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Performing the Garo Nation? Garo Wangala Dancing between Faith and
Folklore

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 Erik de Maaker
Leiden University

Performing the Garo Nation?

Garo Wangala Dancing between Faith and Folklore

In recent decades, Wangala dancing has gained prominence as an important

cultural expression of the Northeast Indian Garo community. In 2008, a
Wangala performance was included in the annual Republic Day parade. Pho-
tographs of Wangala dancing have come to play an important role on posters
circulated by politicians and on calendars produced by organizations that call
for greater political assertion of the Garo community. Beyond these relatively
new uses, for adherents of the traditional Garo religion, Wangala dancing con-
tinues to be linked to the most important post-harvest festival. In exploring
how Wangala dancing has developed into a powerful mediatized expression of
the Garo community, this article examines how national- and state-level per-
formances continue to be linked to village-level celebrations.

keywords: Wangala dance—Republic Day parade—authenticity—

folklorization—indigeneity

Asian Ethnology Volume 72, Number 2 • 2013, 221–239

© Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture
T he fifty-eighth Republic Day, 26 January 2008, was celebrated under a
crisp blue Delhi winter sky. Political and military leaders, as well as a crowd of
thousands, cheered as an immaculately performed parade that wanted to display
the military might and cultural diversity of the Indian nation passed them by. In
India, the Republic Day parade is an annual event, and ever since 1950, it has been
held to commemorate and acknowledge the adoption of the Indian constitution.
As with any constitution, it defines the relationship between the Indian state and
its citizens, and the parade acts as an expression of the power, endurance, and per-
petuity of that state.
The Republic Day parade takes place in New Delhi, on the main Rajpath boule-
vard. This is at the heart of the “new” city, built in the 1920s and 1930s as the capi-
tal of the then British raj. The parade starts at the presidential palace, passes main
administrative buildings, and ends at the national war memorial at India Gate.
Lined all along the boulevard are stands that are only accessible to ticket holders.
At about the midway point, the parade passes the Indian president, cabinet minis-
ters, and other dignitaries. With them is also the head of a friendly state, referred
to as “the chief guest.” In 2008, the chief guest was the French president Nicolas
Sarkozy, accompanied by some of his ministers. The streets surrounding Rajpath
are all under close surveillance by security personnel, and every member of the
audience is frisked upon arrival. The parade takes a good three hours, from 10 a.m.
until about 1 p.m.
In 2008, notwithstanding the abundance of police and military personnel, the
atmosphere was relaxed. For those who attended, Republic Day was apparently an
enjoyable day out, although this is not at all self-evident; many people in India are
either indifferent to the parade, or reject it for the patriotism and militarism that are
so central to it. In the more troubled parts of India, such as the Naxalite-dominated
areas in the center, Kashmir, and contested parts of the northeast, Republic Day cel-
ebrations are often boycotted by groups opposing the Indian government. Attending
local Republic Day celebrations, which is obligatory for civil servants, then translates
into an expression of loyalty towards the Indian state.
The Republic Day parade is organized by the Ministry of Defense and is domi-
nated by the military. Contingents of each of the main divisions of the army, navy,
and air force participate. Many of the men (women are a minority) march along in

222 | Asian Ethnology Volume 72, Number 2 • 2013

 de maaker: garo wangala dancing | 223

colorful and otherwise rarely seen ceremonial uniforms. Some are on horse or even
camel back. The parade also showcases the latest military hardware: combat tanks,
artillery, and mobile rocket launchers. Trucks with huge ballistic missiles, believed
capable of carrying nuclear warheads, catch the eye. The navy presents floats with
truck-sized cardboard models of battle ships and submarines. All the military hard-
ware steadily crawl along, accompanied by servicing personnel, who salute to the
dignitaries seated at the rostrum. Air force planes conclude the parade with a noisy
fly past of helicopters, bombers, and jet fighters in tight formation.
Whereas the military part is generally considered the most spectacular and is
emphasized in the excerpts shown to television audiences worldwide, the parade
encompasses many civil participants as well. The middle part of the parade features
floats representing each of the states and union territories. In 2008, some of these
had a patriotic theme, such as the sacrifices made by the people of Haryana in the
1857 First War of Independence. Others seemingly avoided politics, such as the float
of the troubled state of Kashmir that was dedicated to a tulip garden. Other floats
presented cultural festivals, culturally relevant historical buildings, and so on.
In 2008, the last section of the cultural program consisted of a “children’s pag-
eant” in which various groups of students from different parts of India performed
a dance. Again, some of these had a patriotic theme (such as the national tricolor
or the contribution of women to building national unity), whereas others were
based on folkloristic dances deemed characteristic for the ethnicity the particu-
lar group of students represented. One of the groups consisted of more than a
hundred college students from the Garo community, who performed a “Wangala
dance.”1 The Garo are categorized within the Indian administrative system as a
“tribal” community.2 Dressed in bright clothes, wearing ornamental jewelry, and
with cocktail feathers in their hair, the Garo students submitted to the expecta-
tions of the general Indian audience about “tribal” people as exotic and “other.”
This perception was further strengthened by the description of the Wangala dance
in the program booklet of the Republic Day Parade (2008, 38), which empha-
sized both its presumed social significance and its authenticity:
Wangala dance is part of the Wangala festival, which is the most important of
all festivals of the Garo…. This festival is also used as an occasion for selecting
brides and bridegrooms. This dance festival is the most colorful and spectacular
among the Garo community. To the tune of rhythmic sounds of native musical
instruments, the students… are presenting the Wangala dance.

