Lo-Bir Baisi - Supreme Council Of Santhals

In the words of W.G. Archer–The final authority in Santal society is the disom hor or people of the region. This body meets once a year at the Lo Bir Sendra or hunts in the burnt forest’. The hunt is given this name as the jungle is fired in March to clear the undergrowth and we burn offenses there;

It is said that originally there was only one hunt for the whole tribe but now every region has a hunt of its own. These hunts do not follow administrative units and often overly. They take their name from the central mountain over which the hunt passes and villagers within ten or twenty miles of the mountain come to attend it.

This Supreme Council is organized during the Annual Hunt event. In fact, the Annual Hunt comprises of three events – the Hunt, (Sendra), recital and narration of sexual songs (Torea) and the supreme council of the people (Lo Bir Baisi).

The intimate connection between the council of the region and a hunting celebration is due to various causes. A hunt is obviously much the most effective way of assembling the Santals of a region.

Once the council has started anyone may speak however lowly and the officials of the village and the neighborhood are in temporary eclipse. The council said bedding is an example of literal and true democracy’. The forest council’ said Kolean Haram is our High Court.

There the Parganas, Deshmanjhis, and Manjhis cannot keep us down. The people, both small and great, decide everything. If they find that the big and greedy have acted unjustly, they punish them severely. In the forest, no injustice is allowed. The only justice is done.

Narrating the method of formulating the ancient Santal laws, Kolean Haram says- ‘At Tore Pokhori Baha Bandela’, says Kolean Haram ‘the ancestors met under a sal tree, an atnak and a mahaua.’

They spread out lotus leaves and for twelve years or twelve days, they drank the water of Kero dadi. They reviewed their customs and decided the rites of birth, initiation, marriage, sickness, and death.

When all was over they went across Tore Pokhori Baha Bandela either on the bank or over the water on the lotus leaves. The men came up and gathered by a bush and the women met in the shade of a mahua.

Then they saw that the red dye on their feet was not wet and that the lotus leaves were neither crushed not bruised. So they said, ‘We have decided well. May these rules and customs stay as now forever.