Oral Traditions, Continuities and Transformations in Northeast India and Beyond PDF
Preview Oral Traditions, Continuities and Transformations in Northeast India and Beyond
Oral Traditions, Continuities and Transformations in Northeast India and Beyond Northeast India is home to many distinct communities and is an area of incredible ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity. This book explores the shared cultural heritage among the highland and river valley commu- nities of Northeast India and mainland South East Asia, including South China, through oral traditions. It looks at these shared cultural traditions and suggests new ways of understanding and interpreting the heritage of Northeast India. Oral traditions often bring forward an unexpected twist in understanding historical and cultural links, and this volume explores this using local knowledge and innovative engagements with oral traditions in multiple ways, from folklore and language to performative traditions. The essays in this volume examine how communities build new meanings from old traditions, often as a recognition of the tension between conserva- tion and creation, between individual interpretation and social consensus. They offer interesting parallels on how oral traditions behave in different socio-economic contexts, and also examine how oral traditions and mem- ory interact with the digital world’s penetration in the remote areas. This volume will be useful for scholars and researchers of Northeast India, sociology, sociology of culture, cultural studies, ethnic studies, anthropology, folkloristics, and political sociology. Surajit Sarkar is Associate Professor and coordinator of the Centre for Community Knowledge at Ambedkar University, Delhi, India. He has been a fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study at University of Durham (UK), the International Institute for Asian Studies at Leiden (Netherlands). Sura- jit is also an award-winning documentary film maker and video artist for theatre and dance productions. He has created multimedia installations in museums and galleries in India and abroad. Nerupama Y. Modwel is Principal Director, Intangible Cultural Heritage Division, INTACH. She has led a number of research and documentation projects on performing traditions, folklore and oral narratives, studies on tribal communities across the country, and cultural resource mapping of heritage cities like Varanasi, Prayagraj, Patna and Gaya. She has worked on a number of publications on the intangible heritage of India, and guided the development of a Virtual Experiential Museum at Varanasi. Previously, she taught at Delhi University, India and Rajasthan University, India. Oral Traditions, Continuities and Transformations in Northeast India and Beyond Edited by Surajit Sarkar and Nerupama Y. Modwel First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 The Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) The right of Surajit Sarkar and Nerupama Y. Modwel to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-0-8153-9616-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-14243-0 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by codeMantra Contents Notes on Contributors vii Preface ix Acknowledgements xiii Introduction: Oral traditions in Highland Asia: a view from Northeast India 1 SURAJIT SARKAR 1 From marginal zone to borderland? Ethnographies, histories and politics in Northeast India 13 ERIK DE MAAKER 2 “Buluotuo Culture”: the Zhuang oral traditions as performance 25 SOMRAK CHAISINGKANANONT 3 Northeast India and Southeast Asia: rediscovering a cultural lineage through folklores 35 SAJI VARGHESE 4 The uniqueness of storytelling on Malay folk tales 52 ROSLINA BINTI ABU BAKAR 5 The Khasi oral traditional forms of communication 68 NATALIE JO-ANNE DIENGDOH 6 Integrating oral narratives in linguistic study of speech communities: a case study of Angami Naga (Kohima village) 80 KELHOUVINUO SUOKHRIE vi Contents 7 Pottery technology in Garo Hills: an ethnoarchaeological interpretation 91 QUEENBALA MARAK 8 Constancy and change: a study on the traditional and colonial built forms of the Khasis 109 AIBAN S. MAWKHROH 9 Health, spirits and modern medicine in Northeast India 124 N. WILLIAM SINGH 10 Role of women in the making of Boro culture: from knowledge production to empowerment 136 DHARITRI NARZARY 11 Elwin as the presenter of the Tales of the Tribes films 148 TARA DOUGLAS 12 Old links: new content: reconnecting Northeast India and Southeast Asia 156 FALGUNI RAJKUMAR Index 167 Notes on Contributors Roslina Binti Abu Bakar is a Senior Lecturer Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication, University Putra Malaysia, Selangor (Malay Lan- guage Department), Malaysia. Somrak Chaisingkananont is a researcher at the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre, Taling Chan, Bangkok, Thailand. Erik de Maaker works at the Institute for Cultural Anthropology and De- velopment Sociology, Leiden University. Dr. Maaker is a member of the Asian Borderlands Research Network. (http://www.asianborderlands. net) Natalie Jo-Anne Diengdoh teaches at the Department of Cultural and Cre- ative Studies in the North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU), Shillong. Tara Douglas has completed her Professional Doctorate from Bourne- mouth University (UK). She is a co-founder and secretary of the Adivasi Arts Trust. Queenbala Marak is a faculty in the Department of Anthropology, North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU), Shillong. She has published over 40 research papers in different Indian and international journals. Aiban S. Mawkhroh is a practicing architect. Aiban has done extensive re- search on ‘Meaning in Khasi house-form’. He was the General Secretary, Meghalaya Tourism Development Forum from 2005 to 2010. Dharitri Narzary teaches history at Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD) and is designated with the University’s Centre for Community Knowledge (CCK). Falguni Rajkumar is presently the Chairman, Board of Governors, Rajiv Gandhi Indian Institute of Management, Shillong, and former Secretary, NEC, Government of India, Shillong. N. William Singh teaches at the Pachhunga University College, Mizoram. He is a UGC JRF fellow and DAAD (Deutscher Akademisher Austaus- chdienst German Academic Exchange Service) fellow. viii Notes on Contributors Kelhouvinuo Suokhrie is pursuing a PhD from the Centre for Advanced Studies of Linguistics, University of Delhi. Saji Varghese is an associate professor at the Department of Philosophy in Lady Keane College, Shillong. Preface The collected papers in this volume are drawn from a conference held from 1 to 4 February, 2016, in Shillong, Meghalaya, and developed by their au- thors as contributions for this volume. The conference – Oral Traditions: Continuity and Transformations, Northeast India and Southeast Asia – was co-organised by the Intangible Cultural Heritage Division of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) and the Centre for Community Knowledge, Ambedkar University Delhi. The 4-day conference brought together 50 scholars from five countries namely, India, Thailand, Malaysia, the UK and the Netherlands, along with heritage activists and museum curators belonging to local communi- ties from the region. Apart from acquainting the audience with new knowledge on communities that has emerged after the introduction of multi-disciplinary studies in the field of cultural heritage, the presentations described innovative approaches to working with communities, and studying intangible and tangible c ultural heritage through oral traditions. The sessions were designed to include various themes which helped the participants to engage with oral traditions in multiple ways, from f olklore to language, and performative traditions; from gendered tales found in material cultures to ecological traditions and stories of origin. The pres- entations made by researchers from Southeast Asia revealed insights into how oral traditions are transforming under different socio-economic contexts. Northeast India is a region that falls outside the classical Indian c ultural framework. Set between China and India, the region is called a “shatter zone” by political and cultural geographers, denoting a cultural area domi- nated by two or more neighbouring regions. The indigenous tradition of the region is a result of many processes of cultural flows, migrations and move- ments of communities, and their local histories. Its isolation from South Asia, colonial geo-political influences in the 19th and 20th centuries, the ad- vent of Christianity, and the introduction of education and c ommunity-led reforms have all served to give the region a special identity.
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