Kechai Khaiti

Kechai Khaiti — the name is understood as “eater of raw flesh” — is a fierce goddess of the Bodo-Kachari peoples of Assam, and was above all the great goddess of the Chutia kingdom of Sadiya in the state's far east. She belongs to the indigenous religious world of the Brahmaputra valley: a powerful, exacting mother whose worship long stood apart from Brahmanical norms.

The tradition

Her name records the character of her cult: offerings to the goddess were made raw, without the mediation of cooking, and her worship centred on blood sacrifice. Tradition also allows her a gentler aspect alongside the terrifying one. At Sadiya she was served not by Brahmins but by Deori priests, the hereditary priestly community associated with the Chutias, whose descendants preserve her memory in their religious tradition today. Forms of the goddess were honoured among other Bodo-Kachari groups as well, and in later Assamese tradition she came to be identified with the fierce forms of the great goddess of the Śākta mainstream.

History

Kechai Khaiti's principal seat was the famous copper-roofed temple near Sadiya, known as Tamreswari, maintained under Chutia rule and then under the Ahoms, whose kings continued to sanction her rites through the Deori priesthood. The temple was abandoned in the late eighteenth century, but the goddess did not vanish with it: she remains a living presence in the traditions of the Deoris and of other communities of upper Assam.