1st Edition
The Routledge Handbook of Tribe and Religions in India Contemporary Readings on Spirituality, Belief and Identity
This handbook explores the diversity of religious practice in tribal cultures in India. It looks at the interactive spaces where the religious practices of tribes and other communities have changed and adapted through the years in contemporary India.
Tribe as a social category emerged in India during the colonial period; this handbook departs from the conventional approaches to studying ‘tribal religion’ and analyses the intersections of spirituality, rituals, gender and identities within tribal religion through a crosscultural and pan-Indian perspective. Tribes in India follow various religious denominations including Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, and traditional indigenous faiths. The chapters in this volume provide insights into the cross-cultural religiosity of tribes via ethnographic accounts and the study of animism, life cycle rituals, ancestor worship, shrines and religious institutions, revivalism, religious identities, religious conversion, transcendental religious spaces and the space for gender, identity and politics within religious traditions. It also discusses conflicts, contestations, anxieties within and the politics of religious traditions and identities in India and how tribal communities and the state negotiate with these issues.
This and its companion handbook, The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Readings on Tribe and Religions in India: Emerging Negotiations, provide a comprehensive look into the religious life and practices of a very diverse group of tribes in India. This book will be of interest to academics and researchers working in the fields of religion, anthropology, indigenous and tribal studies, social and cultural anthropology, sociology of culture, sociology of religion, development studies, history, political science, folkloristic, and colonialism.
List of Figure xi
List of Tables xii
Contributors xiii
Acknowledgements xviii
Abbreviations xx
Introduction: Tribe and Religions in Pan-Indian Context: Spirituality, Belief, and Identity 1
Maguni Charan Behera
PART 1
The Past in Shaping the Present 35
1 Christian Missionaries in India, Conversion, and Tribes: Understanding Goals and Means 37
Dinesh Narayan Verma
2 Ulgulan and the Making of Birsa Bhagwan 52
Anju Helen Bara
3 The Shape of Ao Naga Christianity 64
Tiasunep
PART 2
Spirituality and Traditional Belief 79
4 Spirituality in Tribal India: An Explorative Study 81
Maguni Charan Behera and Rashmi Pramanik
5 Intersections of Religion and Pilgrimage among the Santals of Eastern India: Invention of New Cultural Artefacts on Prior Discourse 97
Sumahan Bandyopadhyay
6 Ecological Imaginations in the Ho Spirituality: A Multispecies Inquiry in Jharkhand 113
Rajanikant Pandey and Neha Kumari
7 Tribal Divinity: Deities and Ancestor Spirits in the Religious Tradition of the Selected Tribes of the Wayanad, Malapppuram, and Palakkad Districts 128
Indu V. Menon
PART 3
Cross Community Religiosity 149
8 Transcendental Religious Space in Jharkhand: Reading Present from the Past 151
Maguni Charan Behera and Ambrish Gatuam
9 Deities and Priests: Mutual Religious Interface between Tribes and Non-Tribe Hindus in Nabarangpur District of Odisha 167
Bijaya Kumar Misra
10 Buddhism and Emerging Practices in Tai Communities of Assam 178
Anannya Gogoi
PART 4
Perspectives on Death 191
11 Death, Funeral, and Resurrection: Ritual Cosmos of Tribal Customs in Northern Kerala 193
Manjula Poyil
12 Remembrance, Rituals, and Remodelling the Culture of Worshipping Ancestors: An Empirical Enquiry 203
Gladis S Mathew
13 The Role of Megalith Tradition in the Eschatological Beliefs of the Munda Tribe of Jharkhand: Past and Present 215
Seema Mamta Minz
14 The Buddhist Monpa and Their Philosophy on Death 223
Tenzin Yeegha
PART 5
Village Religious Tradition: Microcosm of the Community Religious Worldview 235
15 A Study on Kom Religion with Special Reference to Kakching Mantak Village 237