For most Garo, Wangala is primarily an element of folk culture, and they assume
that it was previously important in a religious sense. Nowadays it is “imagined” by
the vast majority of the Garo to be synonymous with Garo tradition, as it comes
to them in the writings of local folklorists and historians. The claim made above
that “Wangala dance is part of the Wangala festival, which is the most important of
all festivals of the Garo” neglects the changes in the religious and social landscape
that have occurred over the last hundred and fifty years. It willfully locates Wan-
gala dancing and consequently the Garo community as a whole in a timeless past.
224 | Asian Ethnology 72/2 • 2013

In 2008, as the youth groups proceeded along the boulevard, each was granted
a couple of minutes to perform in front of the dignitaries. The Garo students had
exactly two minutes and fifteen seconds. To ensure that their performance would
fit into the tight schedule and the music to which they danced would be audible
all along the boulevard, a studio prepared a music track that was broadcast on a
sound system. Wangala dancing normally involves an equal number of men and
women. Each of the men (or boys) participating carried a heavy wooden drum.
Considering the distance they had to walk during the parade, real drums were not
feasible, and each of the men carried a fake instrument made of paper and Styro-
foam so that they could perform in time with the drum track.
The Garo troupe consisted of more than a hundred students, mostly drawn
from colleges in Tura, the political and administrative center of the Garo Hills.
Most of them had little prior experience with Wangala dancing but spontaneously
enlisted when they heard of the event. For most of them, it was a chance to travel
outside Northeast India during the long winter holiday, which in Garo Hills lasts
from before Christmas until well into January. Their coaches were college lectur-
ers, most of whom were experienced Wangala dancers. The troupe came to New
Delhi about a month in advance of Republic Day in order to rehearse and pre-
pare. They were housed in Gandhi’s former ashram, which implied—much to their
regret—a month of strict vegetarianism.
Before they left for Delhi, the coaches of the Garo dancers had composed a six-
minute drum track, but the choreographers hired by the organizers of the Repub-
lic Day Parade made it clear that this was far too long given the time allotted.
Normally, the steps and movements of Wangala dancing are not very fast, probably
since anyone who wants to should be able to join in. Here, the rhythm was sped
up to meet the expectations of the nationwide (and even global) audience that the
parade is meant to cater to. In addition, this made it easier for the performance to
fit into the narrow time slot.
The Republic Day parade’s choreographers insisted that the Garo dancers leave
out any movements that might possibly offend the dignitaries (“all movements must
look decent,” they said, according to the Garo). Normally, certain steps require the
dancers to spread their legs, but the Delhi choreographers considered it unaccept-
able if they would do so when facing the president of India. Also, for reasons of
decency, the length of the girls’ sarongs had to be increased, so that these would
cover their knees. However, the Garo refused to go along with another attempt
to “chasten” their performance, which was to replace the cocktail feathers in their
headdress with plastic ones. The choreographers of the Republic Day parade wanted
them to do so, since they feared that Maneka Gandhi, a cabinet minister and animal
rights activist, might take offence at these.3 A compromise was struck, resulting in
the Garo dancers using fewer feathers than they would have liked.
The 2008 Republic Day parade (and thus the Wangala dance performance) was
broadcast live on Doordarshan 1, the main channel of the broadcasting corpora-
tion of India that can be received nationwide. With the growth of commercial
television in the last two decades, Doordarshan has become less popular, but it
 de maaker: garo wangala dancing | 225

still reaches an audience of millions. The Wangala dance performance also featured
in other news media. The day following the Republic Day parade, the front page
of the national daily The Hindu carried an article with the title “Military Might,
Cultural Heritage on Display at Republic Day parade” (Pandey 2008). The article
included a large photograph with a caption titled “Showcasing Culture.” It showed
the troupe of Garo students as they walked down Rajpath during the parade.4 But
what was the “culture” being “showcased” for the eye of the nation? How did
the performance of the Wangala dance on Republic Day relate to other settings in
which this dance is or has been performed?
In interviews I conducted about one year later with the Garo coaches, one of
them mentioned that he considered the adjustments made by the Delhi choreogra-
phers so radical that what resulted was at best “modified Wangala dancing.” Another
felt that the performance as part of the parade could no longer be called Wangala
dancing. Rather, he said, it had become “a showpiece.” In his opinion, the perfor-
mance during the parade was only a distant reminder of what is presumably “real”
Wangala dancing. I showed a video recording of the TV broadcast to the coaches,
and a senior Meghalaya civil servant, who happened to be present during the inter-
view added the following: “This is not Wangala dancing, it is not original. It has
nothing to do with Wangala dancing.” Another person took on a more pragmatic
stance, saying that he appreciated the dance performance for its innovative character,
which allowed it to cater to the tastes of the entire Indian audience of the Republic
Day parade.
In this article I argue that when Wangala dancing shifts stages and is revamped
to suit new contexts, this triggers new interpretations. But rather than supplanting
the meanings associated with preceding contexts, new ones continue to depend
on earlier ones. In the popular appreciation of Wangala dancing, the relationship
between what is considered “real” or “authentic” and what is “derived” is of rel-
evance. Whereas people consistently grant what they consider “authentic” more
merit than what they consider “derived,” these “derivatives” are instrumental in
the attribution of value to the “authentic.”

