Page 101 - Changing Living Spaces

Living Spaces of Ethnic Groups and their Relationship with the Ecological Environment

For landowners, building fish ponds is more advantageous than con-
verting them to forest land, not only in terms of financial cost, but also in
terms of labour cost. In order to profitably sell the fish raised in the pond,
the fish must be caught and transported to a market. Catching fish in the
pond is more labour intensive than harvesting rice. The Hindus in the vil-
lage catch fish for their own consumption, but rarely offer them for sale
for religious reasons.
However, Muslims living in neighbouring villages play an important
role in converting cultivated land into fish ponds and transporting fish
to market (figure 10). The Muslim traders not only catch fish but also sell
eggs and fodder to help Hindu landowners start fish farming. It is said
that in the past, the Muslim earth diggers (Mati Kata) dug the ponds
in the rice fields by hand instead of using machines. Often, Muslim fish
traders (Mach Bepari) living in the surrounding villages are invited to
collect fish from Hindu ponds. Currently, a group of 5 to 6 traders live in
the area around Muktapur village. When they are called, they use a huge
net that covers the entire pond to catch the fish, and the landowners are
paid on the spot according to the weight of the fish caught. In this way,
the landowners can earn an income from the fish ponds with little effort.
Muslim fish traders tend to have many male children. Therefore, each
son inherits relatively little arable land from his parents and cannot sup-
port his family by farming alone. They can earn an income by catching
and selling fish in Hindu villages. In the past, they used to catch fish only
in the dry season when the Kals dried up. However, as the number of
Pukuri ponds in the cultivated areas has increased, these Muslim fisher-
men visit many villages throughout the year with their nets on bicycles.

Conclusions
In this chapter, the living spaces and livelihood patterns of various eth-
nic groups living in the Brahmaputra Valley in Assam were studied. In
Lakhimpur district, the different ethnic groups live in different ecologi-
cal environments and their cropping patterns also differ according to the
micro-ecological environment, especially the amount of surface water.
These differences allow the different ethnic groups to interact with each
other through the exchange of livestock and agricultural labour. Similar
geographic cooperation exists between Hindus and immigrant Muslims
in Nagaon district. The living spaces of these communities are geograph-
ically separated by the availability of water. Their land use patterns are
also different. Nevertheless, they rely on each other to maintain their

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