Siddi (of Northwestern India)

Siddi is how most Indians of African descent are named and call themselves today in India. The term
has various spellings: Sidi, Siddhi, Sidhi, and Sheedi. Another designation, Habshi, is used less fre-
quently nowadays. According to H. Basu, Sidi was a name given indiscriminately to African slaves and
sailors working on ships and in the Indian Ocean. It became a generic term for all people of African
origin in South Asia (Basu, 2008b, 161). There are also people of African descent in Pakistan, where
they are known as Sheedis (Nizamani, 2006), and in Sri Lanka, where they are called Kaffirs (de Silva
Jayasuriya, 2003, 251). Today, the largest communities of African descent in India are found in the states
of Karnataka, Gujarat, in the union territories of Diu and Damam, in Hyderabad, and in Mumbai. A
very small minority also lives in Goa and northern Kerala. Not all Indians of African descent are Siddi.
Some Christians and Hindus of African origin in Diu do not identify themselves as Siddis. Similarly,
in Hyderabad, some people of African descent whose ancestors belonged to the African cavalry guard
of the niẓāms (rulers) until Indian independence may reject the term (Basu, von Schwerin & Minda,
2008, 288) or see it as an old denomination given to their African forebears. Erstwhile Janjira state
(Maharashtra) and Sachin state (Gujarat) were ruled by Siddis until the 20th century (Jasdanwalla,
2006, 177), but their descendants today do not identify with other Siddis in India. Siddis from Gujarat,
Karnataka, and Mumbai proudly use the appellation Siddi to refer to themselves and to other people
of African descent. Siddi communities “should not be grouped together as a single community without
careful qualification” (Kenoyer & Bhan, 2004, 44), as Africans arrived in India at different times, from
different areas, and have occupied different social positions. Nowadays, Siddi people represent a small
minority, and many Indians are unaware of their presence. The Siddi population is estimated at 40,000
to 70,000, although no exact figure can be given since no survey of Indian Siddis has ever been made.
They are of different religions, including Islam (in Gujarat, Diu, Mumbai, and Karnataka), Christianity,
and Hinduism (in Karnataka). Depending on the region, Siddis in Gujarat have either Hindi, Gujarati,
or Kachchhi as a mother tongue. Siddis are generally confined to the lower ranks of the social ladder.
In Gujarat some Siddis are drivers, small shop owners, musicians, or hold government jobs reserved
for those belonging to Scheduled Tribes. In Saurashtra, where there is a larger number of Siddis, they
obtained Scheduled Tribe status in 1956, but in other regions of Gujarat, this status is still being fought
for. Indeed, the situation of Siddis is ambiguous, as the living conditions of Indians of African descent
vary widely. Some live in the forest, others in rural or urban areas. In Gujarat, Diu, and Mumbai, most
cities or villages have their Siddi jamāt (Islamic council or assembly), but there is no federation at the
state level. However, Siddis of those areas venerate the same African Sufi saints, and kinship ties link
Siddi families from Gujarat to Mumbai, as endogamous marriages are predominant.

Religion among Siddis and the Shaping

of an African Indian Community

All parts of the western Indian Ocean have been
connected by maritime trade at least since the the
1st-century-CE Periplus of the Erythraen Sea (Alp-
ers, 2004, 27), the Roman period guide to trade and
navigation in the Indian Ocean (Seland, 2016, 191).
It is difficult, however, to pinpoint when the Siddis’
ancestors first arrived in India (Kenoyer & Bhan,
2004, 44). After the end of the 10th century CE,
with the expansion of Islam into the north of India,
large numbers of military slaves arrived on the

