Garo Dormitory: Nokpante

[Full title: Communities with Deka-chang (c): Garo Dormitory: Nokpante]

The Garos (Man- de) also possess the institution of youth dormitory known Nokpante / Nok-Phanti that literally means house of bachelor. This institution is constructed in one of the corner or centre of the central open area around a Garo habitation where the bachelors live, a stranger is accommodated and meetings of the village elders take place. As reported by Playfair (1975) the Nokpante, “often of great size and are on much higher platforms than the other houses”, was prevalent in every village.

Waddell also mentioned about the prevalence of the institution among the Garos,

“Like the surrounding tribes they have the separate houses for the bachelors (Deka-chang or Nok-Phanti)” (Waddell:1975:57).

It is a big house constructed in a convenient place of the village, on bamboo platform with a fireplace in the middle of the platform. A ladder made through cutting steps in a huge log, along with a cane support (redokra) is used to climb the platform. On the top end of the log, the heads of a man and woman, turned away from each other, are carved (Marak:2012).

Marak mentions,

“In the pre-British period, the A’chik built several Nokpantes in each village. The numbers dwindled steadily due to changes brought by religious conversion, education, and colonization” (Marak:2012:8).

She mentions of the existence of Nokpante in the south Garo Hills but no longer in use. The institution of Nokpante was active and prevalent in the 50s of last century as evidenced by B.N. Choudhury.

He has given a vivid description of the institution:

Almost all the Garo villages have their own Nokpantes. The unmarried youths sleep together in the Nokpante at night. Nokpantes are very big houses built of bamboo, wood, thatches and cane. A Nokpante is sometimes 20 feet high and 80 to 90 feet long; it is decently built on bamboo machang and its walls are also neatly woven. Almost half the length of the house is kept open while the other half is enclosed with bamboo mats of sufficiently polished works. Two doors are kept, one in the front and other in the back side of it. The bamboo machang is six to ten feet from the ground and a ladder helps one to ascend the Nokpante. Along the ladder a big and unusually long cane stalk is hung from the roofs of the house and it is used as support while ascending it. The ladder is nothing but a big log of wood with steps cut on it. The Nokpante are really big village halls. (Choudhury:1969:12-13)

The architecture is attached with a rear ladder also. The food for the members are supplied from their respective home and left in a basket that hangs in front of the architecture (Medhi:2016).

The Nokpante serves the similar functions like the youth dormitories of the other tribal communities. Thus, the Nokpante is ordinarily a place of leisure where simultaneously common issues are discussed, items of handicraft are prepared, wood carving is learnt and where an outsider is temporarily accommodated. However, for the accommodation of an outsider, sometimes a separate house called alda is constructed.

Like other communities, the entry of females in the Nokpante is ordinarily prohibited. But, Choudhury mentions that during a feast, on certain situation such as for supply of liquor or to pass important information, certain respectable and reliable ladies are allowed to enter the Nokpante but through the back door only.

The Nokpante is the house where the public property such as feathers of fowls, horns of cattle, drums, and gongs are kept. The Nokpante also possess beautiful carving and paintings on the front and middle timber posts on both sides of the house.

Marak describes,

“Figures of man, woman, child, tiger, giant lizard, and other living objects adorn those panels, while the overhead beams have the figures of elephant, tiger, and wild goat carved into them” (Marak:2012:8).

Simultaneously, heads or tasks of pig are hung or carved in the beams. The Nokpante is an important architecture as well as institution of the Garo tribe where “various indigenous Garo cultures took their births” (Choudhury:1969).