Tracking local dwelling changes in the Chittagong Hills: perspectives on vernacular architecture

ABSTRACT

Historically, geographers, anthropologists and colonial British administrators (1860–1947) frequently mentioned two ethno-geographical categories – khoungtha and toungtha – when referring to the tribal groups in the Chittagong Hills of Bangladesh. Some of these early works considered the livelihood patterns of these groups and the nature of their social and economic interactions. However, a discussion of the changes to their vernacular built environment has escaped any serious investigation. Using empirical findings, this article examines the changes to architectural practices of lowland and highland groups in the socially and ethnically complex region of the Chittagong Hills. Narrowing the discussion to the toungtha Mru ethnic group, this article also examines religious patterns, building techniques and spatial changes in a remotely placed, relatively inaccessible part of the hills where the built environment is still a strong cultural priority.

KEYWORDS:

• Topography
• ethnic vernacular architecture
• history and geography
• Bangladesh

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dilshad Rahat Ara is Assistant Professor in the Department of Architectural Engineering, United Arab Emirates University (UAEU), UAE. She received her doctoral degree from the Architecture Building and Planning (ABP), the University of Melbourne. Her research interests are in vernacular architecture, history and building technology.

Mamun Rashid is Assistant Professor in the Department of Architectural Engineering, University of Sharjah, UAE. Previously he taught as an adjunct faculty at the UNSW (University of New South Wales), Sydney, Australia. He is also a practicing architect.

Notes

1. Generic name for the mainstream population of Bangladesh. Almost 98% people of Bangladesh are Bengali. The naming follows the spoken language, “Bangla”.

2. As compared to other parts of the world, these hilly regions have received little attention for a number of reasons. During the colonial period, they were declared “excluded areas” with limited access. After 1947, some regional wars for independence or autonomy were waged by hill peoples. As a result, national governments (Burma, India and Bangladesh) were apprehensive of granting access to these frontier areas to outsiders.

3. See Lewin (1869, p. 28). The word is of Assamese origin. Different ethnic groups in northeast India such as the Nagas in Assam also use this term for shifting cultivation. See Jacobs et al. (1990).

4. A generic term once applicable to the swidden/slash-and-burn cultivators only.

5. A generic Bengali term for all hillmen (pahari – from pahar or hill).

6. This dichotomy was not merely a crude colonial assumption or reconstruction to simplify complex cultural scenes or to give the appearance of substance to any colonial political agenda. Lewin was also an accomplished ethnographer who established very close contacts with the hill people.

7. This classification was based on the generic term used by the major ethnic groups. Both of these words are of Arakanese origin. Khyoung means a river and toung means a hill in Arakanese dialect.

8. Chittagong Hills were part of Arakan State until 1666 and Bengal State under the Moghuls until 1760.

9. By land policy, they were also brought under formal administration. The land laws of the CHT are significantly different from the land laws of the plains districts. Swidden or jhum cultivation, which is banned in the plains districts, is allowed in the CHT. Secondly, usufruct rights of the hill people to unsettled lands outside the Reserved Forests are recognized in the CHT. This is not the case in the plains.

10. Parallel to the observation made on the mode of cultivation, Lewin (1869) also noted that all dwellings of ethnic groups were built on stilts in the Chittagong Hills, at that period.

11. For a general understanding of acculturation issues including economic changes affecting the ethnic groups, see Gain (1995). For notes on introduction of new elements of exchange geared by a shift in economy from subsistence to commercial, in the Pakistan period (from 1947), see Bessaignet (1958). For current works on language and religion, see Chowdhury (2001). Also see Brauns and Löffler (1990, pp. 26–30).

12. For example, when in 1960 Kaptai Dam was constructed – to produce hydroelectricity for urban areas – it displaced 85,000 people in the Chittagong Hills. The worst affected were the Chakma people (nearly 70,000 Chakma were displaced by the development program). See Brauns and Löffler (1990 , p. 40). For a cultural geographic analysis of the dislocation event, see Sopher (1964).

13. A Bengali expression (this implies in the direction of the borrowing trend); goodam ghar literally means a “storage-house”.

14. For a detailed description of this transitional dwelling, see Khan and Choudhuri (1965, pp. 29–30). Although the writer claims, “In lay-out [sic] and orientation there is little difference between a goodam and a platform house”, this is questionable; the analysis of the plans presented in the same paper clearly points to some key differences in spatial arrangements other than the physical differences discussed by the author.

15. Char in the Mru case.

16. This type of transformation is also demonstrated in a wider context. Kent (1984), for example, argues that use of space, as a matter of cultural organization, determines architectural form. She further argues (Kent 1990) that social complexity in the form of specialization and stratification is expressed in the increased partitioning and mono-functional uses of spaces in the built forms.

17. This observation is based on a subsidiary general survey conducted in the valley settlements, as described in Ara (2006).

18. From interviews with Marma respondents and also noted by Khan and Choudhuri (1965, p. 28). For instance, the Chakma call the kitchen unit Baus-khana, which is a corruption of the Bengali/Bangla term Baburchi-khana.

19. See the description of a “ground house” in Khan and Choudhuri (1965, pp. 30–32), whose discussion focuses only on the dwellings of three major groups in contact with the plains.

20. A vernacular term used in Bengali/Bangla language, which designates an open court.

21. Land suitable for wet rice cultivation is only some 100,000 acres or about 3% of the CHT. A larger proportion of the land is only suitable for horticulture, forestry and swidden. See Gain (2000).

22. These rare collections were later disposed to anthropologist Löffler, and were assembled in the later work by Brauns and Löffler (1990).

23. Broadly, acculturation in the sphere of religion is a later development in the mountains than in the valley.

24. The mainstream religion practiced in Bangladesh.

25. Hutchinson for instance prophesized that Buddhism would gain popularity among the Mru in the nineteenth century. Much later Sopher also discusses (in sporadic cases) the spread of Buddhism among the Mru however this trend in adopting Buddhism was not strongly noted during fieldwork. See Hutchinson (1906, p. 166). Also see Sopher, (1964, p. 121).

26. See Rafi and Chowdhury (2001, p. 18); Man Lei Mro – a Mru, founded the religion in 1985. He also invented script for the Mru people in 1980. According to the rules of the belief, one must pray to Turai and acknowledge the prophet, Krong Medi, who is Man Lei Mro. Prayers are performed specially on Sunday and Tuesday. Clerics are now important leaders in paras where residents have converted to “Krama”. Besides, these settlements now include adjunct prayer structures as visual foci in physical landscapes. It can be pointed out here that the religion was initiated just about the time when Brauns and Löffler (1990) book on the Mru was published in 1986 in the German language. As a result, there is no mention of this religion in this anthropological study.

27. Kramaism is more like a revamped religion. However, informants would be proud to announce it as a new religion. For information on the historic role of gods and rituals in the Mru case, see accounts by Hutchinson (1906) and Lewin (1869).

28. This points to a cognitive imprint, which may have suggestions for associations of higher places with sacred structures. This is a widespread traditional belief in Southeast Asia and also in many prehistoric cultures.

29. Indigenous people are occasionally subjected to state enforced “relocation programs”. Consequently, a number of settlements exhibit random spatial changes. Here, inevitably, the factors affecting changes such as the optimum number of families occupying a para, are strictly exogenous.