Bodo–Kacharis (also Kacharis or Bodos) are a collection of ethnic groups living predominantly in the Northeast Indian states of Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya and West Bengal. These peoples are speakers of either Bodo–Garo languages or Assamese. Some Tibeto-Burman speakers who live closely in and around the Brahmaputra valley, such as the Mising people and Karbi people, are not considered Bodo–Kachari. Many of these peoples have formed early states in the late Medieval era of Indian history (Chutia Kingdom, Dimasa Kingdom, Koch dynasty, Twipra Kingdom) and came under varying degrees of Sanskritisation.
The speakers of Tibeto–Burman are considered to have reached the Brahmaputra Valley via Tibet and settled in the foothills of the eastern Himalayan range, which includes the whole of Assam, Tripura, North Bengal of West Bengal and parts of Bangladesh.
The belief that Bodo–Kacharis were early settlers of the river valleys is taken from the fact that most of the rivers in the Brahmaputra Valley in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh today carry Tibeto–Burman names of Kachari origin—Dibang, Dihang, Dikhou, Dihing, Doiyang, Doigrung etc.—where Di/Doi- means water in Boro-Garo languages,"Ti- or di- (“water”) is a common affix used by Tibeto-Burman languages to designate rivers." and many of these names end in -ong, which is water in Austroasiatic."Other scholars have pointed out that other river names such as Dibang, Dihang, Doyang and the like were mixture of Bodo di and -ong (Austric) which means water." The Kacharis were the first people to rear silkworms and produce silk material and were considered to be associated with ashu rice culture in Assam before the sali (transplanted rice) was introduced from the Gangetic plains."Some advanced sections of the tribal population, like the Kacharis, also marginally grew wet rice of another variety in the submontane tracts. This variety was kharma ahu, which was irrigated but not always necessarily transplanted. At the same time, all ethnic groups without exception had also a varying interest in the dry ahu culture."
These peoples are not culturally uniform. Bodo, Chutia, Moran, Deori, Tripuri and Reang follow patrilineal descent; Garo, Rabha and Koch follow matrilineal descent, Dimasa follows bilateral descent, and Tiwa follows ambilineal descent. Some of the groups, such as Moran and Saraniya, consider themselves as Hindus under Ekasarana Dharma.
Etymologies Bodo The term Bodo is a relatively modern term with its first mention in the book by Hodgson in 1847, to refer to the Mech and Kachari peoples. The term Bodo finds its textual space first time in the book by Brian Hodgson, who wrote about a section of Tibeto-Burman speech group claiming themselves as Bodo."As (Hodgson) admits in the end, his way of seeing the "Bodos" is twofold: he starts by using "Bodo" to designate a wide range of people (“a numerous race”), then wonders if some others are not "Bodos in disguise". He ends on a cautionary note and refrains from unmasking the dubious tribes, registering only the Mechs and Kacharis,..." Grierson took this term Bodo to denote a section of the Assam-Burma group of the Tibeto-Burman languages of the Sino-Tibetan family, which included the languages of (1) Mech; (2) Rabha; (3) Lalung (Tiwa); (4) Dimasa (Hills Kachari); (5) Garo (6) Tiprasa (7) Deuri (8) Moran and Boro. Subsequently Bodo emerged as an umbrella term both in anthropological and linguistic usage."[I]t seems that the term Bodo is used particularly to denote sections of people having an agnatic relationship in terms of speech practices and a strong sense of shared ancestry. This term the Bodo is more anthropological in its usage." This umbrella-group includes such sub-groups as Mech in Bengal and Nepal; Boros,Chatterji uses Bodo for both the umbrella group as well as the Boro: "the Bodo speeches- Boro, Moran, Mech, Rabha, Garo, Kachari and Tipra and a few more" Dimasa, Chutia, Sonowal, Moran, Rabha, Tiwa in Assam, and the Kokborok people in Tripura and Bangladesh."The term Bodo is also used to denote a large number of tribes-the Garos of Meghalaya, Tippera of Tripura, and Boro Kachari, Koch, Rabha, Lalung, Dimasa, Hajong, Chutia, Deuri, and Moran of Assam and other parts of the Northeast. (M N Brahma, "The Bodo-Kacharis of Assam---A brief Introduction" in Bulletin of the Tribal Research Institute [Gauhati], 1:1 , p.52)" This is in contrast to popular and socio-political usage, where Bodo denotes the politically dominant sub-group—the Boros—in the Bodoland Territorial Region."In present-day socio-political terminology, the Bodo means the plains tribes of the Brahmaputra Valley known earlier as Bodo-Kachari." "The media at the regional and national level; officials at the Centre and the state political parties of all hues and the people, in general, have accepted what may be termed as a contraction of the original denotion."