Wangala dancing, iconic for the garo community

The Garo are a community of about 850,000, two thirds of whom live
in the Northeast Indian state of Meghalaya. In Meghalaya, being Garo is under-
stood as being of Garo descent. Garo are matrilineal, which means that having
a Garo mother translates to acquiring a Garo surname. Just as important, being
Garo implies being a speaker of Garo, a language belonging to the Tibeto-Burman
family of languages.
The Garo community, as commonly defined in terms of descent and language,
has never been culturally (or even linguistically) uniform. Rather, it has been
thought of as consisting of large subgroups characterized by distinct cultural prac-
tices and dialects.5 The dialect of one of these subgroups (Awe) became the norm
226 | Asian Ethnology 72/2 • 2013

for the unified Garo language that is taught in schools today. Numerically and
politically, however, the Ambeng have always been the majority among the Garo.
Historically, Wangala dancing was but one element of the extensive social
and religious life of the Ambeng Garo.6 The practitioners of this religion have
become known as Songsareks. Going by the religious practices of present-day
Ambeng Songsareks, as well as ethnographic sources (Playfair 1975; Burling
1997; Sangma 1981), Wangala was and is for the Ambeng in many ways the most
important of a series of annual festivals—enabling people to advance the growth
of swidden crops and to create the conditions in which they can reap and consume
the harvest. Similar to their predecessors, contemporary Ambeng Songsareks cel-
ebrate Wangala in the month of October. The festival is then a thanksgiving for
the rice grains that the swiddens have yielded, and part of it is used to cook rice
beer. Some of that serves as offerings to the deities, while most of it is drunk by
the people participating in the celebrations.
Presently, Songsareks make up only a small portion of the Garo population.
Christianity has been essential to primary education in Meghalaya, and over the
past couple of decades the vast majority of the Garo have become Christians.
Songsareks, or “the ones who obey the deities” (mitde manigipa) as they refer to
themselves, only remain in a few rural pockets.

figure 1. Detail from a 2006 calendar, distributed by the “Garo Youth and Cultural Orga-
nization.” The calendar shows a photo montage of a Christian Garo college student against
a backdrop of Songsarek dancers (A’chik Youth and Cultural Organization, 2006).
 de maaker: garo wangala dancing | 227

figure 2: Meghalaya politician Purno Sangma, with a picture of a Wangala dancing troupe
as a backdrop (detail from a calendar distributed during an election campaign in 2009).

It seems unlikely that Wangala previously enjoyed great prominence among

Garo subgroups other than the Ambeng, if it was celebrated among other groups
at all. But over the last couple of decades, Wangala has become a core element of
what has emerged as a shared Garo culture.
Over this period, performances of Wangala dancing have gained prominence
in out-of-village contexts, in a secular public sphere. Whenever a department of
Meghalaya state hosts an event at which “Garo culture” needs to be showcased,
Wangala dancing is performed. On such occasions, a group of villagers or students
is paid to perform in front of an audience. These performances are inspired by gov-
ernment-sponsored dance festivals. The most extensive of these is the “Hundred
Drums Wangala” festival, held annually at Asanangri. This festival has emerged
at the initiative of local historians and folklorists, who have been instrumental in
the promotion of a joint Garo culture. Pictures relating to such “staged” Wangala
dance performances frequently appear in the regional press. Images of Wangala
dancing or Garo in Wangala attire are also popular illustrations on calendars of
cultural or political organizations who want to identify themselves emphatically as
Garo (figure 1).
Along the same lines, local politicians who want to emphasize their Garo back-
ground present themselves on campaign posters and on calenders against a back-
drop of Wangala dancers (figure 2).
From the early 1990s onwards, inspired by Catholic Taizé missionaries, Bangla-
deshi Garo have also organized Wangala dance festivals in Dhaka. More recently,
festivals have also been organized in Mymensingh and near Haluaghat, towns
located in the “Garo belt” along the Indian border.7
228 | Asian Ethnology 72/2 • 2013

Wangala dancing also features increasingly on popular photo and video sharing
sites on the internet.8 Many of these postings derive from urban youth (who have
access to cameras and computers), and relate to dance festivals and other “staged”
events at which Wangala is performed, such as the Hundred Drums Wangala Fes-
tival, or the Williamnagar Winter Festival. Whereas the majority of the postings
are by Garo living in India, Wangala has also become an important cultural anchor
for Bangladeshi Garo. Wangala dance performances, in other words, have become
iconic as part of the expression of “Garoness,” or a newly developed political Garo
identity.

Performance, intentionality, and efficacy

It is often assumed that rituals or other “meaningful” cultural perfor-
mances lose cultural value once they become commodified. Appadurai (1986)
defines commodities as objects of economic value, that is, objects included in an
exchange. Often it means that a commodity is exchanged for money. For village-
level Wangala performances, dancers are never paid. The students who took part
in the Republic Day parade and their coaches received payment for their efforts—
participants in other “staged” Wangala performances are also paid. According
to Schechner’s (1988, 141–42) efficacy-entertainment juxtaposition, the per-
formance of staged rituals lacks “commitment” from the side of the performers,
producers, and audience. Consequently, such performances also lack ritual signifi-
cance: they may entertain but they cannot be efficacious. In other words, as soon
as somebody performs on “stage” in order to earn money, or has monetary gain
from performances in other ways, that decreases the cultural value of the perfor-
mance. Of course, Schechner presents these two positions as extremes within a
broader palette. He is aware that rituals can have entertaining elements and that
staged performances can also be efficacious. Nonetheless, ritual is by his definition
more efficacious than theater. His argument presumes an authenticity or even cul-
tural essence in “traditional” rituals that is absent in “nontraditional” settings.
This article shows that rather than losing significance, the shifting stage results
in Wangala dance performances being attributed new meanings. Shifting Wangala
dance performances from their “traditional” setting towards new stages, as well as
their mediatization in newspaper articles, television broadcasts, calendars, and so on,
does not necessarily devalue them culturally, nor do the people involved understand
such performances as less efficacious. How do ritual efficacy and interpretations
change as Wangala dance performances are reconfigured, presented at new “stages,”
and become mediatized to reach far beyond the erstwhile village context?

