The week long anthropological fieldwork of the major students of anthropology at Saint Claret College, Ziro concluded on January 10, 2017 in and around Mwasynram village of East Khasi Hills District, Meghalaya. Anthropology major consist of 17 students surveyed over 100 Khasi households, collecting data from men and women on a wide variety of issues including socio-cultural and bio-demographic aspects of the villagers based on micro studies. The students were accompanied by their supervisors, Tame Ramya (Tarh), the assistant professor and Bhaboklang Sohkhlet, the assistant professor & Head.
The fieldwork, which started on January 4, is a part of fulfilling the mandatory norms laid in the RGU syllabus to acquire bachelor’s degree in anthropology, but more importantly, to build up anthropological research inclination among students. This was the first chance the students had to show the practical skills they have been learning about in the anthropology classes.
Mawsynram is known for its record as the wettest place on earth followed by Cherapunjee. The natives of the place are the Khasis, one of the major tribes of Meghalaya. The Khasis are well known for their matrilineal type of society and the other aspects of their culture that marks them distinct from the other tribes of North East.
One of the main objectives of the fieldwork was to understand the unique Khasi matrilineal society with respects to anthropological assets of the tribe. A long-term objective of the fieldwork was to strengthen the technical capacity of the students to plan, conduct, process, and analyze data from complex population and household surveys.
Field reports will be prepared based on the data collected from this fieldwork and submitted to the examiners for evaluation.