Abstract In recent years, elites in many small ethnic communities in northeast India have made attempts to revive, reform and institutionalize their traditional religious practices in order to stem the tide of conversion to world religions and also to use their new religion as a marker for their ethnic identity. In this paper, I focus … Read more
This encyclopedia addresses the religions of a category of South Asians known as tribals, Ādivāsīs (“First Inhabitants”; or Janajātis, lit. “Class of People”; see also below), and, more recently, indigenous peoples. The three terms, “tribal,” “Ādivāsī,” and “indigenous peoples” are related, but have their own trajectories; they have come into use at different times and … Read more
Arunachal Pradesh, recognized as one of the hotspots of biodiversity is home to a range of economically important plants. Some of these plant species have found use in the preparation of natural dyes. Natural dyes are colourants having several applications in textiles, inks, cosmetics, etc. Nature has gifted us more than 500 dye-yielding plant species. … Read more
From Ritual to Performance: The Transformation of a Tangsa Festival in Assam, North-east India Meenaxi Barkataki-Ruscheweyh, University of Göttingen Tangsa is an umbrella term for a collection of small ethnic groups (related to the Naga) who have migrated to India from Myanmar probably within the last couple of centuries and have settled in the north-east … Read more