, noting that forests can be economic and life engines, providing water and promoting tourism.
“But the most important thing is that a sacred grove is set aside so that we can continue to have what we have had since the creation of this world. “
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Deepa Bharat, Associated Press
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