The term Bodo generally stands for man in some of the cognate languages (Boro:Boro; Tripuri:Borok) but not in others (Garo:Mande; Karbi:Arlen)."One section of the same stock, Garo, a Tribe called themselves “Mande” means Man: another word Arleng (Karbi) is popularly used among Karbis, which literally means Man." According to historians, the word "Bodo" is derived from the Tibetan Hbrogpa."The inception of the term 'Boro' may be traced from a Tibetan word 'Hbrogpa' an inhabitant of steppes belongs to Mongolean race." The umbrella name "Bodo", denoting the umbrella group, is resisted by numerically smaller groups such as the Dimasas."While all the sub-groups in this section of people reiterate their kindred affinities, a tendency is witnessed amongst them to establish their separate identities. In recent times, there has been an effort from a section of the Boros in resolving this ambivalence in nomenclature by adopting the common name of ‘Bodo’. This has been viewed with contempt by several sections of the groups as a design by the Boros to establish their pre-dominance over numerically and otherwise weaker sections of the group. Most of the resistance has come from the Dimasas, who often accuse the Boros of appropriating the history and language of the Dimasas." Unlike Hodgson's assumption, Boro is no longer considered as the "core" of the Boro–Garo languages." ...the long privilege of Boro as a core language for the group, dies out." Therefore, it has been suggested that the whole group should not be called "Bodo".But recent developments make it imperative to redefine the term Bodo and its wider denotation deserves to be abandoned in recognition of the emerging socio-political vocabulary; the Bodo means the plain tribes of western and northern Assam known earlier as the Bodo-Kacharis of the Brahmaputra Valley.
Kachari The term Kachari has been used through much of history to denote the same people who came to be termed as Bodo."On the other hand, for the larger part of history, this group of people is referred to as Kacharis." One of the earliest usage can be found in the 16th century Assamese language Bhagavata,Srimandbhagavat, skandha 2, H Dattabaruah and Co., Nalbari, pp-38: kiraTa kachhaari khaachi gaaro miri / yavana ka~Nka govaala / where the word Kachari is used synonymously with Kirata in a list that mentions Koch and Mech separately. In Buranjis and colonial documents Boro–Garo speakers who were from the plains were collectively called Kachari.'In Assamese chronicles and colonial documents, plain dwellers who today speak Boro–Garo languages were indistinctly referred to as "Kachari".' Endle's 1911 ethnographic work, The Kacharis, explain that there were plains Kacharis and hills Kacharis and a host of other ethnic groups that fall under the Kachari umbrella.Endle was clear about what is to be understood by “Kachari”. He explains that we have Plains Kacharis, viz. the Bodos (or Boros), and the Hills Kacharis, viz. the Dimasas. Eventually the appellation kachari was retained only by those groups that have been fully integrated into Assamese society, such as Sarania Kachari, Sonowal Kachari, whereas others who were formerly called Kacharis have assumed ethnonyms, such as Boro or Dimasa."While “Kachari” did formerly apply to a large part of plain tribes, and is still commonly used in this sense by outsiders, it is now assumed only by sections that, like the Sonowal Kacharis or Saraniya Kacharis, speak only Assamese and are fully integrated into Assamese caste society. Other “former” Kacharis now assume distinct ethnonyms such as Bodo or Dimasa."
Kachari is pronounced as Kachhāri or Kossāri. The origin of the name is most likely a self-designation korosa aris that is found in a very old Boro song: Pra Ari, Korasa Ari Jong pari lari lari (We are Korosa Aris, first-born sea race Our line is continuous)
Origins
Today the peoples included in the Bodo-Kacharis speak either one of the languages from the Boro–Garo branch of Tibeto-Burman or an Indo-Aryan language such as Assamese or Bengali. It is generally believed that when the first Tibeto-Burman speakers entered the Brahmaputra Valley, it was already populated by people speaking Austroasiatic languages."[T]here is no question that whenever the first Tibeto-Burman speakers may have entered, the Brahmaputra valley was already well populated. Accounts of the prehistory of Assam and Bengal usually begin with Austroasiatic populations. (Kakati (1962) , van Dreim (1997))" "(T)he valley was not deserted when the first (known) speakers of Tibeto-Burman languages arrived; they encountered people who spoke Mon-Khmer languages, of which the Khasi languages are the remnants. "However, [the Boro–Garo speakers] may have been preceded by speakers of Austroasiatic languages, as suggested by a number of toponyms and areal loanwords (Kakati 1995; Diffl oth 2005; Konnerth 2014)." Bodo-Kachari community traditions as well as scholars agree that they came from the north or the east;"There is general agreement, among Tibeto-Burman communities in Assam and their traditions as well as among scholars, that Tibeto-Burman languages came into the Assam plain from the north and probably east, though opinions differ about how far north and/or east the original center of dispersal for the family is. and current phylogenetic studies suggest that the Boro–Garo language descended from Proto-Tibeto-Burman in Northern China near the Yellow River.: According to the “Northern China origin” hypothesis, the Sinitic languages form the primary branch near the root of Sino-Tibetan tree and all non-Sinitic languages descended from an ancient common ancestor (i.e. proto-Tibeto-Burman)6,7,8. Previously17, the initial divergence of Sino-Tibetan languages was associated with the geographic spread of millet agriculture from the Yellow River basin, based on the inferred age of Sino-Tibetan phylogenies. Here our inference replicates an early bifurcation into the Sinitic clade and the Tibeto-Burman clade and Sinitic languages forming the primary branch near the root. Linguists suggest that the initial ingress took place 3000 years before present or earlier,"...Tibeto-Burman speakers arrived in the Brahmaputra Valley 3,000 years ago (or more, see van Driem 2001)..." and that the immigrant proto-Boro–Garo speakers were not as numerous as the natives. Linguists find the Boro–Garo languages remarkable in two aspects—they have a highly creolised grammar, and they extend over a vast region that radiates out into Nepal and Tripura from the Brahmaputra Valley."There are two very striking things about Boro–Garo, which make it stand out from other units of comparable size and divergence. One is its extreme creoloid grammar. The other is its considerable geographical spread: from the Meche language of Nepal in the west to Dimasa in eastern Assam is over 1200 kilometers."
Emergence of Boro–Garo as lingua franca