Podcast Series with Khasi Literary Figure Kong Bijoya Sawian: Episode 1

Hi Everyone,

I hope you’re doing well! As I had mentioned last time, we are launching a new podcast series that will provide both inside and outside perspectives from experienced individuals belonging to indigenous matrilineal cultures as well as experts on these societies. In our first podcast, we connect with a prominent literary figure from the Khasi tribe. The Khasi community is one of the largest and few remaining operational matrilineal societies today. This stems from hundreds of years of matrilineal heritage, where women have been the binding force of a self-sustaining culture founded on a way of life that was originally architected to be in harmony with nature.

Kong Bijoya Sawian, our special guest, is a well-known Khasi writer and translator who lives in Shillong and Dehradun in India. Kong Bijoya’s highly acclaimed translations from Khasi into English, of the indigenous culture of the Khasis, have been published by the Vivekananda Institute of Culture in Guwahati and the Ri Khasi Press in Shillong. Her book, Shadow Men, is a classic novel that has been referred to as one of the most important literary works emerging from North East India. The book was shortlisted for the prestigious Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize in 2020. Unfortunately, due to some technical issues with the internet connection during our podcast, we lost our original recording and had to re-record the original hour-long episode with Kong Bijoya as a talk instead. In this talk we have aimed to preserve the rich content and are certain that it will be both informative and engaging to our audience. In this first segment of our two part talk, Kong Bijoya touches on matrilineality in India, focusing on the Khasi matrilineal culture, its social structure and the overall role of men and women in this ancient society. To help elucidate her points, she shares stories from her own life as well as examples from society that enable us to understand how the community functions today. The talk also touches on the origins of the tribe, the fascinating Khasi legend, rituals and traditions, important societal practices, and certain changes that are impacting the fabric of Khasi society today.

We hope you enjoy this first segment and find it interesting. Thanks for reading!

Gabby