Architecture (e): The Courtyard (Chotal)

The courtyard known as chotal has great importance, utility, and functionality in the Assamese society and culture. As mentioned above, the houses in the homestead are arranged and constructed in accordance with this chotal. Though the chotal ordinarily denotes the central courtyard (mool-chotal), there usually exist more chotal in an ideal homestead as mentioned earlier. The different chotals are used for different specific purposes. The central mool-chotal or the chotal is the biggest, most important and indispensible one. It usually contains a personal domestic shrine in the eastern side known as the Gosaighar or Namghar or an earthen altar planted with a basil tree . This shrine is usually a small temporary structure of bamboo, which becomes conspicuous in size if the owner is affluent enough. The main chotal is the place where different day-today and seasonal activities and ceremonies are carried out.

Thus, different post-harvest activities like the storing and thrashing of harvested crop, winnowing and drying of crops, and so on are carried out in the chotal. It is, simultaneously, the place of regular or occasional congregation, a playground for the kids, or an area, where womenfolk lay the thread and carry out jobs associated with weaving. An earthen lamp is lit in the altar in the chotal in the evening and the young members recite the prarthana and pray in front of it. An elderly member often recites here the sacred book (puthi) in the evening. In the summer evenings, the young members often gather around grandmother in the chotal and listens various folktales and similar folk performances. In the winter evenings, there arranges a fire and the members sit around it and gossip. On the occasion of the Kati or Kangali Bihu, it is a custom to construct a mud altar and plant basil plant sapling in chotal and lit there an earthen lamp or akshbanti (sky-lamp attached to an installed high bamboo pole) throughout the month of Kati. Conversely, the pich-chotal is place that is mostly used by the womenfolk for various clandestine jobs. It is the place where the women do different household chores from winnowing the paddy and rice to drying of the personal garments, which are not dried in public.

Similarly, it is believed that the men of the family should not walk below a woman’s personal undergarments, which lessens the longevity of men.

It is mandatory to broom and clean the chotal early in the morning. There prevalent different beliefs and saying round the chotal. It is held ominous to walk the un-broomed chotal by the males, especially the head of the family as it decreases the lifespan. Therefore, some female member of the family brooms the chotal early in the morning before placing feet by the males.

Hence, in following verses of Rabha Bagejari song also early-hour sweeping of chotal is reiterated:

“O aapi janibi, O aapi sunibi,
Pahil sarer dakate, chotal saribi” (Mazumdar:1989:66)

(meaning, hello girl mind, hello girl listen, broom the courtyard at the first crowing of cock)

The broom (barhani) used to clean the chotal in the early morning is specific one, which is not used for sweeping of the houses or other courtyards or even in subsequent sweeping of the chotal during the rest of the day. The sweepings of the morning are immediately collected and dumped below the trees. In Assamese as well as in many tribal societies, the chotal is an important and indispensable element of the homestead.