Jorhat, May 18: It is not known whether she ever favours the bad guys, but Kako Mai certainly commands as much reverence from poachers as she does from the forest guards who protect the Kaziranga National Park.
An incarnation of Goddess Durga, Kako Mai is worshipped regularly by the protectors and the aggressors, albeit for different reasons. But it appears the poachers are finding it difficult to maintain the tradition of paying obeisance to the presiding deity of the forest before a hunt because that gives forest guards clues to their plans.
N.K. Vasu, director of the park, said forest guards invariably succeed in tracing groups of poachers on sighting fresh offerings in front of idols of Kako Mai within the park.
?Whenever we find incense sticks and flowers placed before an idol in an abandoned camp, we know that poachers are on the prowl. We have arrested several poachers after getting such clues,? he told The Telegraph.
There has been a sharp decline in poaching within the 430-sq km sanctuary, which has a population of 1,552 rhinos. A rhino horn fetches a hefty sum in the international market. In 1991, the price was an astronomical $10,000 per horn.
Gunin Saikia, a senior forest official who was a ranger at the park for several years in the late Eighties, recalled that an infamous poacher named Gethali Miri used to sacrifice buffaloes before Kako Mai before every ?mission?. He said Miri, a resident of Bohikhowa village in the vicinity of the park, claimed to have killed over 30 rhinos.
?Kako Mai is believed to be the protector of the park. Each of the 125 guard camps in Kaziranga has an idol of the goddess, which is worshipped daily by each and every employee, irrespective of religion,? Vasu said.
Senior park officials invariably get together once every year to offer prayers to Kako Mai.
Such a puja was held last month at the main forest camp in Rangamatia, under the Agaratoli range. ?All of us contribute money and make arrangements for the occasion,? the park director said.
According to a legend dating back to the 17th century, Ahom king Gadadhar Singha had hid in Kaziranga while fleeing from the clutches of his bete noire, Lora Raja. The king was carrying an idol of Goddess Durga inside the hollow of a kako (local name for a species of bamboo) that he wore around his neck like a pendant.
Once, while Gadadhar was resting under a dellina tree, a fruit fell on his body, hurting him. The angry king threw away the bamboo with the idol of the goddess inside, thinking that the deity was incapable of protecting him. He was to realise later that the fruit had actually aroused him from slumber and, thereby, enabled him to escape from the approaching enemy.
A decade after the incident, some fishermen found the piece of bamboo with the idol inside in the Tinisukia Beel, one of the several water bodies within the park. The same gold idol was installed in a temple that stands to this day in the Kaziranga range of the park.