Intro -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgements -- Chapter 1 Introduction -- Heraka -- The Zeme Nagas -- Nagas and the British -- What is in a Name? -- Reform and Identity -- Religion and Religious -- Wider Literature on the Movement -- Aim of the Book -- Resources -- Fieldwork -- Off to Fieldwork -- Walking and Writing -- Tahulung -- Chapter Outline -- Chapter 2 Circling the Altar Stone: Bhuban Cave and the Symbolism of Religious Traditions -- The Pilgrims: Do Categories Matter? -- The Edge of the World -- Temples and Myth: The Evolution of Bhuban -- The Cave Ritual: Life, Death, Life -- Enumerating Ritual Space: Poupei Chapriak and Heraka Dynamics -- Analysis: Reform and Discourse -- Cave Experiences: Coalescing Religious Traditions -- Pilgrimage: Authenticity over Communitas -- Conclusion -- Chapter 3 Millenarianism and Refashioning the Social Fabric -- Beginnings: Jadonang and Gaidinliu -- Millenarian Songs: The World has Changed -- Inventor of Religion -- Understanding the Problem -- The Burdens of Social Rank and Communal Wealth -- The Organization of a Village: Habitats and Conditions -- Cycle Migration and Kuki Immigration -- View from Afar -- Heraka: Religious Modernizing? -- Centrality of Power: Concentrated Wealth -- Summary -- Rubbing off History? -- Oral Narratives: Making of a New History -- Revival of a Village: Name is Everything -- The Past is Made Present by the Future -- Illness and Renewal -- The Village and Its Heart -- Constructing Villages -- The World has Changed -- Enumerating History -- Assessing the Field: Reworking Village Organization -- Conclusion -- Chapter 4 Changing Cosmology and the Process of Reform -- The Past -- Beginnings of the Reform: A Cosmology in the Making -- The Great Transformation -- Mirroring a Cosmic Reality -- Rationalization of Cosmology? -- Creation Stories.

First Creation Narrative -- Second Creation Narrative -- The Heraka Creation Story -- Birth of the Gods -- The Match -- Divine Hierarchy: An Analysis -- Summary -- Note on Concepts -- Abolishing Gods and Sacrifices -- Generational Change -- Interpretation -- Hingde Book -- The Healer: Herakandingpeu -- Interpretation -- Heraka Hingde -- Mirase -- The Sacralization of Space -- Analysis: Purity and Danger -- Revolving Centre: The Right and Left of the Kelumki -- Relation of the Two Houses -- Heliengi: The Harvest Festival -- Embodying Practice -- Conclusion -- Chapter 5 Negotiating Boundaries -- The Village -- Boundaries and Imagined Realities -- Historical Niceties: Conquest of Reason and Faith -- Zeme Christians -- Reasons for Converting -- Food of the Gods: Boundary Makers -- The Zao Story -- Realm of the Naked -- Hindutva and Heraka: Marriage of Convenience? -- Vanvasi: Dweller in the Threshold -- Naked and Hindu: Reflections of a VHP Worker -- Religious Boundaries: 'Loss of Culture is Loss of Identity' -- Conversion Stories -- Naga Nationalism -- Nagas and India -- Rani Gaidinliu: Naga/Indian -- To be or Not to be, That is the Answer? -- Ethnicity and Religious Belief -- Categories of the Mind: Beer and Baptism -- Conclusion -- Chapter 6 Community Imaginings and the Ideal of Heguangram -- Heguang and Heguangram: Some Conceptual Tools -- Sacred Geography -- Fugitives and Gods: The Hangrum War 1932 -- Mirroring the Divine: The Anthropologist and Gods -- Articulation of a Vision: Heguangram and Its Critics -- Historical Context and Seeds of Discontent: Heraka and Christian -- Narrative and Story -- The Text -- An Exposition of the Text -- Blood and Weakness: Gender Issues -- Gender as Embodiment -- Divine Liturgy: Ranima as Durga -- Hangrum Camp -- The King is the Sun -- The Event: Meeting the King -- The King's Court: Symbology of Power.

Conclusion -- Chapter 7 Conclusion -- Notes -- Glossary -- A -- B -- C -- D -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- P -- R -- S -- T -- V -- Y -- Z -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z.

Reform, Identity and Narratives of Belonging focuses on the Heraka, a religious reform movement, and its impact on the Zeme, a Naga tribe, in the North Cachar Hills of Assam, India. Drawing upon critical studies of 'religion', cultural/ethnic identity, and nationalism, archival research in both India and Britain, and fieldwork in Assam, the book initiates new grounds for understanding the evolving notions of 'reform' and 'identity' in the emergence of a Heraka 'religion'. Arkotong Longkumer argues that 'reform' and 'identity' are dynamically inter-related and linked to the revitalisation and negotiation of both 'tradition' legitimising indigeneity, and 'change' legitimising reform. The results have deepened, yet challenged, not only prevailing views of the Western construction of the category 'religion' but also understandings of how marginalised communities use collective historical imagination to inspire self-identification through the discourse of religion. In conclusion, this book argues for a re-evaluation of the way in which multi-religious traditions interact to reshape identities and belongings.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.