An icon of the Bengali kitchen, the dao, a sharp, machete-sized seated blade commonly used by rural housewives to cut vegetables and fish, is an incredibly important symbol of Bengali village culture and is a part of Bangladesh that my parents did not leave behind when they made the voyage to this country some 20 years ago.
The dao is a long, curved iron blade that is seated on a flat plank of wood or short iron tripod, and is used by squatting behind it and driving meat or vegetables into the blade in a pulling motion. Unlike in Western kitchens where food is prepared standing up, all food in traditional Bengali kitchens is prepared in a squatted position over a dao and an outdoor wood-fired stove.
The use of the dao dates back nearly 1300 years ago to the time of the Pala Dynasty in Bengal, a Buddhist kingdom in which the earliest forms of Bengali culture emerged. Collections of poems and terracotta sculptures from the time depict women squatting at their dao’s cutting fish; since the dawn of Bengali culture, the dao has been associated with the woman’s role as the nourisher and sustainer of the household.
The use of the dao is also evidence of the sacredness of the bare earth in early Bengali culture. Toiling behind a dao, sharing a meal with cherished visitors, and sleeping were all practices performed seated or lying on the ground; to stay close to the ground was paramount because the Earth and its soil were sacred, and one had to remain close to it. With the arrival of the British colonialists in Bengal, furniture began to gain popularity among the wealthy and we slowly lifted ourselves off of these sacred grounds. Using a dao became a departure from the British, Western culture imposed on us and a symbol of rural meekness and humility in the modern day.
My mother came to the United States from a small riverside village in Sylhet, Bangladesh where the dao was used extensively. She would watch my grandmother cut mountains of uri, or hyacinth beans, with her blade and toss them into a pot set over burning logs. My mother would purchase a dao in the United States and I remember watching her as she cut and peeled the same hyacinth beans that she’d watched her mother cut. She would rush to process as many beans as possible before she’d have to change the diapers of my younger brothers or feed them, and would leave water droplets that would rust the blade; she embodied the motherly spirit that the dao has always represented. My mother shared a piece of Bangladesh with me, her son born far from home.
My mother brought the essence of her village to our small apartment in the Bronx. The humble dao is truly a testament to how a culture can survive the twisting tides of change and migration.
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