Understanding Religion and Identity Dynamics in Tribal Culture

Anthropology, colonial in its origin, helped us understand ‘religion’ in tribal society as a set of norms responsible for binding the tribal culture and functioning in its physical, social, and cognitive environment. As culture is dynamic, so is the tribe and its religion. Obviously, in contact situations with other communities, there would be a continuous inflow and outflow of traits and the internalisation of certain new elements leading to a ‘new’ identity formation for the tribal community. The question arises: how far contact situations and inflows of religious traits or how far adoption and/or conversion to new religion(s) by the whole or section of a community affects the community identity. The issue is about negotiation between emerging religious identities and the community identity. The chapte intends to address these questions primarily referring to empirical data collected from some of the prominent tribal communities in India, such as Santal of Jharkhand, Mahali of West Bengal, Bhutia of Sikkim, and Kinnaur of Himachal Pradesh

Aesthetics · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Indigenous Studies and Ecology · Philosophy · Religion, Society, and Development