The christianity–songsarek divide

As mentioned above, Wangala is an important annual celebration for
Ambeng Songsareks. It is generally presumed that before the emergence of Christi-
anity, all Garo were Songsarek. Considering this rootedness of Wangala dancing in
 de maaker: garo wangala dancing | 229

a Songsarek religious festival, it may come as a surprise that it has emerged as a core
element of a unified, dominantly Christian Garo culture. Nowadays most Garo are
Christians and, as elsewhere among the hill societies of Northeast India, Christian-
ity has emerged as an important marker by which Garo distinguish themselves as
hill people, as opposed to Hindus and Muslims, who are thought to belong to the
plains. In the Garo hills, Christianity has strongly been promoted by schools. In
the mid-nineteenth century, when formal education was introduced, schools were
created and run by missionaries, resulting in a seemingly natural merger between
“modern” knowledge and the gospel. Consequently, those who went to school
adopted Christianity. Conversion was in line with the expectations of the teachers,
but it also allowed people to culturally distance themselves from their Songsarek
contemporaries. However, it took many years, presumably until the 1970s, before
primary education extended to the even more remote rural areas, and the majority
of the Garo converted.
As I have argued elsewhere (de Maaker 2013), conversion to Christianity resulted
in a gradual transformation of people’s world view rather than a kind of “radical
changeover” that missionaries projected (Carey 1993; Pianazzi 1934). Neverthe-
less, becoming a Christian implied for converts the prohibition to consult, worship,
or otherwise acknowledge the Songsarek deities, which in the missionary discourse
were generally denounced as “demons” or “devils.” Those who became Christians
could no longer participate in any of the frequent collective Songsarek ritual cel-
ebrations. Some of these were held annually, to facilitate and promote the growth
of the swidden crops (such as Wangala). Others were organized only in specific cir-
cumstances, when the need to communicate with the deities arose. Such occasions
included attempts at healing someone who was severely ill or the inauguration of
a newly built (or newly roofed) house. The withdrawal of Christian converts from
these collective rituals resulted in a weakening of the sociopolitical networks these
tied in with, as well as the associated definitions of status, prestige, and wealth.
Conversion to Christianity required people to abandon Songsarek religious
practices. Consequently, they could also distance themselves from obligations to
support relatives, neighbors, and friends who engaged in these. Christianity taught
new notions of modesty, such as the indecency of women going around with
uncovered breasts. It also denounced the potlatch-like feasting that is part and
parcel of most of the Songsarek celebrations (the sacrifice of animals, and days and
nights of drinking rice beer). Instead, Christians advocated a “modern” morality in
which female modesty, the abstaining from (home-brewed) alcohol, and the accu-
mulation of assets linked to the nuclear family is positively valued.
Given that almost all Songsarek villagers are illiterate, they are seriously restricted
in their engagement with the modern bureaucratic state. After all, they cannot deal
with any texts, such as application forms, without the help of literate Garo (Chris-
tians). In an environment in which the state is an important source of benefits, this
has far reaching consequences. Songsarek villagers are often poor and powerless;
Garo Christians, notably those living in urban environments, are in comparison
well off or extremely rich and have privileged access to political power.
230 | Asian Ethnology 72/2 • 2013

Educated Garo who live in (semi-) urban environments generally look down
upon village life. Village practices are generally seen as old fashioned (if not ancient)
and inefficient. Villages are categorized as being in need of development. This
applies in particular to Songsarek-dominated villages. These sorts of judgments are
communicated in informal conversations but also emerge in more official docu-
ments. A report I received from an officer involved with a community develop-
ment project in a Songsarek majority area mentioned that “before our intervention,
the rural community lived in semi-darkness without any contact with the outside
world” (Ifad 2010). After the successful implementation of the project, the village
concerned looked “more civilized and refined.”
The positioning of Songsarek Garo at a lower level of civilization also allows for
them to be heralded for their craftsmanship, their knowledge of nature, and the
extent to which they manage to—at least in theory—live in harmony with it. A senior
civil servant characterized a Songsarek majority village in a development proposal as:
Nestled in the lap of nature, it has a picture-perfect setting of a gurgling rivulet
gushing nearby, luxuriant foliage, tall trees… and on raised mounds the most
beautiful settlements primitive simple minds could conjure and construct.… It
feels like being transported back in time to a fossilized past of leisure and plenti-
tude, forlorn traditions and customs, self-sufficiency and contentment.
(Office of the Sub-Divisional Officer 2010).

