Women of the Sundarbans

WOMEN OF WATER, MEN OF MUD

Gender Translucence & Opacity in the Sundarbans

by Amy K. Townsend

Introduction

In the vast mangrove delta that stretches across eastern India and southern Bangladesh lies an anomaly. For it is here, in these tiger- and crocodile-infested swamps, that the goddess reigns. Yet, it is also here that women are nearly invisible.

The story of the Sundarbans is older than that of Bonobibi, the forest goddess who rules this land of mud and water. Yet, with this powerful goddess at the heart of the jungle, stories of human women are nearly non-existent.

Demographic accounts of women in the Sundarbans have them numbering about 932 for every 1,000 men. And, although they are central to their communities and families, they go nearly unperceived in both historical and present-day accounts. The women of the Sundarbans are nearly as enigmatic as the Sundarbans, itself.

What It Is

The Sundarbans is a land of mystery. Cloaked in tangled mangrove roots and constant moisture, even the words meaning is uncertain. However, many speculate that it comes from the Bengali words "sundor," meaning "beautiful," and "bans," meaning "forests," as a reference to the local "sundari" or "sundri" tree, or from "samudraban," meaning "forests of ocean."

Covering 10,000 km2 of the southern Ganges River Delta, this marshy region stretches across both India and Bangladesh down to the Bay of Bengal. This is the world's largest mangrove forest. On the Indian side, alone, it equals sixty percent of the countrys total mangrove population.

The Sundarbans is best described as a combination of wetlands and jungle, including fifty-four islands characterized by their high salinity and changing forms. This area undergoes such intense, water-induced transformation that it needs to be re-mapped every three years.

Erosion is not a problem here although floods and cyclones are common. The tidal activity brings alluvial soils to build upon the already existing lands, and new islands are formed frequently. Nevertheless, due to the salinity, instability of the islands, cyclones, and human-eating tigers, many consider this region uninhabitable.

Enigma

Sociological

The Sundarbans, like a kaleidoscope, cannot be viewed using just one lens. Where stories are yielded, the Sundarbans becomes an anthropological and sociological dreamscape. Prior to the establishment of Sundarbans National Park in 1984, temporary fishing camps were established every season in order to ensure a fresh supply of fish to the Calcutta and other local markets. Although fishing once was not regarded as being as worthy an occupation as rice cultivation, it has always provided an important source of food in the Bengali diet. Fishing also has ensured the survival of those for whom it was the only possible livelihood. These temporary camps were set up on islands such as Indias Jambudwip, or Bulberry Island, bringing fishermen from villages as far away as Bangladesh.

These transient camps, which lasted about four months of every year, were inhabited almost strictly by men. Most either were unmarried or their wives and children were left at home. Temporary fishing camps were favored over permanent settlements because the living conditions in the Sundarbans has discouraged many settlers.

The regions demographics illustrate this, as hundreds of thousands of people have been killed by storms, eaten by tigers and crocodiles, or died of disease. Those who remain there work - with or without permits from the Forest Department - to collect honey, cut firewood, or fish. If killed within the bounds of the Sundarbans National Park, the families of the departed try to find and fetch the dead bodies to avoid trouble with the Forest Department staff. Often, these deaths go unreported for that very reason.

Biological

From a biological perspective, the region is known for its great species diversity. Aside from the mangroves, which protect coastal areas from storms and provide important habitat and food source to the local marine life, about four hundred plant species populate this region. These plants dwell within each of the Sundarbans three ecosystems: the beach/sea face, the "formative" islands, and the swamp forests.

Many animal species reside within the Sundarbans as well. Creatures living here include chital deer, wild pigs, rhesus monkeys, olive ridley sea and other turtles, dolphins, 6 species of shark, king cobras, pythons, water monitors, enormous and rare estuarine crocodiles, and about four hundred species of fish. This area is home to many endangered species and has already seen the disappearance of the leopard, wild water buffalo, Javan rhinoceros, hog deer, and swamp deer.

The animal that has brought fame to the Sundarbans, however, is the Royal Bengal tiger. The recognition of its rapid demise in the late 1960s spurred a sudden interest in the protection of India's wildlife.

