GARO HILLS, a district of British India, in the Assam val ley division of Assam. Area 3,152 sq.m. Pop. (1931) 190,911. It takes its name from the Garos, a tribe of Tibeto-Burma origin, by whom it is almost entirely inhabited. The Garos are prob ably a section of the great Bodo tribe, which at one time occu pied a large part of Assam. In the 18th century they were a ter ror to the inhabitants of the plains below their hills. The early period of British rule is a record mainly of raids by the Garos, followed by blockades of the hills. At last in 1866 a British of ficer was posted among the hills with a small police force. This step was effective in putting a stop to raids till 1871-72, when further outrages were committed by some independent Garos. It was decided to annex their territory. A police force marched through the hills; the heads taken in the raids were surrendered and there were no further disturbances.
The district consists of the last spurs of the Assam hills, which here run down almost to the bank of the Brahmaputra, where that river debouches upon the plain of Bengal and takes its great sweep to the south. The administrative headquarters are at Tura, where the American Baptist mission maintains a branch. Coal in large quantities and petroleum are known to exist in the hills. Nomadic cultivation is practised, i.e., patches of forest are burnt and cleared with the axe and crops are grown among the ashes. These patches are cultivated for a few years and then left, fresh areas being cleared in the same way. Nearly half of the cotton grown in Assam is raised by the Garos : it is remarkable for a short staple and woolly fibre, which has led to its being mixed with wool for carpet making.
The Garos are an Assam tribe of the Bodo group which seems to have migrated from the direction of Bhutan, but probably absorbed some pre-existing local stock (wavy and even curly hair is frequent) ; the existing culture suggests Indonesian affinities. A Tibeto-Burmese language is spoken; the tribe is related to the Rabhas, Kacharis and Tipperas.
Villages are built on river banks, the houses raised on piles; land is communal and cultivation shifting, rice and cotton being grown. Garos are good fishermen but indifferent hunters. Dis tension of the ear is practised. There are a dozen sub-tribes with varying customs and dialects, but all are divided into matrilineal clans. Marriage is exogamous and polygamous and the proposal comes from the woman, who, if accepted, lives for a time in the bridegroom's house on probation, but this system is subject to compulsory cross-cousin marriage coupled with a rule by which a man must marry his wife's father's widow, who is in such cases the husband's father's sister, actual or classificatory. Such a wife takes precedence of her daughter married bef ore her. A man's sister's son, called his nokrorn, stands therefore in intimate relationship to him, as the husband of one of the daughters and ultimately of his widow and the vehicle through which his fam ily's interest in the property of his wife is secured for the next generation, for no male can inherit property.
The dead are buried, followed by various forms of secondary disposal including urn burial, burial by water and sometimes by special treatment of the frontal bone. Head-hunting (q.v.) used to be practised, enemy skulls being kept in the latrines, and there are faint traces of cannibalism and human sacrifice in the past. Religion is generally animistic, but provides a benevolent creator and a sort of vague ancestor worship with soul figures of wood or stone, probably phallic, and a fertility cult which involves the sacrifice of an imitation horse. They believe in the reincarnation of the soul. (See also ASIA : Ethnology ; HEAD-HUNTING; LYCAN THROPY ; METEMPSYCHOSIS.) See A. Playfair, The Garos (1909).