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Also available online – www.brill
136 Siddi (of Northwestern India)
Ahmedabad
Gujarat Vadodara
Ratanpore
Gir National Park
Diu
Daman
Mumbai
Map: main areas inhabited by the Siddi.
subcontinent (Alpers, 2004, 27–28; Segal, 2001).
The slave trade flourished between the 9th and
11th centuries, during the peak of the Arab Empire,
and grew again in the mid-17th century, in response
to the increased demand for slaves in the Ottoman
and Mughal Empires. Europeans were also involved
in this trade, beginning with the Portuguese, from
the 16th century onward. The British, the French, the
Dutch, Omani Arabs, and Hindus were implicated,
until the abolition of slavery in 1843. Unofficially,
however, the trade continued well into the 20th cen-
tury (de Silva Jayasuriya & Pankhust, 2003, 9–13).
Most of the African slaves probably came from
East Africa and “included a predominant number
of Abyssinians, or Ethiopians” (de Silva Jayasuriya
& Pankhust, 2003, 8). Although much of the Afri-
can population may have arrived as slaves, Africans
have occupied various positions in Indian society.
Some were employed as military slaves, servants,
musicians, bodyguards, eunuchs, concubines, or
laborers. Others became soldiers, merchants, trad-
ers, sailors, policemen, or architects. Some African
Indians occupied positions of power and prestige,
as nobles, administrators, or even rulers (see Rob-
bins & McLeod, 2006). Throughout Indian history,
some African people and their descendants have
developed different empowerment strategies, such
as creating African alliances, articulating their
self-conscious outsider identities to redefine them-
selves in Indian society (Obeng, 2003, 106–107).
In Gujarat, Siddis also used their common ori-
gins as well as Sufi Islam to shape their commu-
nity. Although Siddis share African roots, their
forebears’ migration routes may have been com-
pletely distinct. Still, from Gujarat to Mumbai,
Siddis now identify with one jāti (community by
birth), which they often call “our Siddi caste,” shar-
ing the bodily signs of black skin and frizzy hair “as
well as a common history of crossing the sea” and
being a “special community of Gujarati Muslims”
(Basu, 2008b, 169).
Siddis from Gujarat and Diu are Sunni Muslims
and venerate African saints. Since most Muslim
Siddis living in Mumbai “consider themselves as
migrants from Gujarat,” they continue to marry their
children to Gujarati Siddis (Shroff, 2007, 306), and
venerate the same African saints, all further men-
tions of Gujarati Siddis will also include Mumbai
Siddis.
The Shrine of Bava Gor
In Gujarat, Siddis venerate three main African-Sufi
patron saints: Bava Gor or Gorī Pīr (“Saint of the
Tomb”; see below), his younger brother Bava Habaš,
and their sister Mai Miṣra. Habaš is the Arabic name
for Ethiopia, while Miṣra (Arab. miṣr) stands for
Egypt. These regions were important suppliers of
slaves long before the extension of the slave trade
down to the Swahili coast (Basu, 2008a, 232).
The shrines (dargah) of the three saints are
located near Ratanpore, a village of Bharuch district
in south Gujarat. The earliest reference to Gorī Pīr/
Bava Gor dates from the 16th century. The Muslim
historian Ḥājjī ad-Dabir, who wrote Ẓafar ul wālih
bi Muẓaffar wa ālihi (An Arabic History of Gujarat),
mentioned that the sulṭān Maḥmūd Šāh Ḫaljī (1436–
1469) undertook a pilgrimage to the tomb of an Abys-
sinian saint named Gorī Pīr in the year 1451, during a
military campaign through Gujarat (Basu, 2004, 62).
In the first half of the 19th century, British colonial
officers visited the area in search of carnelian mines
and met Siddis, caretakers of Gorī Pīr’s shrine, whom
they described as “negroes” (Basu, 2004, 62).
Bava Gor is identified as a kulpīr (lineage saint) by
the Siddis of Gujarat (Basu, 2003, 236). Siddis nar-
rate different versions of the story of their patron
saints. According to many Gujarati Siddis, Bava Gor
was a Sufi mystic, a military leader, and/or a stone
merchant born in Sudan who developed the agate
industry between India and Africa. His real name
was Sīdī Mubārak Nōbi/Nubi (Nubi is the Arabic
name for Nubia, also important supplier of slaves)
and his qabīlah (tribe/clan) was Nuba. They say that
while in Mecca, around 1300, Bava Gor received an
order to go to India from the prophet Muḥammad
through a bašārat (vision). He was to go to Guja-
rat and fight a demoness named Makhan Devī
 Siddi (of Northwestern India)
Fig. 1: dargahs of Bava Gor and Mai Miṣra, built side by side on a hill. They symbolize the complementarity of male and female
African Sufi saints (photo by author).
(Butter Goddess). With the power of her black
magic, Makhan Devī led an empire in Hindustan
(India). Her realm, in Gujarat, could be seen from
Mecca, as the demoness kept a butter lamp burn-
ing, using over 20 kilograms of butter a day. She was
diabolical, and from the blood of the many people
she killed, she made her tilak (red mark on the fore-
head, generally worn by Hindus). However, Bava Gor
could not fight physically with a woman, since this
is forbidden by Islamic law. Bava Habaš, who came
to help his brother, had the same problem. Bava
Gor and the demoness thus played a board game to
determine a winner without physical contact, but
Makhan Devī used her black magic to cheat him.
Finally, Mai Miṣra crossed the sea (dariyā) with
her sisters in a dhow to help her brothers. She was
very powerful and buried Makhan Devī deep in the
earth, but Makhan Devī retained the ability to send
evil spirits (Guj. bhūt; Arab. jinn) to disturb people
that enter the shrine of the saints to be healed. Bava
Gor is said to have come with an army of African
followers whose descendants are the present Siddis
of Gujarat.
Bava Gor’s story can be regarded as the founding
myth of the Siddi community in Gujarat. It assigns
a purpose other than slavery to their immigration:
their ancestral saint came to Gujarat to free people
from black magic and to spread Sufi Islam in India.
137
Thus, the physical features of Siddis, often devalued
by Gujarati society, are reversed into a kinship link
between Siddis and regarded by them “as the seat
of karāmāt (magical powers) inherited from their
‘ancestor saints.’” (Basu, 2008a, 230–231).
The ideology of the worship of Bava Gor is embed-
ded in a cosmic order, structured by the Sufi prin-
ciples of closeness to God. Thus, God (Allāh) is set