Illegal fishing boats often ply its thousands of channels to steal from the treasures embedded in this place. Hungry for money, pirates steal from the meagre holdings of those that live there or will kidnap and kill, ransom, or sell their newfound victims.

Fish, tiger, estuarine crocodile all play some role in the faraway world of markets and consumerism, a world disconnected from this place that abides by its own laws.

Hydrological

The Sundarbans is a geomorphological and hydrological fascination. Few areas in the world undergo the transformation visited upon this place by the gods who are endemic to it. Water plays mud into different shapes, sculpting it into new islands and reforming the old. These drowned lands and everything that live in them have adjusted to tides that rise twice daily to a height of 6-9 feet.

Cyclone activity is more intense here than anywhere else in the world. Tidal waves 250-feet-high rise up the Bay of Bengal, funneling their way up the channels to disintegrate entire villages built on mud and made of mud - villages that are surrounded and protected from rising waters by mere 20-foot embankments. Both sides of the Sundarbans experience 4-8 cyclonic depressions every year.

Between 1960-1969, eleven major cyclones killed over 54,000 people in Bangladesh. Many of those were living in and around the Sundarbans. In November 1970, one cyclone, alone, accompanied by severe tides, killed 200,000 people. The cyclone of 1988 killed even more. And as the waters subsided, bodies could be found not only floating in the rivers but up high in trees. Somehow, though, the larger wildlife fares better. Few deer or tigers seem to be killed in these storms, but they sometimes are found, after the waters have subsided, clinging to the branches of the same trees. Terrestrial animals here have found ways to live in this

water-bound place. Even pigs, monkeys, tigers, monitor lizards, and deer are swimmers in this saltwater environment.

Tiger

The approximately 300 tigers that live here are part of the Sundarbans mystery, for it is here, in this thick mass of tree roots, writhing mud, and hungry water, that tigers stalk humans as prey.

The Sundarbans is famous for its tiger attacks and is one of the only areas in the world where "maneaters" are commonly found. Although the Indian government has estimated that only about 4% of the Sundarbans tigers are "maneaters," attacking locals entering the Reserve for honey, firewood, and other products, one maneater can kill dozens, if not hundreds, of people. The earliest attacks were recorded by a visitor to the Bangladesh Sundarbans in 1665.

Between 1948 and 1986, 814 people were killed by tigers in the Bangladesh Sundarbans. Between 1975 and 1981, an average of 45.5 people were killed each year in India's Sundarbans Tiger Reserve. The Indian government has undertaken steps to cut back on that number.

The reason for the tigers' killing of humans is unclear. One theory is that the salinity of the environment somehow gives the tigers the taste for human blood. Another is that the ingestion of so much salt damages a tigers liver and kidneys, making it irritable. More likely, the tiger has become accustomed to the taste of human flesh as a result of the cyclones and floods, which carry dead bodies down the water channels or strewn about to decompose.

Sundarbans tigers are like no other. They attack in the mornings and evenings between the hours when people enter and leave the forest. They swim, hunting in the water, hiding among mangrove roots as fishing boats pass until they spot an opportunity to approach from behind. Despite their size and weight, they stealthily sneak up on their victims from behind, typically grabbing them at the nape of the neck. When killing a deer, they embed their canines into four spaces in the vertebrae, a near lock-and-key fit. This method of killing is almost immediate.

Stories abound of Sundarbans tigers taking their prey with no trace. Men on small fishing boats hear a splash only to discover that one of their crew is missing. Perhaps they will see, as they frantically look overboard for their missing member, the wet tiger slinking up the mud bank of the shore dragging its meal by the neck.

Tigers have been known to swim out to larger boats and leap aboard. Those on board may begin to call out, "Ma," or mother, a word meant to hail the goddess Bonobibi.

Legend has it that the echoes of someones screams at facing a tiger are eaten by the tiger. No one hears the scream as the tiger takes its prey.