These romantic notions of village life tie in well with the perception of the
Songsareks as guardians of the “original” Garo culture.
Accounts of Garo history generally assume that the forebears of the present-
day Garo were the first settlers in the region. This claim to “firstness” derives from
mythological accounts, oral histories that refer to a time immemorial, “thousands
and thousands of years ago” (Sangma 1981). It is often reiterated in local publi-
cations, such as the issue of the magazine Chimik whose cover features a repre-
sentation of the belief that Garo migrated from Tibet (figure 3). Subsequently,
the general presumption is that the forebears of the present-day Garo lived their
lives more or less unchanged until the region was absorbed into the colonial state.
Education and missionization resulted, for those Garo that it applied to, in a “con-
version to modernity” (Van der Veer 1996a). Those who remained Songsareks
would then have continued the lifestyle of the ancestors.
To Garo Christians, Songsareks are their contemporaries. At the same time,
many Garo Christians consider them as their predecessors in an ideological and
civilizational sense. Nevertheless, the unique cultural traits of Garo ethnicity are
rooted in the practices and beliefs of Garo Songsareks. Therefore, Garo Songsareks
are to all Garo a valuable cultural resource, possessing knowledge that “modern”
Garo have long forgotten. As one of the Garo coaches of the Republic Day parade
troupe said: “In an urban area… you’ll get a mixed culture, a modified culture. In
the rural areas, you’ll find the pure [culture].”
Nevertheless, in (Songsarek) village/(Christian) town, most people tend to
perceive “us” and “them” relationships relating to distinct cultural domains. There
 de maaker: garo wangala dancing | 231

is a sense of alienation experienced both by Songsarek villagers when they are with
the urban, educated elite, and conversely by townspeople when they visit Songsarek-
dominated villages. Although there are of course many people who are able to
function in both domains, the alienation that some people tend to sense when
crossing over from one domain into the other does not diminish.

Wangala in a songsarek-dominated village

As previously noted, Garo Songsareks celebrate Wangala at the village level,
the start date being fixed by the head of the village. At the opening of the festival,
families make offerings in their fields. In the house of the village head, this is followed
by a joint sacrifice to the deities and the reading of an omen that relates to the car-
rying of the crops for the coming year. Subsequently, a man who acts as a shaman or
priest chants the myth of creation as he dances with many others from inside the vil-
lage headman’s house onto the courtyard in front of it. There, a variety of dances are
performed, in the course of which the Songsarek deities are fed with cooked rice.
Wangala dancing is primarily a group dance. It involves an equal number of
men and women who, for most of the time, dance in rows next to each other. Each
man carries a wooden drum (dama), which has two drumheads. The production
of these drums used to be the prerogative of young men who, during their adoles-
cence, stayed in a collective bachelors’ house. The drums are made of hardwood,
and I was told that their production, with fire and a chisel the only tools, involves
many days of arduous labor.9 One of the consequences of the conversion to Chris-
tianity is that the bachelors’ houses have
been abandoned, even in villages where
Songsareks continue to dominate. Con-
sequently, the production of new drums
has become extremely rare today, if it
has not ceased entirely.
The dancers dance to the rhythm that
the men play on the drums, performing
a series of stylized movements. These
movements are often either inspired
by particular animals (such as “doves
pecking”), or by agricultural techniques
(“harvesting swidden rice”). Wangala
dancing connects people to the dei-
ties, reiterating their claim to the land
they live on, and the forests and fields
that belong to it. The most important
Wangala rituals are only performed at
the instigation of, and in, or next to,
figure 3. Cover of Chimik (vol. 4, no. 8, 2006).
The headgear (turban, cocktail feather) and weap- the house of the village head. This vil-
ons are used in Wangala dancing today. lage head is also the most prominent
232 | Asian Ethnology 72/2 • 2013

landowner of a village. Village-level Wangala performances therefore also result in

acknowledging and emphasizing the authority and legitimacy of the village head.
Among Garo, Songsarek Wangala celebrations are less well known for their sac-
rificial and predictive elements than for dancing, socializing, and most of all copious
drinking of home-brewed rice beer, which tend to take up the largest share of the
festival. Celebrating Wangala includes making the rounds among all the (Songsarek)
families residing in a particular village. One after the other, these families host a
group of villagers, some of whom carry drums used for Wangala dancing. People
dance to the rhythm of the drums near the house of a host, in the courtyard.
Those who want the group to visit them provide at least one vessel of rice beer.
Each host is also expected to feed the visitors; the more abundant the better. People
play music, sing, but most of all joke and tease each other seemingly without end.
This way, the festival makes for a celebration that lasts several days, if not a week, con-
tinuing day and night. It also reputedly allows for unusually free interaction between
(unmarried) men and women, which, it is said, prepares the ground for the marriage
season that follows. The partying is open to all visitors—not just people from the vil-
lage, but all other Garo and in fact anyone who shows up. Perhaps this is because each
visitor added to the Wangala festival helps to acknowledge and strengthen the claims
advanced by the inhabitants of the village to the land people live on (and off). All
who take part in the celebration are expected to join in the dancing and are actively
encouraged to do so. Given that the movements and steps are relatively easy to learn
(at a beginner’s level, that is), all who wish to do so can participate. Consequently,
dancing is a way to engage all who are present and contributes significantly to Song-
sarek Wangala creating a sense of what Turner (1969) has called “communitas.”
In the few villages where Songsareks still celebrate Wangala, Christian fami-
lies obviously do not participate. In villages that converted to Christianity a long
time ago, and in towns where the Songsarek practices are at best a memory of a
past way of life, village-style Wangala celebrations are altogether absent. There, the

figure 4. Wangala dancing in a Garo village. Photograph by the author, 15 October 2000.
 de maaker: garo wangala dancing | 233

social aspect has been taken over, at least to some extent, by public group dances at
the time of Christmas. These are of a style that radically differs from Wangala danc-
ing. This also involves distinct musical instruments; instead of the village-produced
dama, people dance to the beat of a big drum as used in military bands.