above a hierarchy of saints, humans, and demons.
Saints are closer to God and higher than human
beings, whereas demons and evil spirits are opposed
to God (Basu, 1998, 121). The Siddi saints play the
role of mediators between human beings and Allāh.
Many people come to the dargah of a Sufi saint to
make duʿāʾ (Arab., a request to Allāh). They believe
their wishes will be granted through the saint, who
is a walī Allāh (a friend of Allāh).
Today, čillas (memorial shrines) of the three Afri-
can saints can be found wherever Siddis have settled
in Gujarat and allow for local interaction between
Siddis. A čilla (lit. “a forty-days period of penances”)
generally refers to places of saintly visitation where
Sufi saints performed acts of meditation and ascet-
ism (Bellamy, 2011, xix; Harder, 2011, 33). Commonly,
čilla also refers to a memorial shrine (Shroff, 2004,
159; Catlin-Jairazbhoy, 2012, 75) or a local replica
of the tomb (mazār/dargah) of a Sufi saint, where
his spiritual power operates and his followers can
138 Siddi (of Northwestern India)
Fig. 2: Bava Gor’s čilla in Ahmedabad, held by a family of women mujāvars, ritual performers and administrators of the memo-
rial shrine (photo by author).
make duʿāʾ. Many Siddis from neighboring towns
are invited to celebrate annual festivals in the čilla
of another Siddi community. These festivals also
link local Siddi jamāts to other Muslim or Hindu
castes, who regularly come to the čillas because
they believe in the power of the saints. However, the
most important and spiritually preeminent place for
Gujarati Siddis is the dargah in Ratanpore of Bava
Gor, Mai Miṣra, and Bava Habaš, where the saints are
said to have been buried.
ʿUrs, Goma, and the Healing Power
of the Siddis
Annual festivals celebrated by Siddis from various
parts of Gujarat attract thousands of followers from
different religious communities. One of the most
important is the annual ʿurs of Bava Gor, during the
rajab month of the Islamic calendar. ʿUrs means
wedding in Arabic. In India, it refers to the death
anniversary of a saint, that is, to his mystical union
with God. “The saint’s day is said to be a powerful
occasion in which one can be cured of all kinds of
affliction” (van der Veer, 1992, 553). Many Siddis from
different parts of Gujarat told me that they meet
during the ʿurs in Ratanpore. This has enabled them
to develop kinship ties by intermarriage between
geographically separate Siddi communities. Indeed,
I was told that the marriage network has become
much more extensive in the past decades as more
and more Siddis are attending the ʿurs of Bava Gor.
Thus, the common veneration of African saints has
created links between remote Siddi settlements.
During the ʿurs and other festivals, Siddis per-
form Siddi goma, also called Siddi dhamāl (Guj.;
fun): music specifically devoted to their saints and
related to their African origins. Goma is derived
from Swahili ngoma, which means, among other
things, “drumming, singing and dancing” or “is
the umbrella term for cults of affliction associated
with spirit possession and the healing of conse-
quent mental or physical disorder” (Basu, 2008b,
163–164). To H. Basu, Siddi goma has more in
common with such rituals in Zanzibar than with
northern Indian Sufism (Basu, 2008b, 170–171).
In Zanzibar, one popular form of spirit posses-
sion is called ngoma ya habshia, which specifically
relates to a class of Ethiopian spirits. Bava Habaš is
ascribed an Ethiopian origin. Thus, Ethiopian spirits
followed Siddi seafarers to Gujarat but were prob-
ably transformed by their journey – from Ethiopian
spirits into Muslim saints from Ethiopia (Basu,
2008b, 165).
 Siddi (of Northwestern India)
Fig. 3: Siddi goma/dhamāl performed during the Bava Gor ʿurs festival, in front of the saint’s dargah (photo by author).
During the goma, a group of Siddi men play the
drums and women accompany them with a coconut
rattle instrument covered by a bāndhānī (tie-dye tex-
tile) called mai miṣra, from the name of Bava Gor’s
sister. The Siddi goma is sometimes accompanied by
the malūnga (string-bow instrument) that few peo-
ple play nowadays. Male and female Siddis sing ḍikr
(Arab. sacred devotional songs) to their saints and
to Ḥażrat Bilal in Bantu languages (mainly Swahili),
but also in Hindi, Gujarati, and Arabic.
Indeed, Siddis also trace their heritage to Ḥażrat
Bilal, who was a slave and the first black African fol-
lower of the prophet Muḥammad (Catlin-Jairazbhoy,
2004, 181). One Siddi goma song is dedicated to
Ḥażrat Bilal. While goma is performed, some Siddis
are possessed by one of the saints who speaks
through them to their descendants. This posi-
tive form of possession (Pers. ḥāl, spiritual state or
trance) is directly related to the heat created by Siddi
goma (Basu, 1993, 296). Thus, goma is the medium
for Siddis to communicate with their saints through
“African-derived drums” (Catlin-Jairazbhoy, 2004,
183) and other sacred instruments.
Siddis are divided into ritual specialists ( faqīrs)
and lay persons. In the shrines of the three African
Sufi saints, faqīrs mediate the powers of the saints
139
and perform ritual services (Basu, 2008b, 171). Devo-
tees come to the shrine to appeal to the saints, in
the hope of curing illness caused by spirit posses-
sion, barrenness in women, and impotence in men,
but also to receive judgments by ordeal (Basu, 2004,
66). Trance (Guj. hājrī) produced by an evil spirit is
negative and must be cured, unlike the positive ḥāl
induced by Siddi goma (Basu, 1993, 296). Thus, the
ritual of the shrine is designed to transform dukh
(Guj.; sorrow, pain) into majā (Guj.; joy, fun), as dukh
is located close to the demonic and majā, mediated
through Siddi goma, is associated with the saint
(Basu, 1998, 125–126). Some rituals related to Bava
Gor or Bava Habaš are performed by males, others,
related to Mai Miṣra, by females, and some by both.
H. Basu has shown how the descendants of African
women slaves have symbolically transformed the
trauma of their great-grandmothers into a “powerful
African holy woman who crossed the ocean not as a
victim, but as a rescuer” (Basu, 2008a, 254). Indeed,
the power of Mai Miṣra and the predominant role of
female faqīrs in rituals are specific to this shrine. This
complementarity between male and female saints
“displays a remarkable synthesis of female-centered
practices of African possession with male-centered
South Asian versions of Sufism” (Basu, 2008a, 236).