Altered Landscape

How does one understand the true essence of the Sundarbans? The Sundarbans region has long been one of India's last frontiers, an uninhabitable thicket of mangrove swampland separating the expanding Indian population from the Bay of Bengal. India's ruling powers viewed this area as wasteland, and a great deal of hard labor was spent in making use of the land. The resulting conversion of the mangrove swamps and northern forests into paddy land for wet rice cultivation, the use of the area's natural resources, hunting, and poaching have all contributed to the degradation of this region.

The conversion of forested land into rice paddies began long before the Muslim Indo-Turkish sultans ruled Bengal from 1204 until 1575. History carries their stories, as real as the mud. The reverence of forest-clearers continued into the Mughal period, which lasted from 1575-1765, until the British came to power. The locals continued converting the Sundarbans jungles to wet rice fields and were heavily influenced by their colonizers.

As a result, the Sundarbans storms have become more frequent. From 1891-1960, there were 16 severe tropical storms that pounded Bangladesh; between 1961-1977, there were 19. Deforestation of the mangroves that once helped to protect that coast from high winds and waves is thought to be part of the reason. In 1900, 40% of India was covered with jungle. Today, about one-third of those trees remain. Similarly, the Sundarbans is losing its trees, particularly in the land-girded north, as attempts at industry, tourism, and land reclamation are made.

Within the past three hundred years, the two horned rhinoceros, the Indian cheetah, the golden eagle, and the pink headed duck, all species indigenous to the Sundarbans, have disappeared. Cyclones are more frequent and powerful. And it is believed that the conversion of the natural forest to agriculture means that people are abandoning their gods.

British reports referred to the Sundarbans as "a sort of drowned land, covered with jungle, smitten by malaria, and infested by wild beasts." What made it uninhabitable wasteland was the "gross fertility of the vegetation." The administrations sentiment was that the Sundarbans was "a land covered over with impenetrable forests, the hideous den of all descriptions of beasts and reptiles, ...only...to be improved by deforestation."

From the very beginning of British administration in Bengal, the area was thought more of a nuisance than an advantage, to be drained, embanked, and reclaimed for cultivation. However, cultivators were not the only ones trying, largely unsuccessfully, to clear the forest. Woodcutters also faced a challenge in cutting down trees that were enmeshed with one another in such a way that they could only be removed one piece at a time.

Bonobibi

To the people who live there, the Sundarbans is an area to be both feared and revered. While it is true that the tiger resides there, the tiger goddess lives there, as well, and offers her protection to those who enter the forest with care and respect. Those who earn their living by collecting honey, fishing, or cutting firewood take precautions before undertaking their duties.

The goddess Bonobibi was born of Gulalbibi, whose husband Ibrahim had been forced to abandon her, pregnant, in the forest. Because his first wife had been unable to bear him a child, she had allowed him to take a second wife. However, jealous of Gulalbibis conception, Ibrahims first wife had demanded that he abandon the pregnant woman as she slept. When she awakened, Gulalbibi realized that she had been left and called out to Allah to sav e her. He sent fairies to help her give birth to her twin children Bonobibi and her brother Sha Jungli. Beneath the weight of single motherhood and twins, Gulalbibi left the forest, and her daughter, behind.

The forests small spotted chital deer found the baby and nursed her. Allah protected her and, filled with magic, Bonobibi became a goddess. One day, her brother came to find her. Both Bonobibi and Sha Jungli knew that they could not go live with their parents. Instead, they chose to go to the Sundarbans and help to alleviate the suffering of the people there.

Manasa

A four-armed goddess of snakes also inhabits the Sundarbans. She name is Manasa, and she represents the serpent, which is the symbol of water, something vitally important to this area impacted so strongly by the monsoons. Although thousands are killed each year by snakes in India, people continue to honor snakes, which are believed to bring the monsoon. Manasa is a protector of snakes and of people from their deadly poison.

Prayers

Clearly, the harsh realities of this region have been incorporated into the cultures of the local human inhabitants. The many rituals and taboos that have been created are good indications

of the insecure lives that these people lead. In addition to offering the comfort of protection, it weaves the sacred to their everyday tasks.

