Traditional Beliefs About Weretigers Among the Garos of Meghalaya (India)

Francesco Brighenti

doi:10.25120/etropic.16.1.2017.3568

Abstract

The Garos, a tribal group who live in India (western highlands of Meghalaya and the southern foothills of Assam) and northern Bangladesh, are noted for their diverse beliefs on weretigers – that is, human beings with the ability of turning themselves, in various ways, into ferocious tigers and subsequently back to human form. The present paper provides a first attempt at classifying the different motifs in Garo weretiger-lore which include traditional beliefs of: (1) a legendary ‘race’ of monstrous tigermen ruled over by a Tiger Mother; (2) individuals endowed with a ‘dual’ vital principle inhabiting a human body during daytime and a tiger one at nighttime; and (3) shape-shifters who can physically metamorphose into tigers through magical arts. This classification highlights the rich variety of beliefs held by the Garos on these quintessential liminal beings, and provides a critical analysis of the most frequently occurring class of werebeasts in the folktales, legends, and epics of tropical Asia.

Highlights

The Garos, a tribal group who live in India and northern Bangladesh, are noted for their diverse beliefs on weretigers – that is, human beings with the ability of turning themselves, in various ways, into ferocious tigers and subsequently back to human form
As this paper focuses on beliefs about weretigers among the Garos, it is germane to mention that the Rabhas, Bodos, and Tiwas, the Garos’ closest linguistic relatives, have either tales about human-to-tiger transformation and back
The results of this longterm research across much of tropical Asia reveal that such beliefs generally do not arise in urban environments, but are an eminently rural phenomenon liminal areas on the fringe of human occupation are the typical places of the origin of beliefs about both weretigers and ‘tigershamans’