Mro Folk Tale

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Mro Folk Tale

A Mro mother with her childs

The people without shadows live in the Kro U Hills. Nobody can see them unless they show themselves. An elderly couple from that hill used to come to Thanchi Bazar many years back. Now they have simply vanished into thin air. Once they invited people from the bazar to a fair in their village. Some went to the fair and saw many people dancing to the tune of many flutes and cows and buffaloes being cooked for the feast. They only saw this on the evening they arrived. The next day, when they woke up they found no one. Everyone was gone; only the forest remained and they found themselves sleeping under a huge tree.

JHUM

A Mro woman working in the field

The life of a Mro family is dependent on Jhum - the practice of slash and burn (swidden) cultivation on hill slopes allotted by a karbari (village chief). Between January and February all the vegetation and small trees of a chosen section is slashed and left to dry for about two weeks. Branches of big trees that have spread out are cut down. Fires are ignited between end March and early April on the patch and a week later, preferably after a good round of rainfall, the adults in the family plant seeds of various crops in holes dug with a chopper. The ashes from the fire work as natural fertilizer. Between April and August people weed a patch three times. The patch will be left for three years before it is used again.

Mros produce paddy

Mros produce paddy, maize sour fruit plant, aromatic herbs, different types of beans, sweet pumpkin, brinjal, cucumber, white pumpkin, sesame, cotton, chili and different types of yarns for daily consumption and for the market. Many families also cultivate pineapple, orange and mango orchards.

CHAMPUA AND MARRIAGE.

A Mro bride

Young men and women find their own spouses through champua. ‘A flute in the evening announces the possible arrival of a young man to the house of a suitable girl and the time for sweet love talk. He comes with flowers tucked behind his ears and on the bun of his combed hair. Most of the young men usually find a companion for life thus. But he will meet many girls before deciding to marry the one he will fall in love with. A pregnancy due to an ‘intimate relationship’ usually ends up in a marriage. This will be considered a legal relationship and in accordance with the accepted Customary clan laws of matching. In case of a refusal, a man will be blamed and can end up paying a fine of 30 silver coins to girl’s parents as acceptance of the responsibility for the shame. A pig is also killed and eaten in a ceremony known as young sree (cleansing impurity) of the village.

A teen mother with her baby

‘Mlawas (girls) are married late among the Mros. The have to learn all the necessary techniques to run a family, their bodies need to be mature to bear Children. A girl will not get respect in her husband’s house without skills to run a family. Usually girls are married after they are eighteen..’

A mro mother

‘A boy can marry when he is sixteen. The responsibility of a wife is greater than that of a hua (husband). She has to carry water, collect the wood, pound paddy, all activities that require physical strength. They grow up learning chroes. Boys also like to take older wives who are able to run the house.’

The regular bride price is 110 silver coins (equivalent to 22,000 Taka in 2006); this includes 10 coins for the brides mother as the price for her milk (eontuichia) and for bearing the daughter in her womb.

CHIASHOD POI (Cow-Killing Ceremony)

Mro ceremony Chia means a cow, shod means killing with a spear and poi is a festival. Chiashod Poi is the biggest offering made to evil spirits so that Mros can remain safe from sickness or receive favours. A big sacrificial ceremony takes place with advice fro the village faith healer (sra) where neighbours, relatives and friends are invited. Young people come with flutes and unmarried girls wearing their best clothes begin a dance; there is plenty of wine to consume, making the whole village a festival ground for two days. A cow tied to a post in the centre of the village is pierced I its heart with a spear while the Mros dance around the animal. Its tongue is cut and nailed to the post where the cow is tied.

The origin of this ritual is in a legend which has it that many years ago when the creator came down to earth to distribute religion and the alphabet to each nation, the Mro chief failed to attend it in time since he was too busy having fun. The Creator (Thorai) left and later in the summer sent a cow to deliver the alphabet and the religion. The cow was very tired after the long journet and tied the alphabets and religion and rused to Mro king and heaven when God started to ask questions, the real story came out. God became very angry and cursed the cow, “From now on you are banished to live on Earth. Until the Mros find their alphpabet and religion, during festivals they will pierce you to death and nail your tongue to wooden pole. This is your punishment for lying.”

MONEY LANDERS & EXPLOITATION

A Mro old man A Bangalee trader (bepari) is usually also the money lender in the hills, offering cash to the Mros in exchange for their jhum produce.’ For 100 taka, one has to pay another 50-100 taka within a fixed period depending on the urgency of their needs. The rates for crops and timber are also determined by the trader who keeps on making money while entangling a Mro family in the web of never-ending debt. A cow killing ceremony and marriage is very expensive and the money lenders are always there to help!
‘When a Murung goes to court over a land dispute, he never wins. A Bangalee pays for only a kani (one-third of an acre) of land while he records more than that on paper. Illiterate Murungs were stupid before and are not too clever nowadays either. Money taken on loan from a rich money lender or a bepari grows link ants’.

LAND RIGHTS OF THE MRO

Mro, the son of the nature

Mros, like other hill people, are the children of nature and never thought that they need government paper to live their ancestral land. The settlement in the 80’s by people from river-eroded districts who had been issued permanent leases was ‘unfair to the hill people’. Before the buying, selling and leasing out of land in the Chittagong Hill Tracts was stopped vide an order of the hill district councils in 1998, thousands of acres went into the possession of politicians, ex-military and civil servants, businessmen and other influential people in the name of fruit and rubber plantations. Many families were forced to leave their ancestral homesteads and move deeper in to the hills in order to survive. A few hundred families were able to get permanent leases for up to five acres of land with the help of a development agency. About 18000 applications for permanent leases made by Mros are waiting to be processed by the Deputy Commissioner’s office in Bandarban. In the last twenty-five years, the Bangalee population in Bandarban has grown such that ht hill people have become minority in their own land.

MRO FOLK TALE

A Mro Family

In olden days, the red blood bird was not red at all; it was like any ordinary bird and there was nothing significant or eye catching about it. Among the birds the yellow bird had the bad reputation of being quarrelsome. A festival was being held in the forest and the baby Moyna was nagging it s mother to go there. She agreed and as feared, a fight took place between the baby Moyna and a baby yellow bird. The yellow bird scratched the Moyna badly, one can still see the scars on both sides of its head. A bird tried to stop the fight and was smeared with blood from those scars. The blood never washed out and from that time on, it is called shing ram wa we, THE RED BLOOD BIRD.

About the Writer:

Didarul Alam

Didarul Alam, the son of Abdul Bashar & Samuda Begam was born in 1969 in Hatazhari Upazila, Chittagong, started his carrier as a photojournalist in 1990. worked in newspapers like Dainik Bangla, Bangladesh Swadhinata, The Daily Life, Bhorer Kagoj & The Daily Jugantor. He is currently working in The Independent.

His photographs were exhibited & published in many national & international photo contests in countries like Japan, Turkey, Italy, Austria & France. He won The Asahi Shimbune Award for his photograph titled “Tribal Life” in 2004.

He has been working with the Chittagong Hill Tracts people since 1991 & covered issues like “The Peace Treaty” & “Foreigner Kidnapping.”

Didarul Alam is the general secretary of Chittagong Photo Journalist Association & a member of Chittagong Union of Journalist. He is also the Library Secretary of Chittagong Press Club.

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