Bodo people are the ethnic and linguistic community of the Brahmaputra Valley in North-Eastern India. Udalgiri and Kokrajhar regions in the Indian state of Assam are considered to be the stronghold of the Bodo people. The Bodo are spread all across the north eastern India and also reside in nearby countries such as Nepal. The language they speak is a variant of the Tibetan-Burmese language and is now written in the Indian Devanagari script. Latin and Assamese script were also used by the Bodo people during earlier times. Bodo also somehow reminds me of a Gi Joe that I owned called Budo. The name Budo is taken directly from the Japanese sword fighting discipline practiced by the samurai warriors in medieval Japan. As you can probably guess from both the image above and the image below, Assam has been pretty well known for its growth of extensive tea gardens and exportation of high quality tea and tea leaves
Bodo people have also been attributed with silk weaving and harvesting of silkworms. The Bodo girls are taught to weave silk from a young age and a loom is present in every Bodo house. Bathouism and Christianity are the chief religions practiced by the Bodo people. Bathouism is a Bodo specific religion which involves the worshipping of the forefathers. The name is derived from the Bodo word Bathou, which means ‘five principles’. The five elements of water, fire, air, earth and the sky are the five principles that form the Bathou deity.
The Bodos are known to be the earliest settlers in Assam and were the first to form farming colonies and have been raring silkworms since ages. The Bodo specialize in cooking several traditional cuisines, which include rice, pork and fish. The Zu Mai is a local rice wine that is specially brewed by the Bodo people and is served during all the Bodo festivals. The Bodo butterfly dance also known as Bagurumba is often performed during the Bodo New Year which falls mid-April every year. Special attire is worn by the Bodo women and the dance resembles the movements of a butterfly. The dance can be witnessed during the Bodo festival in Udalguri, Kokrajhar, Baksa, Chirang, Bongaigaon, Nalbari, Darrang and Sonitpur districts of Assam. The Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport, which also goes by the name of Guwāhāti International Airport is the central hub airport for traveling to Assam, India.