Rokkime, Mother-Goddess of the Rice-Paddy

Rokkime is the Garo goddess of rice, honoured under the ritual name Mima Kiri Rokkime, the 'great mother' of the paddy. The Achik cultivators regard the paddy plant itself as her embodiment, and at the Agalmaka festival (also called Rokkime Ringama), held in spring once the hill-plots have been burnt, the village priest calls upon the goddess to descend and dwell in the fields together with the sun-giver Misi Saljong so that the crop may flourish. She is a distinct, named agricultural mother-goddess of the Garo pantheon, complementary to but separate from the crop-protector Chorabudi and the sun-deity Saljong.

Domains

• rice and the harvest

Powers

• to make the rice paddy grow and ripen

Epithets

• Mima Kiri RokkimeSangma, Milton S. (1981). History and Culture of the Garos. New Delhi: Books Today. (secondary)

Relations

• subordinate to: Creator GodCounted among the beneficent deities of the Garo pantheon that stand under the supreme creator Tatara-Rabuga; invoked together with the sun-giver Saljong at the Agalmaka field rite.Sangma, Milton S. (1981). History and Culture of the Garos. New Delhi: Books Today. (secondary)

Sources

• Rokkime, invoked as Mima Kiri Rokkime, is the Garo mother-goddess of the rice-paddy, identified with the paddy plant and called into the fields at the Agalmaka spring rite alongside the sun-giver Saljong.: Sangma, Milton S. (1981). History and Culture of the Garos. New Delhi: Books Today. (secondary); Marak, Lucy R. (2015). Myths and Archetypes in Garo (A·chik) Folk Narratives. Partridge India. (secondary)