The Sonowal Kachari are one of the indigenous peoples of the state of Assam in Northeast India. They are of Tibeto-Burman origin, and are closely associated with the other ethnic groups of Assam, which are commonly referred to as Kachari. Today, they are predominantly inhabitants of Dhemaji, North Lakhimpur, Tinsukia and Dibrugarh districts of Assam, along with pocket populations in Jorhat, Sivsagar, Golaghat district of Assam and in the state of Arunachal Pradesh. The headquarters of the Sonowal Kachari Autonomous Council is at Dibrugarh.
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Etymology
The name Sonowal comes from the word 'Son' (Assamese: Xon) which means gold in Assamese.The traditional occupation of the Sonowal kacharis was gold panning, that is extracting gold from the riverbeds. The Kacharis those were appointed as gold-washers by the Ahom kings were organised into Sonowal Khel. These Kacharis came to be known as Sonowal Kacharis.
History
As per the book Ahomar Din, the ancestors of the Sonowal Kacharis migrated to Upper Assam with the army of the Koch king Nara Narayan and Gohain Kamal in the 16th century and subsequently settled in the Sadiya region. It further notes that the clans of the group were formed only after they settled in Sadiya. Sonowal oral traditions likewise preserve memories of migration and settlement in the Sadiya region. The ritual songs known as Haidang De contain traditions concerning places inhabited by the community during its migrations and the formation of its clans. A separate origin legend recorded in Tribes of Assam, Part II states that a ruler identified as Ban Raja, or one of his contemporaries, had four sons, one of whom, Hogra, moved towards Sadiya with one thousand followers. They are said to have initially taken refuge in Miri and other hill tribe villages and later shifted to the banks of the Kundil. Three such families—Hagu, Likam and Dafla—were subsequently incorporated into the group, from whom the Hagumiri, Likamiri and Daflari clans are traditionally derived. The Haidang songs similarly mention Sonowal Kacharis mixing with hill tribes like Daflas, Mishing and Abor, forming a clan system before finally settling in Sadiya.
As per British records, most of the Sonowal Kacharis subsequently migrated from Sadiya during the early 19th century and settled in the forested tract between the Buri Dihing and Dibru rivers in the Matak territories. Sonowal Kachari traditions also remember this displacement from the Sadiya region, following disturbances involving the Khamtis. Bordoloi and Sharma Thakur record that, according to this tradition, the Sonowals were forced to move towards the southern side of the Brahmaputra after attacks by the Ahoms and Khamtis, in which a Singpho chief named Lotbara also took part. Anthropologist Chandra Jyoti Sonowal further notes that Sonowal Kachari folk songs lament the loss of Sadiya "at the behest of Sadia Khowa Gohain", preserving another tradition of the community's displacement from the region. The authors further note a Sonowal Kachari funerary custom of placing a copper coin on the body of the deceased, traditionally explained as a symbolic purchase of burial land because the country south of the Brahmaputra was not regarded as their original homeland; they state that this custom was not practised at Sadiya. Sonowal Kachari traditions also preserve accounts of the incorporation of neighbouring populations during their migration from Sadiya to the south bank of Brahmaputra. Labhit Kumar Saikia, interpreting the fourth section of the Haidang songs, records a tradition in which a group of Kacharis, after leaving Sadiya for the southern bank, took refuge among seven Miri families. Intermarriage subsequently developed between the two groups, and the tradition associates this process with the formation and expansion of a number of Sonowal Kachari clans.
The Sonowal Kacharis also seem to preserve place-name traditions shared with other Kachari groups. Haidang geet refer to Halali, Hemali and Dimapur, as in the line “Halali o Hemali o Dimapuroloi kiman dur o”. Dimasa oral traditions similarly recount a migration from the Nilachal Hills to Halali before settlement at Dimapur. However, Chandra Jyoti Sonowal has cautioned against treating such oral traditions as straightforward historical evidence. He notes that accounts of migration, settlement and historical events claimed to be distinctive to the Sonowal Kacharis have considerable similarities with the traditions of neighbouring Deori, Chutia, Moran and Ahom communities. In particular, while Sonowal Kachari folklore remembers Sadiya as a former homeland, the same region is historically associated with the Chutia kingdom and also figures prominently in Deori traditions; Sonowal argues that these overlapping traditions make reconstruction of the Sonowal Kachari past "doubtful and blurred". He further regards references to Hemali, Habung and Halali in such traditions as uncertain in the absence of corroborating evidence, and stresses the need to distinguish folklore and mythology from historically verifiable information.
Notable people
Pradan Baruah, Indian politician, former member of Assam Legislative.
Jogesh Das, prominent writer, recipient of Sahitya Academi Award
Jogendra Nath Hazarika, chief minister of Assam (1979)
Lohit Sonowal, inspector of Commando Battalion of Assam Police, awarded the Kirti Chakra military decoration
Sarbananda Sonowal, politician and former chief minister of Assam (-2021)