140 Siddi (of Northwestern India)
Fig. 4: the power of the African female saint: possession rituals in the dargah of Mai Miṣra (photo by author).
Initiation to the Siddi Faqīr Order
Bava Gor is said to have created his own Sufi order
and silsilā (Pers.; spiritual genealogy), often called
Siddi Faqīrī, connecting Siddis to their ancestral
saint by ritual performativity. However, not all Sid-
dis are part of this Siddi faqīr brotherhood.
This brotherhood, like many traditions of saints
in India, is based on a teacher-disciple (pīr-murīd)
relationship. But while the spiritual master is called
muršid as in other Sufi orders, the disciple is named
bāḷka (Guj. child; fem. bāḷki). This creates a special
parent-child relationship between Siddis and their
ancestor-saints. The disciples are initiated into the
faqīr brotherhood (van der Veer, 1992, 550–551).
However, the gaddī varās (lit. “inheritor of the
throne”), head of the initiation ritual and represen-
tative of Bava Gor (Shroff, 2016; Basu, 1998), inherits
his position by birth (van der Veer, 1992, 550–551)
and is considered to be descended from Bava Gor’s
royal family. The “sacred balka ceremony” (Shroff,
2016, 148) is celebrated once a year on a Friday, at
sunset. It takes place in the house where Bava Gor
is said to have first settled in Ratanpore, and many
community members attend it. Women bathe at
home and dress for the ceremony (Shroff, 2016, 148).
Men are taken aside by an elder; they cast away their
clothes (never to be worn again) and take a bath
(Pers. ġusl) with purified water. After their bath,
they change their loincloth for one of white cotton.
Passages from a sacred book in Persian are read out
at different moments of the ritual. Both men and
women wear a kafan (Pers.; white cotton cloth used
to cover a dead body) symbolizing their rebirth or,
according to the Siddi man who told me of his ini-
tiation, the renunciation of material things. After
the bath, they enter the main ritual place. Then, the
gaddī varās drinks a sacred sweet drink from a cup
(Pers. piyālā) and offers this cup to the disciple who,
in turn, drinks from it. The bāḷka/bāḷki is then wel-
comed into the Siddi faqīr brotherhood and receives
a new name symbolizing his or her new identity
(Shroff, 2016, 148–149).
This ceremony usually takes place on the day fol-
lowing another ʿurs (commonly used for celebration
and not for a death anniversary, in this case) of Bava
Gor’s cašma (Pers.; water reservoir), celebrated to
honor the water reservoir in Bava Gor’s shrine after
the end of the rainy season, when it is filled with
water. During this ceremony, the leader of the Rifāʿī
Sufi order in Gujarat (see below), comes as a special
guest. He announces the names of the disciples who
are to be initiated the following day. However, he
never attends the initiation ceremony itself. Thus, to
the Rifāʿī, the Siddi Faqīrī’s initiation ritual relates to
a separate subcult.
 Siddi (of Northwestern India)
Fig. 5: goma/dhamāl played by Siddis around their guest, the Rifāʿī sajjāda našīn (hereditary successor) of Vadodara, in front of
Bava Gor’s cašma during its celebration day (photo by author).
Siddis and the Rifāʿī Brotherhood
Many Gujarati Siddis also follow Rifāʿī pīrs (spiritual
guides). This relationship is said to date from the
time of Bava Gor, who was the first Siddi to be initi-
ated to the Rifāʿī mystical path by Ismāʿīl bin Siddīk
Jabarotī, who received the qalīfa (spiritual delega-
tion of the authority of the pīr) from one of the
descendants of Sayyid Aḥmad Kabīr Rifāʿī or Aḥmad
al-Rifāʿī (1118–1182), the Irakian founder of the Rifāʿī
order. His brotherhood later spread out across Egypt,
the Ottoman Empire, the Balkans, Iran, India, Cey-
lon, and Indonesia (Zarcone, 2009, 48). Bava Gor’s
link with the Rifāʿī silsilā is written in the Rifāʿī ṡajra
(Pers., genealogy), which I consulted in Vadodara in
2017, when I met the Rifāʿī sajjāda našīn, hereditary
successor and living saint (pīr) of a Rifa’i Sufi order
in Vadodara. In fact, many Siddis were unsure of the
exact silsilā relationship between Bava Gor and the
Rifāʿī and advised me to ask their pīr. Some said that
Sīdī Mubārak Nobi, while on his way to Gujarat, met
his Rifāʿī master in Baghdad and was renamed Bava
Ġūr (“Saint of the Deep Pit/Valley”), which later
became Bava Gor (“Saint of the Tomb”; Urd. gor,
tomb; Catlin-Jairazbhoy, 2004, 184–185).
Rifāʿī pīrs are sayyids, that is, saints that claim
descent from the family of the prophet and maintain
141
that they possess charisma by blood, which means
that their social status is higher. In this Sufi hierar-
chy, Siddis constitute one of the servant castes. But
Siddis claim to have a similar (though lower-order)
charisma, transmitted by birth from their African
saintly ancestors by reason of a special gift bestowed
on them by their apical ancestor, Ḥażrat Bilal (Basu,
1998, 118–119). This shows how their African origins
are used to claim a higher social position within the
Muslim community.
Furthermore, Siddis hold a privileged position
during the ʿurs festival at the Rifāʿī ḫānqāh (Pers.
house), dargah of Sayyid Faḫr al-Dīn Rifāʿī in Vado-
dara, and may additionally, through goma, use their
majā to make fun of superiors and temporarily
reverse the Rifāʿī authority. “Islamic wisdom repre-
sented by Rifa’i contains its opposite, the ‘natural
knowledge’ received as a gift from the saints by the
holy fool,” and this opposition serves to define the
boundaries of a regional Muslim community (Basu,
1995, 167). Thus, a Muslim Siddi caste, through the
stories and power of its saints, has gained a certain
position in a network of Sufi shrines in Gujarat,
temporarily negotiating its low Muslim caste status
through Siddi goma and its African origin.
142 Siddi (of Northwestern India)
Fig. 6: the Rifāʿī ṡajra book page mentioning the exact silsilā link
between Bava Gor and the Rifāʿī order (photo by author).
The Creation of a Muslim
Siddi Caste
H. Basu’s analyses aid our understanding of how
links between Africans and their descendants, arriv-
ing in Gujarat at different times and from different
backgrounds, developed over time. According to
her, the shrine of Bava Gor provided a material basis
for subsistence for slaves or servants who fled from
their masters. This helped to form the Siddi Faqīrī
organization, referred to as a Sufi path (ṭarīqah), that
developed into a new syncretic subculture from the
19th century onward. Ever since, Siddi faqīrs moved