Shougaijam Brajeshwari Devi
16 Oraon Religion in Dooars 247
Abhishek Kumar
17 Understanding Religious Beliefs and Practices of the Tai-Ahoms: A Study in Moranjan Gaon 261
Supratim Bhattacharya
PART 6
Neo-Religious Identities vis-à-vis Community 271
18 Kandhas of South Odisha and Their Religions: Whither Community Identity? 273
Sadananda Nayak
19 Understanding Religion and Identity Dynamics in Tribal Culture: Case Study of a few Indian Tribes 287
Santanu Mitra and Ganga Nath Jha
20 Traditional Belief System and Practices of the Karbis of Assam: Change and Continuity 302
Vulli Dhanaraju and R.K Bijeta
21 Contact, Conversion, and Religious Reality Among the Nicobarese 319
Koel Mukherjee, Kaustav Das, and S. A. Awaradi
22 Polarisation of Adivasis Around Religion: Sanskritisation vs. Ethnicisation in Jharkhand 335
Anjana Singh
PART 7
Relational Identity 349
23 Tribe and Tribal Religion: A Study on the Panika Tribe of Madhya Pradesh 351
D.V. Prasad
24 Indigenised Hindu: The Deori of Assam and their Midiku 368
Mandira Bhagawati
25 Beliefs and Practices of the Bison Horn Maria in Water Management 382
Bindu Sahu and D.V. Prasad
PART 8
Gender Discourse 399
26 Some Reflections on Religion and Gender Among the Bhils 401
Saumya Sharma
27 Religion and Gender: Mapping the Space of the Mizo Women in the Church 412
Rebecca Angom, Ayangbam Shyamkishor, and H. Elizabeth
28 Betwixt the Siampu and the Scripture: Negotiating Gender in the Religion of Paite Society 424
Siamlianvung Hangzo
Index 437
Biography
Maguni Charan Behera is a Professor of Tribal Studies (retired) at Arunachal Institute of Tribal Studies, Rajiv Gandhi (Central) University, Arunachal Pradesh, India. Dr Behera was also a Professor of Indigenous Culture Studies and Dean School of Cultural Studies, Central University of Jharkhand. He has been working on tribes for about 40 years. His present interest is to develop tribal studies as an academic discipline and in this direction he is editing books on different themes from multidisciplinary perspectives. He has the credit of introducing tribal studies as an undergraduate course of Rajiv Gandhi University under distance mode.
“The handbook by Professor M. C. Behera engages on diverse perspectives of religion among the tribes. It is very much interesting and fascinating due to its lucid language. From time-to-time various religions have tried to fuse the tribes in their fold, especially in India and academics have been presenting tribal religion applying etic perspectives. A heterogeneous concept on the question of tribal religion has been built up. The editor has dealt with the same question through different papers which make the horizon of the book wider”.
– Professor T. V. Kattimani, Vice-Chancellor, Central Tribal University of Andhra Pradesh, India
“The handbook is an important contribution to the topic of tribe and religion with a shifting focus from conventional understanding to appreciation of emerging dynamics. Traversing through tribal communities in varied eco-cultural settings, and by examining religion in the process of interaction and intellectual interpretation; it brings into perspective their unique experiences and our understanding. The chapters in the handbook are impregnated with insights to engage the readers critically to multidimensional and multifactorial interactive process of religion and tribal response thereof”.
– Dr Jumyir Basar, Professor and Director of Arunachal Institute of Tribal Studies, Rajiv Gandhi University, India
“Tribal religion, the living tradition of the primal human belief system, flourished in a wonderful harmony between humans and various elements of the Nature by manifesting a philosophy of togetherness. However, the perspective is absent in present tribal religions subsequent to encounter with other cultures and emerging new analytical concepts. The missing perspective is obvious in the papers included in the handbook edited by Professor M. C. Behera which cover several tribes from different regions of India”.
– Dr Hari Ram Meena, Adivasi writer and former IPS, India