Wangala dancing and the culture of “tribe”

Those who celebrate village-style Wangala explicitly want to include out-
siders, but it is nevertheless limited to the village as a spatial realm. Much more than
village-level Wangala celebrations, it is the out-of-village “staged” performances of
Wangala dancing that connect Songsareks to Christians, as well as the rural poor to
the urban educated and rich. This is notably so for the iconic Hundred Drums Wan-
gala festival. Conducted annually since at least 1977, the festival is organized with
the financial and logistical support of the state of Meghalaya. Among the audience
are many local dignitaries, including the governor of Meghalaya, who is the highest-
ranking civil servant in the state. In this festival ten dancing troupes compete, and
their performances are judged by a jury of local scholars and dignitaries (each troupe
has at least ten male dancers carrying a drum, hence “Hundred Drums”). The orga-
nizers of the Hundred Drums Wangala festival announce Wangala thusly:
The most significant post harvest festival of the Garos generally held in the
months of October to November. It is a “Thanksgiving” ceremony to Misi Sal-
jong… for having blessed human beings with the rich harvest of the season.10

Similar to the description of Wangala given in the program booklet of the

Republic Day parade, this again places Wangala squarely in the Songsarek realm.
Moreover, it again creates an ethnographic present in that it suggests that all Garo
continue to be Songsareks.
The festival attracts a crowd of hundreds if not thousands and is one of the few
cultural celebrations in which both Songsareks and Christians participate. About
half of the dancing troupes are made up of villagers; the rest are college students.
Most of the audience consists of Christian Garo. The festival is widely advertised
by the tourism department of the state of Meghalaya, and it manages to attract a
number of foreign tourists. Each year, their presence is highlighted in the press,
communicating to the Garo (home) audience that Wangala dancing continues to
have the ability to include outsiders. Such an exposure of Garo culture to the out-
side world is conducive to the value that people attribute to it.
The dance competition is usually won by Songsarek villagers, since “their sense
of rhythm is much better than that of the students,” as a prominent Garo folklor-
ist and historian remarked. Or, as one of the Garo coaches to the Republic Day
parade troupe said, “Of course they [the Songsarek villagers] are the original danc-
ers.” This emphasizes that Songsarek villagers continue to be regarded as custodi-
ans of “true” Garo culture. Wangala dancing continues to be experienced as the
prerogative of the Songsareks, whose performances the college students are trying
to imitate if not match. Another of the Garo coaches involved with the Republic
234 | Asian Ethnology 72/2 • 2013

Day parade Wangala performance remarked on the educational value of college stu-
dents learning Wangala dancing: “Wangala dancing is from the non-Christians [the
Songsareks], but for our students it is important to get an idea how our ancestors
engaged in merry making.” Although he again equated contemporary Songsareks
to “ancestors,” this remark makes explicit that Songsarek practices are considered a
cultural resource for contemporary Garo. This take is also apparent from a remark
made by someone else: “We have to pass the traditions on to the new generations.
Otherwise, there will be a time when our children will not know the identity of our
people, our culture; and how our forefathers, the Garo, acted, what their beliefs and
traditions were.” And one of the coaches to the Republic Day parade troupe added,
“We [Garo] need to be aware of the earlier culture, otherwise all will be lost.”
However, the contrast between Christians and Songsareks is not that easily over-
come. For Songsarek culture to become presentable within a broader context, it needs
to be sanitized and stripped of uncouth elements in order to make it acceptable. One
of the coaches of the Republic Day parade troupe said, “We don’t want to change
the culture, [but] we need to polish it.” He added: “We have to clean the culture, in
order to make it acceptable for the present.” Garo Wangala, when presented at out-
of-village stages, is stripped of its “crude” sides. It does not come with the libertine
connotations that are integral to the village level celebrations. During the Republic
Day parade the students danced with dried gourds (pongs) that imply in a Songsarek
context the drinking of rice beer. However, the pongs did not contain rice beer, not
only because the Indian president would not be appreciative of that, but because the
students themselves would not want to be publicly associated with “Songsarek” rice
beer. This sanitizing of Songsarek practices at times takes on unpleasant forms, for
instance when the sellers of rice beer at local markets see their vessels smashed by the
members of a militant youth organization.
The Indian state categorizes the Garo as a “tribe.” Emphasizing the cultural dis-
tinctiveness of “tribes” in their definition of this term, the state claims that tribes are
“known to dwell in compact areas, follow a community way of living, in harmony
with nature, and have a uniqueness of culture, distinctive customs, traditions and
beliefs which are simple, direct and non-acquisitive by nature” (Ministry of Tribal
Affairs, 2007). According to this definition, a tribe is isolated, its social structure
inward looking, with a world view and lifestyle that is close to nature, and a culture
that is unique. This suggests a certain vulnerability that the state intends to compen-
sate for by means of protective measures.
For the Garo, being categorized as a “tribe” has resulted in the bestowal of
important economic, administrative, judicial, and educational benefits. In Megha-
laya, only “tribals” can buy land, and the Garo are exempted from the payment
of income tax. Most of the government jobs in the state are reserved for “trib-
als,” as are seats in government schools and colleges. These benefits are of such
magnitude that within India as a whole a considerable number of groups, who are
not categorized as “tribals,” make an effort to match the criteria set by the Indian
state, as they want to qualify for these sort of benefits as well. Garo living across
 de maaker: garo wangala dancing | 235