in small groups, performed Siddi goma, and col-
lected alms from the people in towns and villages.
The malūnga (string-bow instrument of African
origin) accompanied their songs, and became an
emblem of Siddi faqīrs. Initiation rituals were estab-
lished to join and contributed to the formation of a
distinct Siddi community (Basu, 2004, 63, 82). These
rituals created links through a spiritual genealogy
connecting the living with the founders. Thus, the
association of black skin and frizzy hair with low
status becomes a positive sign that gives Siddis spe-
cial powers. Siddi faqīrs became spiritual specialists,
mediating between human suffering and the power
of their African saints (particularly through goma),
transforming dukh into majā, and linking people to
the African saints through the ḥāl.
The veneration of common African patron saints
in dargahs and čillas has provided an important
opportunity for contact between Siddis in search
of community (Shroff, 2016, 139). Bava Gor’s shrine
became the center of a Siddi faqīr brotherhood
(Basu, 2008b, 171), connecting Siddis from all over
Gujarat to Mumbai. The worship of Bava Gor as a
lineage saint became a founding myth of the Siddi
jāti, as the community has come to be known owing
to its adoption of the social organization of Hindu
and Muslim castes in India.
Bava Gor’s past relationship with the Rifāʿī order
integrated Siddis, as a Muslim caste, into a wider field
of popular Sufism. Goma carried musical practices
and spirit possession from Africa into local Sufism
and created a common symbolic universe that acts
as a defense against the stigma attached to schemes
of social classifications in Gujarat (Basu, 2008b, 174).
Conclusion
Indian society is strictly determined by group mem-
bership: everybody belongs to a community by birth.
In Gujarat, African people and their descendants,
have used their common African origins to forge
their own jāti. Thus, they have created a singular
integrative cosmology through Sufi-African patron
saints, and linked their community to a wider field of
popular Sufism, as a special Muslim caste.
P.S. Meier highlights how Siddis in Gujarat have
been encouraged to emphasize their Africanity
albeit in an exotic way: by government programs
promoting the multiculturalism of India, but also by
scholars’ recent interest in the African diaspora in
the Indian Ocean and in the Africanness of Siddis
(Meier, 2004, 93–94). Thus, Siddi goma groups have
been performing nationally and internationavlly for
several decades.
Today, however, Gujarati Siddis often stress that
this is not enough to empower themselves, and
that a Siddi federation at the state level is needed to
fight for their political and economic benefits, like
obtaining Scheduled Tribes status for all Gujarati
Siddis. Some Siddis also plan to organize trade con-
nections, enabling Siddis to benefit directly from
their community’s work, as other castes do. Since
2018, an association of Gujarati Siddis from different
areas has developed: the Samast Sidi Aadijati Samaj
Utkarsh Samiti Surva (Gir) (All Sidi Tribe Society
 Siddi (of Northwestern India)
Advancement Committee Surva [Gir]). Their proj-
ect aims to organize safaris and build a tourist
resort in the Gir National Park, where many Siddis
live. Thus, unemployed Siddis could find work and
Siddi culture would be promoted, for instance, by
performing Siddi goma for tourists. This new group
emerged on social media, where the members liv-
ing in different areas could easily interact. In the last
few years, various social media groups created by
Siddis have attempted to connect people of African
descent from all over India, and even Sheedis of
Pakistan. In 2015, two Siddis from Karnataka and
Mumbai who met via social media founded the first
pan-Siddi organization, the Siddi India Foundation.
Furthermore, personal contacts between Siddis
has increased through the use of social media.
In the past few years, some marriages have taken
place between Siddi women from Karnataka and
Siddi men from Gujarat, who met via social media.
One example is the marriage of a Christian Siddi
woman from Karnataka and a Muslim Siddi man
from Mumbai, originally from Gujarat, in 2016. The
couple met while commenting on a Siddi goma pho-
tograph posted in a Siddi social media group. They
corresponded privately and decided to marry. I met
the couple in Ahmedabad in 2017, while the woman
was pregnant with their first child. They both agreed
that religion was not important for their union; they
chose each other because they were both Siddis. Still,
Gujarati Siddis often stress that marriage exchanges
would be possible only if Christian and Hindu Siddis
from Karnataka converted to their faith. They also
say that they cannot marry Tabligh Muslims Siddis
from Karnataka, since the latter oppose the venera-
tion of saints.
For Sufi Siddi Muslims, however, Bava Gor’s
dargah represents a new hope for their develop-
ment and unity. A majority of non-Siddis had taken
over the control of the shrine and, for more than 25
years, Siddis had been fighting in courts to regain the
administration of the shrine (see Basu, 2004). This
was achieved in February 2020, and Siddis are now
the sole beneficiaries and managers of the shrine.
In March 2020, for the first time, about 20 Muslim
Siddis from Karnataka traveled with their fami-
lies to attend Bava Gor’s ʿurs in Ratanpore. Indeed,
some Siddis from Karnataka worshipped Bava Gor
but did not know the saint’s story, or the location of
his dargah.
A man named Mohhamadsab, who had come
from Karnataka, explained to me that he had met
a Siddi from Gujarat in 2019, during a Sufi pilgrim-
age to Ajmer (Rajasthan). They recognised each
143
other as Siddi, and the Siddi from Gujarat told him
about the Bava Gor ʿurs festival. The Siddis from
Karnataka and Gujarat who met during this ʿurs
were very enthusiastic about this new perspective
for Siddi unification at the national level, thanks to
their Siddi saints. After having been a meeting place
for Siddis in Gujarat for at least two hundred years,
Bava Gor’s shrine might become a platform for Sufi
Siddi networks at a national level, though only two
decades ago Siddis from Karnataka and Gujarat
were unaware of each other’s existence.
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Sofia Péquignot
 Brill’s Encyclopedia of the Religions
of the Indigenous People of South Asia
HANDBOOK OF ORIENTAL STUDIES
HANDBUCH DER ORIENTALISTIK