The Forest Department requires all wood-cutting parties to be accompanied by a shaman whenever they enter the forest. Some faqirs, or shamans, are so powerful that they are thought to drive away crocodiles, tigers, and snakes and keep the people with them safe. Sometimes, this protection can last for months after a shaman has offered his prayers.

The men who work in the forest, who live in the Sundarbans, sometimes dream of encounters the goddess Bonobibi. They call on her as their mother, or Ma, and ask for protection as they make their ways through the forest. Here is another shamans prayer:

O Mother

Thou who lives in the forest,

Thou, the very incarnation of the forest,

I am the meanest son of yours.

I am totally ignorant.

Mother, do not leave.

Mother, you kept me safe inside your womb

For ten months and ten days.

Mother, replace me there again,

O Mother, pay heed to my words. (Sy Montgomery, Spell of the Tiger, p. 187)

Although these prayers are thought to bring protection to those in the forest, some of the shamans in the Sundarbans agree that miracles, such as goddess visitations, do not happen as frequently as they used to. Now, people are impure, and goodness is leaving the world.

Women

The Sundarbans is a demanding home to those who live there. It requires much of those who live there in order to survive, regardless of their gender. It requires prayers to Bonobibi, humility and gratitude, ingenuity, and tolerance.

Living and working in the Sundarbans is dangerous. And just as the men do it, so do the women. It requires both men and women to work hard and face many of the same dangers. Yet, although the mens lives have been documented by anthropologists, the story of the

Sundarbans women remains nearly untold. Instead, like Bonobibi, their lives, like their stories, are shrouded, not quite palpable. Yet, they do not have the power of the goddess.

The women of the Sundarbans are practically unknown outside their direct social relationships. It has been the exploits of men, the colonization by men, and the work of men that has captured the interest of historians. In reviewing past and current accounts, the male woodcutters, fishermen, and honey collectors are those that are discussed, regardless of the fact that the women contribute not only to domestic chores but their families incomes.

Women of the Sundarbans work not only taking care of household duties but often to help the family survive financially. Some of them cultivate on family plots while others fish. Fishing for prawn is a particularly dangerous job and one taken on by women and their children who may move through the waters, waist or neck deep, dragging nets behind them to catch their prey. Each year, women and girls are lost to crocodiles and tigers in this way.

Sundarbans women are translucent like the watery place, itself. Scarcely has there been attention when tigers and crocodiles maim or kill women, and these attacks often remain unheard by those outside the local community.

Sundarbans women tend to marry early, becoming a bride sometimes by the age of 12. When women lose their husbands from tiger attacks, particularly if their husbands were not permitted to enter the forest to take fish, honey, or wood, they often are forced out of their homes with their children and made to live in widow villages. Here, they must be the sole providers for their families and take on the roles traditionally taken by the men wood cutting, honey collecting, and fishing.

One anthropologist studying shamanism in three Sundarbans villages found that women were usually the ones treated for spirit possession were women. It was assumed by several local holy men that the reason for this was simple women are weaker than men, and because menstruation makes them ritually impure for several days each month, they are open and vulnerable to spirit possession. According to the study, the women who were treated for possession generally were in lonely or abusive marriages. In some cases, their husbands were away for extended periods of time; in others, their husbands or mother-in-laws mistreated them.

Perhaps, in an area inhabited by those things that cannot be seen by tigers that creep up from behind, by pythons wrapped in trees, by crocodiles and microbes that inhabit the waters this form of expression is appropriate. How else could a disempowered woman express her power appropriately? For, in a culture that defines a womans power as being limited to certain things, she cannot boldly move and speak in any way she wishes she must do so through a set

of culturally constructed means. I dont mean to imply that spirit possession is impossible I only mean to state that possession may be one way to power.

Little is known of the personal stories and collective experiences of the Sundarbans women. Here, men are opaque and visible in their relationship with the place. The men have been known as the architects of this lands development and the conservers of its natural heritage. It is their stories that are shared, common in the history of a patriarchy.

However, immersed in water or hidden like the mist of a goddess that sometimes emerges in the dreams of men, the womens stories lie dormant to those outside their own worlds.