the international border in Bangladesh do not enjoy such benefits, and envy the
Indian Garo for the special provisions they have managed to secure.
Presenting Garo Wangala as a central element of Garo culture suggests that Garo
continue to be Songsareks, living in villages, and conducting swidden agriculture.
This is obviously incorrect, but it does allow for emphasizing the originality and
uniqueness of Garo culture, thus allowing the Garo to meet the characteristics that
the Indian state has formulated for “tribes.” Moreover, it connects to popular percep-
tions among the Indian audience, which locates a “tribe” such as the Garo culturally
in a timeless past, supporting the claim that they are the original “indigenous” popu-
lation. This explains why performances and media representations of Wangala danc-
ing are also popular with politically and culturally vocal Garo student unions, youth
organizations, and political parties. Groups like these, who claim Garo precedence,
demand rights and benefits that often discriminate against other communities. The
bitter conflicts that result are fought both in the political arena, as well as outside it.

Conclusions
In this article, I have shown that Wangala dancing is attributed meaning
across various settings, from Songsarek villagers, urban-educated Christian Garo,
politically-active ethno-nationalist organizations, to the organizers of the 2008
Republic Day parade. Practitioners, organizers, and audiences need not agree on a
single meaning of Wangala dancing in order to agree that it is important. This links
up with the argument made by Humphrey and Laidlaw (1994, 5) with reference
to Jain rituals. They showed that rather than carrying a single message, Jain ritu-
als usually have multiple meanings. What matters is the overall agreement among
participants that a particular ritual is important and is charged with a certain inten-
tionality. Consequently, the performance is “about” something, although people
need not be explicit about, or agree on, what that something is. It is the attribu-
tion of intentionality that counts.
The Wangala dance included in the Republic Day parade lends itself to distinct,
quite divergent readings, which all attribute intentionality to the performance. For
the Garo students who took part in the Republic Day celebrations, the adventure
of going to Delhi and performing on the national stage was exciting and challeng-
ing. It was a way to represent their community nationally and served to contribute
to the recognition of the Garo as a separate community by the Indian state. Such a
reading emphasizes “presence,” and is in line with the Indian state being the most
important body towards which demands of an administrative, judicial, and finan-
cial nature are being formulated by politically vocal Garo organizations.
From the perspective of the Indian state, the participation of the Garo students
to the Republic Day parade can be understood as an expression of loyalty of the
Garo towards that state. Alternatively, it can be seen as an expression of their sub-
jugation to that state. The parade first and foremost showcases the aptness and
valor of the Indian military, emphasizing its ability to repel outside threats, rather
than showcasing “culture.” It is no secret that these same military have the poten-
236 | Asian Ethnology 72/2 • 2013

tial to quell any internal opposition. Therefore, many people who are critical of
the Indian state consider the Republic Day parade an expression of the political
center’s will to dominate and control India’s diverse populace.
Inclusion of Wangala dancing in the parade also presents the Indian state as a
guardian of pristine, vulnerable cultures, which it manages to nurture, protect, and
sustain. This guardianship is important in the context of the Indian constitution,
which defines the Indian nation in terms of unity in diversity, a secular nation not
dominated by one religion or ethnicity. In this respect, as well as in the former
(which emphasizes coercion), the Garo student group was exemplary for similar
“marginal” communities, both in Northeast India, as elsewhere in the country.
To the national audience of the Republic Day parade, the dances are presented
as bearing witness to the endurance of “tribal” culture in Northeast India—even
though it is obvious to all that a folklorized performance is given, and the Garo
coaches considered the performance far removed from what they considered “real”
Wangala dancing. The paradox between genuine and folklorized culture is over-
come by placing present-day Wangala dance performances in line with imagined ear-
lier performances of the dance, as well as the Wangala celebrations of contemporary
Songsareks. That Wangala is (according to these readings) part of a religious festival
adds to its efficacy, and thus merit, and the suggestion that all Garo continue to be
Songsareks does so as well. For a cultural expression such as Wangala dancing to be
regarded meaningful in the present, it needs to connect to an imagined cultural past.
Interestingly, nobody considered the “derived” nature of the Wangala dance
included in the Republic Day parade truly an issue. The Garo students did not
really mind adapting the dance (although they did not want to give up their cock-
tail feathers), perhaps since for them Wangala dancing is learned at school and they
lack a connection to village-level performances. In the interview that I had with
them, the Garo coaches mentioned the lack of authenticity,11 but considering that
the dance was in the first place meant to please a national audience, it was best that
it had been modified. The organizers of the parade, who demanded many of the
modifications made, did not insist on authenticity either.
In the introduction I argued that the relationship between what is considered
“real” or “authentic” and what is “derived” is of relevance for the popular appre-
ciation of Wangala. People grant what they consider “authentic” consistently more
merit than what they consider its “derivatives,” yet the “derivatives” are instrumental
in the attribution of value to the “authentic.” Hundred Drums Wangala and the
Wangala performances included in the Republic Day celebrations can be meaningful
because they are considered “derivatives” of village-level Wangala performances. But
Songsarek celebrations, at the village level, also gained more clout, once the “staged”
Wangala dance performances had garnered more attention. The “staged” perfor-
mances have heightened the interest in the village-level Wangala performances.
How do these readings connect to the earlier (and to some extent contempo-
rary) religious village performances, in which powerful concepts such as creation,
relations to land, fertility, and community play a central role? Without wanting to
argue that Wangala dancing has an intrinsic meaning to it, it is clear from the data
 de maaker: garo wangala dancing | 237