SECTION TWO
SOUTH ASIA
edited by
Muzaffar Alam (University of Chicago, USA)
Johannes Bronkhorst (University of Lausanne, Switzerland)
Knut A. Jacobsen (University of Bergen, Norway)

VOLUME 36

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ho2

 Brill’s Encyclopedia of the Religions
of the Indigenous People of South Asia

Editor-in-Chief
Marine Carrin

Section Editors
Michel Boivin (Pakistan and Ladakh)
Marine Carrin (Central India)
Paul Hockings (South India, Sri Lanka, and Andaman
and Nicobar Islands)
Raphaël Rousseleau (Central India)
Tanka B. Subba (Northeast India and Bangladesh)
Harald Tambs-Lyche (Western India)
Gérard Toffin (Nepal)

LEIDEN | BOSTON
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/

Cover motifs: fragment of Konyak Naga fabric and on the spine part of Konyak Naga necklace made of bone
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ISSN 0169-9377
ISBN 978-90-04-35552-1

Copyright 2021 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

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This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

 Table of Contents

List of Contributors ............................................................................................................................................. vii

Journals .................................................................................................................................................................. xx
General Abbreviations ....................................................................................................................................... xxvi

General Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 1

Western India
Introduction .......................................................................................................................................................... 19
Bhil (General) ....................................................................................................................................................... 33
Bhil (of West Khandesh) .................................................................................................................................... 43
Indigenous People of Gujarat ........................................................................................................................... 57
Mina ........................................................................................................................................................................ 67
Pastoralists (Hindu) ............................................................................................................................................ 78
Pastoralists (Sindhi-Muslim) ............................................................................................................................ 89
Rathwa .................................................................................................................................................................... 102
Siddi (of Northwestern India) .......................................................................................................................... 135

