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Papers of a seminar held at the North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, 1979.
This book examines the distinctive formation of Christianity in Nagaland, Northeast India, since 1947. It argues that an understanding of the history of Christianity in the region can be found in its cultural milieu and the changing political, social and religious environment. In Nagaland, almost 90 per cent of the population are Christians. This book shows that segmentation as a cultural characteristic of Naga society inspired both unity and divisiveness in the Naga churches, which subsequently shaped the beliefs and practices of the churches in the region. Using the methodology of cultural history, the author examines ecclesiastical events and suggests that the history of Christianity should be examined in the light of its interaction with its cultural context rather than as an isolated phenomenon. The book demonstrates that the ethnic status which the Christian faith assumed, the extent of its identification with the local culture, and the scope of the mission of the Naga churches as key stakeholders in society, offers a new angle on the history of Christianity in India. This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of South Asian history, particularly those concerned with Northeast India and Christian history, historiography, cultural history, history of Christianity in India and faith-culture interface, religious studies, history and South Asian Studies.
Contributed seminar papers.
The Routledge Companion to Northeast India is a trans-disciplinary and comprehensive compendium of a vital yet under-researched region in South Asia. It provides a unique guide to prevailing themes, theories, arguments, and history of Northeast India by discussing its life-forms – human and not – languages, landscapes, and lifeways in all its diversity and difference. The companion contains authoritative entries from leading specialists from and on the region and offers clear, concise, and illuminating explanations of key themes and ideas. A hands-on, practical, and comprehensive guide to Northeast India, this companion fills a significant gap in the literature and will be an invaluable teaching, learning, and research resource for scholars and students of Northeast India Studies, South Asian and Southeast Asian societies, culture, politics, humanities, and the social sciences in general.
From being characterized as ‘primitive tribe’ in the colonial imagination to become predominantly practitioners of the American Baptist faith, the Sumi Naga – formerly known as the Sema Naga – in the North-East Indian state of Nagaland have come a long way ever since this Naga tribe encountered the white man toward the latter half of the nineteenth century. This book in a way chronicles the transition of Sumi society from the period of colonial contact up to the present-day context. A critical understanding of Sumi society and culture is at the heart of the narrative, and the analysis of Sumi religion and world view remains the main thrust of this book. It is argued that the Sumi, who are overwhelmingly Baptists, are faced with new religious issues which has brought about not only schismatic divisions but also rendering ebullience to religious life, and that a new discourse has emerged in Sumi religion. The author positions himself as an ‘insider’, and in doing so has given a reflexive account of Sumi religious life, meanwhile substantiating the arguments and findings in the light of contemporary theoretical developments. The volume brings out compelling evidence that religion significantly shapes the daily life of the Sumi. It offers a detailed ethnographic study of Sumi religion and world view, as the Sumi Naga was seldom studied in-depth in the post-Independence period. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka
The Nagas of Northeast India give great importance to dreams as sources of divine knowledge, especially knowledge about the future. Although British colonialism, Christian missions, and political conflict have resulted in sweeping cultural and political transformations in the Indo-Myanmar borderlands, dream sharing and interpretation remain important avenues for negotiating everyday uncertainty and unpredictability. This book explores the relationship between dreams and agency through ethnographic fieldwork among the Angami Nagas. It tackles questions such as: What is dreaming? What does it mean to say ‘I had a dream’? And how do night-time dreams relate to political and social actions in waking moments? Michael Heneise shows how the Angami glean knowledge from signs, gain insight from ancestors, and potentially obtain divine blessing. Advancing the notion that dreams and dreaming can be studied as indices of relational, devotional, and political subjectivities, the author demonstrates that their examination can illuminate the ways in which, as forms of authoritative knowledge, they influence daily life, and also how they figure in the negotiation of day-to-day domestic and public interactions. Moreover, dream narration itself can involve techniques of ‘interference’ in which the dreamer seeks to limit or encourage the powerful influence of social ‘others’ encountered in dreams, such as ancestors, spirits, or the divine. Based on extensive ethnographic research, this book advances research on dreams by conceptualising how the ‘social’ encompasses the broader, co-extensive set of relations and experiences - especially with spirit entities - reflected in the ethnography of dreams. It will be of interest to those studying Northeast India, indigenous religion and culture, indigenous cosmopolitics in tribal India more generally, and the anthropology of dreams and dreaming.
Through an ethnohistorical study of the Nagas—a congeries of tribes inhabiting the Indo-Myanmar frontier—this book explores an unusually interesting region of India that is all too often seen as peripheral. G. Kanato Chophy provides a distinct vantage point for understanding the Nagas in relation to colonialism, missionary encounters, identity politics, and cultural change, all seamlessly woven around American Baptist mission history in this region. The book also analyses India's cacophonous postindependence democracy in order to delineate multifaith issues, multiculturalism, and ethnicity-based political movements. Within the West, episodic memories of the "Great Awakening," a significant landmark in the history of Protestantism, have faded into archival records. But among the Nagas of the Indo-Myanmar highlands, Baptist Christianity persists as the dominant religion, influencing the daily lives of nearly three million people. Focusing variously on evangelical faith, missionary zeal, ethnic identities, political struggle, and complex culture wars, Christianity and Politics in Tribal India is an original and major study of how Protestant missions changed the history and destiny of a tribal community in one of the unlikeliest regions of South Asia.
Contributed articles chiefly with reference to rural development in Northeastern India; includes articles on cultural history of the region.