7 Aloof but not abandoned Relationality and the exploitation of the environment in the Garo hills of India Erik de Maaker Toppled boulders It was late June, and after months of drought the rains started to gain in intensity. Dry spells were becoming rare, as hours of steady drizzle alternated with shorter periods of heavy downpour. It was not a good time to travel in Garo Hills, and certainly not a good time to try to go around on slippery and muddy paths. Yet on such a rainy afternoon, we were walking through Emangre, trying to get a sense of its layout. Emangre is a somewhat large village territory, located about 20 kilometres to the north of the India–Bangladesh border. Spread out across the territory, it has several wards. The people of Emangre use large parts of their land to grow crops, while much of the remainder is covered by forest. I had come to Emangre with some friends and colleagues, one of whom was a Garo PhD stu- dent from the Folklore Department of the North Eastern Hill University in Shil- long 1 . At the time, I had been in Garo Hills for several weeks, and much of my ability to speak Garo, acquired during my 2 years of stay in the early 2000s, had resurfaced. The colleague was a folklorist with a fascination with Garo traditions, and was familiar with the topics of conversation that I intended to engage in. Most of all, I was eager to learn more about the fate of (and faith in) Emangre’s planted boulders (ro’ong gia). To my knowledge, almost every Garo village has at a central location a cluster of such boulders. These derive from ancient times—in what is referred to as the days of the grandfathers and grandmothers (atchu-ambini somoi). The boulders are typically tall and slim. Standing straight up they can be up to a metre tall, and about 30 centimetres across. They are always huge and heavy, and their planting will have required the concerted efort of many people. The boulders are frmly associated with the traditional animist Garo community religion, which is nowadays practiced by only few people. The practitioners of this community religion are referred to as Songsarek. I use “community religion” rather than “religion” or “Garo religion,” in order to avoid implying that these prac- tices and ideas have been codifed in a way comparable to established religions that are organised hierarchically, base their teachings on sacred texts and employ professional religious specialists. The traditional Garo community religion lacks any such characteristics, but rather depends on a body of ideas and practices that entirely depend on enactment and orality. The vast majority of the Garo have, over the last century and a half, converted from the community religion to one or another 9780367699796_C007.indd 135 05-03-2021 07:50:18 Uncorrected proof, to be published in : Dan Smyer Yü and Erik de Maaker, Environmental Humanities in the New Himalayas Symbiotic Indigeneity, Commoning, Sustainability. Abingdon: Routledge 2021