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Into Bawm Country
Related to country: Bangladesh

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

I was standing near Thekiyang Khua, a Bawm settlement, about 15 miles from the Bangladesh-Myanmar border. People had just started going about their morning chores as I was setting up my camera on a tripod. It is amazing how life has not changed much the last 40 years since National Geographic magazine published an article by Claus Deiter Brauns on the Mru (a related tribe) back in 1973. Thekiyang in only a day’s walk from Ruma Bazzar, the nearest urban center, yet life seems to have settled in diabolic time warp. The locals still have midwives that often work overtime, and women still die at childbirth; the nearest hospital being about two days hard journey away from this particular area. Most houses are still traditionally built, being similar to a Mru house, the livestock (chicken, pigs and cattle) live in enclosures underneath the sparsely spaced bamboo strips that make up the floor and live on the scrapes of food that are often dropped purposefully by the inhabitants.

I have been living with them on and off since December 2007, doing an ethnographic study for a book. The locals derive much of their calories from the rice they produce from the seasonal slash and burn agriculture, often complimenting their diet with hunted animals and gathered herbs from the surrounding woodlands. Like the Mru, the Bawms choose to live on top of hills, staying clear of valleys infested with anopheles mosquitoes that carry the deadly plasmodium protozoans that causes malaria. Moreover, a thick fog envelopes the valley floor during the winter months, rendering it quite unhealthy for anybody choosing to live close to the streams that flow into the two large rivers that flows through the lands inhabited by the Bawms. The women carry out most of the household chores, including fetching water from the streams and gathering firewood. While earthen vessels and gourds made from carefully preserved shell of homegrown vegetables were discarded long ago in favor of steel and aluminum utensils for carrying liquids, they still remember them fondly and keep one or two samples they proudly produce for any visitor. Winter (December to February) is devoted to gathering firewood and female members of the household spend from a week up to a fortnight cutting down trees with daos (a large hewing knife), axes and double handled wood saws. I have accompanied both the women and men as they went about their work often joining them in their backbreaking labor complete with Paipers and Cais (small and medium sized baskets made from thin bamboo strips and cane with straps made from bark strips).

The Bawms are not skilled in metallurgy and are dependent on Bengali blacksmiths for their tools and implements. The nodal urban centers sell a variety of finished goods and raw materials for the locals who often frequent once a week to sell their farm produces. There are whole sellers that stock non-perishable items in their small warehouses to be carried away to larger towns in small trucks and pickups and, also by boats if there’s a navigable river close by. Although, the indigenous peoples in this area have been introduced to monetary currencies from the time of the Old Arakanese Kingdoms, its use did not become widespread until the time of the British Raj. The greater Chittagong region is a geographical entity that is quite unlike anything in this region, the low riverine coastal plains (up to eight kilometers deep at some places) give way to low lying hill ranges lying north and south. It is not known when the hill dwellers came into contact with their low-land cousins, but there is evidence of a long established trade between them. As I mentioned earlier, the Bawm and, a number of related tribes traditionally built their hamlets on hilltops, and as a consequence, had less frequent contact with the coastal areas, while Chankma and Marma tribesmen have been valley dwellers and may have had settlements along the coast. The hill people have an inking for dried sea fish, and like to include it in their menu to be used with a wide variety of items. Coastal people still need a sizeable supply of good timber, bamboo and cane for crafting houses, bridges, furniture and baskets and other household items.

Life is pretty laid back in these parts and people rarely do anything else other than the usual, it has been like this for centuries. The Jhum season started early last year (late February – mid April), with the slashing and burning of the agreed plot that had been left to fallow for the last three years. The terrain now had the appearance of an overgrown bush land with a few sparsely spaced trees sticking out like spikes, after years of repeated firing. The bush have withered perceptibly after a dry winter and burned swiftly, leaving the trees relatively unharmed, with only the leaves burned off that would eventually grow back over time. There is now evidence that the trees endemic to regions that have been in use for this type of agriculture have become somewhat resistant to fire and can live through controlled burnings started by the farmers. The fallowing period has been decreasing alarmingly with the rapid proliferation of people in the immediate area. The population density has increased dramatically in the last thirty years or so. With so many extra mouths to feed the farmers have resorted to buying food stuffs from the nodal markets whenever there is a shortage of local produces.

Please visit my site for more on the Bawm.

http://flyingzypher.multiply.com/journal/item/6

Shades of Grey

January 9, 2008 | 7:27 PM Comments  1 comments

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ziahasan001 Zia
November 25, 2008 | 5:54 AM
P.S.
Please vist my site for more on the Bawm, I've recently added more pictures on this subject.

http://flyingzypher.multiply.com/journal/item/6
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