provided above that across all “stages” Wangala dancing expresses the relationship
of people to their land. This holds true for the Songsareks, student groups, politi-
cians, and the Indian state. One important element of village-level Wangala perfor-
mances is that they emphasize and strengthen the claims made by the village head,
and through him by the village as a whole, towards the village’s land. The presumed
authenticity of the performances presents these claims as unchallengeable.
As a large-scale Wangala dance festival, the Hundred Drums Wangala has a
secular nature (although a small Songsarek sacrifice is performed on the festival
grounds, the day before the actual dance festival, as if not to totally disregard the
religious connotations that Wangala has for them). But the festival, widely adver-
tised as showcasing Garo culture, and firmly backed by Meghalaya State (finan-
cially, as well as by dignitaries), no doubt confirms the claim that the Garo are the
majority community in the western part of Meghalaya. The festival communicates
to people outside Garo Hills, both in India as well as abroad (the festival features
on the internet) that the Garo community is culturally vibrant, present, and the
legal majority status in the region concerned. Along the same lines, the perfor-
mance of Wangala dancing during the Republic Day parade provides visible and
audible evidence of the Garo community being included in the Indian state, which
also encompasses the land that “belongs” to the Garo.
Wangala dancing, performed in various settings, across various “stages,” and medi-
atized in distinct ways, allows for distinct and even contradictory interpretations. But
whoever patronizes Garo Wangala appears to make a statement in relation to imagi-
nations of a “Garo nation,” and the land that is presumed to belong to it.

Notes
1. The case analyzed in this article is also mentioned in de Maaker et al. (2011).
2. “Tribe” is widely used in South Asia for communities who are supposedly outside the
caste hierarchy, and who are believed to be marginal in relation to the Hindu and Muslim
mainstream. The term originates from colonial attempts at social classification and is embedded
in nineteenth century theories of race (Skaria 1999). But even though the term lacks empiri-
cal ground, its administrative and political usage in India (and neighboring countries in South
Asia) has made it part and parcel of the South Asian sociological discourse (Schendel 2011).
3. Animal rights activism and vegetarianism are often presented as Hindu virtues in India,
locating non-vegetarians at the fringes (if not outside) of a Hindu-dominated cultural frame-
work (Van der Veer 1996b). For Hindu nationalists (such as Maneka Gandhi’s BJP) this is
helpful to marginalize Muslims (known for eating goat’s meat and beef), but it also contrib-
utes to the cultural marginalization of Northeast Indian communities such as the Garo, whom
are ardent non-vegetarians.
4. The Garo students are referred to as belonging to the “Northeast Zone Cultural Center
in Dimapur, Nagaland,” which seems odd given that neither the students nor the coaches had
anything to do with that center, and Dimapur is about four hundred kilometers east of the
Garo Hills. In all likelihood, the request to participate had been filed by the organizers of the
parade to this center, which then, in turn, approached the Directorate of Culture in Megha-
laya, which arranged for the Garo coaches and subsequently the participating students.
5. Most ethnographies list the A’beng, Akawés or Awés, Atong, Chisak, and Machi as
major divisions, and the Atiagras, Chibok, Dual, Ganching or Gara, Matjanchi or Matabeng,
238 | Asian Ethnology 72/2 • 2013

Koch, and Ruga as minor ones. These groups were first mentioned in Playfair’s monograph—
he already expressed doubts about some of the smaller groups. He wrote for example about
the Matabeng: “They claim that they are a distinct division, but their language and geograph-
ical distribution make it more than likely that in them is to be found a mingling of the Abeng
and Machi” (Playfair 1975, 60).
One of these subgroups, the Lyngam, speak a language that is generally not even catego-
rized as a dialect of Garo. The same holds to some extent for the language spoken by the
A’tong subgroup.
6. Garo Songsarek beliefs presume a world that has been created, and is occupied by, innu-
merable deities. Knowledge accumulated over generations has taught people the identity and
characteristics of some of these, but the majority of the deities remain unknown. The preced-
ing generations have also developed ritual techniques that have proven efficacious in engaging
the deities, and are therefore resorted to whenever required (de Maaker, 2006).
7. See “Wanna celebration in Mymensingh,” The Daily Star, 14 December 2011. http://
www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=214033 (accessed 12 September 2013).
8. Popular video sharing sites on the internet have many entries for “Wangala.” On
YouTube, among the abundant examples are “Garo Dance (Wangala),” <http://youtu.be
/VlShacLYYuo>; “Wangala Dance,” <http://youtu.be/NnMoQdXUD0U>. On Vimeo, see
“Wangala A Garo Festival,” http://tinyurl.com/occp8gn (all accessed 12 September 2013).
Searches on photo sharing sites such as Picasa or Flickr also result in a large number of hits.
9. During the two years of fieldwork that I conducted in Garo Hills, between 1999 and
2001, I talked extensively with several men who had stayed in a collective bachelor’s house
during their adolescence. One of them was Dioson (Biki) Mangsang Sangma, who I inter-
viewed several times. He specifically mentioned the production of the drums in an interview
that I had with him on 29 January 2001.
10. See http://hundreddrumswangalafestival.blogspot.nl (accessed 9 January 2013).
11. Interview conducted with Armstrong Sangma and Auxilia Sangma, 10 January 2012.

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