Central India
Introduction .......................................................................................................................................................... 147
Asur ......................................................................................................................................................................... 169
Birhor ...................................................................................................................................................................... 174
Dongria Kond ....................................................................................................................................................... 183
Gadaba ................................................................................................................................................................... 207
Ho ............................................................................................................................................................................ 219
Indigenous People of the Bastar Plateau ....................................................................................................... 235
Jodia Poraja ........................................................................................................................................................... 244
Kuttia Kond ........................................................................................................................................................... 254
Munda .................................................................................................................................................................... 263
Oraon ...................................................................................................................................................................... 273
Pardhan .................................................................................................................................................................. 293
Paudi Bhuiyan ...................................................................................................................................................... 304
Rana ........................................................................................................................................................................ 315
Santal ...................................................................................................................................................................... 324
Saora ....................................................................................................................................................................... 353

South India
Introduction .......................................................................................................................................................... 373
Badaga .................................................................................................................................................................... 387
Indigenous People of the Nilgiris .................................................................................................................... 397
Konda Reddi ......................................................................................................................................................... 408
Kota ......................................................................................................................................................................... 418
Mala Pandaram .................................................................................................................................................... 428
Nayaka .................................................................................................................................................................... 436
Paliyan .................................................................................................................................................................... 444
Rawla ...................................................................................................................................................................... 453
Siddi (of Karnataka) ........................................................................................................................................... 462

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 BERIPSA

Also available online – www.brill
vi Table of Contents
Sri Lanka
Vedda/Wannilaeto .............................................................................................................................................. 475

Andaman and Nicobar Islands

Indigenous People of the Andaman Islands ................................................................................................. 485
Indigenous People of the Nicobar Islands .................................................................................................... 495

Bangladesh
Indigenous People of the Chittagong Hill Tracts ........................................................................................ 507

Northeast India
Introduction .......................................................................................................................................................... 523
Angami Naga ......................................................................................................................................................... 537
Apatani ................................................................................................................................................................... 553
Chakma .................................................................................................................................................................. 565
Garo ......................................................................................................................................................................... 575
Idu Mishmi ............................................................................................................................................................ 585
Indigenous People of Sikkim ............................................................................................................................ 598
Khasi ....................................................................................................................................................................... 610
Konyak Naga ......................................................................................................................................................... 622
Lepcha .................................................................................................................................................................... 634
Lotha Naga ............................................................................................................................................................ 642
Naga ........................................................................................................................................................................ 652
Pnar ......................................................................................................................................................................... 672
Sherdukpen ........................................................................................................................................................... 683
Sumi Naga .............................................................................................................................................................. 693
Tangsa ..................................................................................................................................................................... 702
Tiwa ......................................................................................................................................................................... 711
Zeliangrong Naga ................................................................................................................................................. 718

Nepal
Introduction .......................................................................................................................................................... 731
Kham Magar ......................................................................................................................................................... 743
Limbu ..................................................................................................................................................................... 753
Newar ...................................................................................................................................................................... 763
Rai ............................................................................................................................................................................ 785
Sherpa ..................................................................................................................................................................... 793
Tamang ................................................................................................................................................................... 802
Tharu ....................................................................................................................................................................... 816
Tou ........................................................................................................................................................................... 824

Ladakh
Indigenous People of Ladakh ........................................................................................................................... 835

Pakistan
Introduction .......................................................................................................................................................... 847
Bhil (of Pakistan) ................................................................................................................................................. 862
Indigenous People of Sindh .............................................................................................................................. 872
Indigenous People of the Swat Valley ............................................................................................................. 885
Kalash ..................................................................................................................................................................... 897
Pashtun .................................................................................................................................................................. 906

Index ....................................................................................................................................................................... 915

 List of Contributors

Ala Uddin, M., is professor of anthropology at the University of Chittagong, Bangladesh. His primary areas
of expertise include the indigenous culture, anthropology of religion, migration and diaspora, and the refu-
gee situation in Bangladesh. He has conducted research on religious pluralism, individual freedom, urban
poverty, health-seeking behavior, food and medicine, overseas migration of female workers, sociocultural
gerontology, and the plight of the Rohingya refugees. He has coauthored a book titled Theoretical Anthropol-
ogy (in Bengali) and authored a number of articles published in peer-reviewed national and international
journals of repute. Currently, he is researching the COVID-19 situation in Bangladesh.

Alles, Gregory D., is professor of religious studies at McDaniel College, Westminster MD, United States. His
fieldwork over the last decade has focused on the Rathwa and other Ādivāsīs in western Gujarat. A past presi-
dent of the North American Association for the Study of Religion and former executive editor of Numen, the
journal of the International Association for the History of Religions, he has published widely in the study of
religions. His publications include The Iliad, the Ramayana, and the Work of Religion (1994) and the edited
volume Religious Studies: A Global View (2008).

Andersen, Peter B., is associate professor in sociology of religions at the Department of Cross-Cultural and
Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. His main interest is the transformation of religion
in modernity. He has edited or written seven books and written 50 articles in journals and edited volumes,
of which the following books may be mentioned with regard to India: The Bodo of Assam: Revisiting a
Classical Study of 1950 (coauthored with S.K. Soren; 2015), From Fire Rain to Rebellion: Reasserting Ethnic
Identity through Narrative (coauthored with M. Carrin and S.K. Soren; 2011), Santals: Glimpses of Culture and
Identity (2005), and Re-interrogating the Civil Society in South Asia: Critical Perspectives from India, Pakistan
and Bangladesh (coedited with A. Prakash and R. Mehdi; 2021).

