Overview

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.

Full Product Details

Author:   Maguni Charan Behera (Rajiv Gandhi University, Itanagar, India)
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge India
Weight:   1.030kg
ISBN:  

9781032522159

ISBN 10:   1032522151
Pages:   448
Publication Date:   03 September 2024
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

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 Bijay 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 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

Reviews

“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

‘The handbook by Prof. 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 by Professor M.C.Behera which cover several tribes from different regions of India.’ —Dr. Hari Ram Meena, Adivasi writer and former IPS, India

Author Information

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.

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