Angelova, Iliyana, was trained as a social anthropologist at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology,
University of Oxford, United Kingdom, and is currently working as a senior postdoctoral researcher at the
Institute for Religious Studies and Religious Education, University of Bremen, Germany, having previously
held teaching and postdoctoral positions at the universities of Oxford, Maynooth, Ireland, and Tübingen,
Germany. She is broadly interested in the anthropology of religion, especially contemporary Christianity
in South Asia, with a specific ethnographic focus on the Sumi Naga in northeast India. She has published
several book chapters and journal articles and is working on a book manuscript on Baptist Christianity and
the politics of identity among the Sumi Naga.

Barkataki-Ruscheweyh, Meenaxi, is research fellow at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropol-
ogy, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Her doctoral work explored the relation between perfor-
mance of ethnicity at festivals and the construction of ethnic identity, religious reformulation, and revival
movements, as well as the marginalization of small ethnic groups, with special reference to the Tangsa, in
northeast India. Besides her continuing study of the Tangsa, which has appeared as a monograph titled
Dancing to the State (2017), she has recently begun working with the Moran-Matak communities in upper
Assam. Her publications include several research articles, numerous chapters in edited volumes, the His-
torical Dictionary of the Peoples of the Southeast Asian Massif (22016; with J. Michaud and M. Swain), and her
latest coedited volume, Geographies of Difference (2017; with M. Vandenhelsken and B.G. Karlsson).

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 BERIPSA

Also available online – www.brill
viii List of Contributors
Beggiora, Stefano, is associate professor of history and literature of India and anthropology (Indian tribal
religions and society) in the Department of Asian and North African Studies at the Ca’ Foscari University of
Venice, Italy, where he received his PhD in 2006. He conducted extensive fieldwork missions and special-
izes in South Asian shamanism. He has published several articles, chapters, and books on Indian Ādivāsīs
(Saoras, Konds, Apatanis, etc.), colonial history, constitutional framework and laws for safeguarding the
Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes, contemporary history of political movements of India, and a post-
doctoral research, with fellowship granted by the European Social Fund, on Indian economics.

Bendíková, Soňa, obtained her PhD from the University of Economics and Charles University, Prague, Czech
Republic, where she later taught at the Department of South and Central Asia. She is currently affiliated
with the Metropolitan University Prague, focusing on Indian economy in an Asian context. She is a special-
ist in Tamil language and literature and in Indian tribal groups and economy. During her numerous visits
in southern, eastern, and northeastern India, she has studied the tribal communities and in particular their
traditional oral literature and rituals. She is a developmental and humanitarian worker with over five years of
experience ranging from policy and project implementation to monitoring and evaluation. In her academic
research of underprivileged social groups, she has drawn on her vast experience as a consultant, interna-
tional humanitarian, and nongovernmental organization worker.

Berger, Peter, is associate professor of Indian religions and anthropology of religion at the University of
Groningen, the Netherlands. His research focuses on the theory and history of anthropology, the anthropol-
ogy of religion, and indigenous religions. On the basis of his ethnographic research on Ādivāsī communities
of Odisha, he worked on local values, cosmology, rituals, food, death, kinship, economy, and cultural change.
His books include Feeding, Sharing and Devouring: Ritual and Society in Highland Odisha, India (2015) and
the coedited Godroads: Modalities of Conversion in India (2020), Ultimate Ambiguities: Investigating Death
and Liminality (2015), The Modern Anthropology of India (2013), and The Anthropology of Values (2010). He
published the article “Theory and Ethnography in the Modern Anthropology of India” in HAU: Journal of
Ethnographic Theory 2/2 (2012).

Bird-David, Nurit, is professor emerita of cultural anthropology at the University of Haifa, Israel (PhD in
social anthropology, Cambridge University, United Kingdom). Author of Us, Relatives: Scaling and Plural
Life in a Forager World (2017) and dozens of articles published in leading journals, her research interests
include hunter-gatherers’ economies; environmental perceptions and ontologies; shifting scales of practice
and imagination; alternative notions of nation and community; neoliberal notions of personhood, home,
and security; and the new algorithm-based “sharing economy.” Alongside her professorship at Haifa Univer-
sity, she was visiting professor at Cambridge University, Harvard University, and University College London.
She served as president of the Israeli Anthropological Association and was a recipient of the Lifetime
Achievement Award of the International Society for Hunter Gatherer Research.

Boivin, Michel, is director of the Centre for South Asian Studies (CNRS; École des hautes études en sciences
sociales [EHESS]), in Paris, France. Anthropologist and historian, he has conducted research on Sufism, Šīʾā,
pilgrimages and festivals, and visual and material culture with a focus on Pakistan and India. He is author
and editor of 17 books and special journal issues and numerous articles in journals and edited volumes on
various aspects of South Asian religions. His publications include Artefacts of Devotion: A Sufi Repertoire of
the Qalandariyya in Sehwan Sharif (South Pakistan) (2011), Le soufisme antinomien dans le sous-continent
indien (2012), Les âghâ khâns et les Khojah (2013), Le Pakistan et l’islam (2015), Historical Dictionary of the Sufi
Culture of Sindh in Pakistan and in India (2016), The Hindu Sufis of South Asia (2019), and The Sufi Paradigm
and the Making of a Vernacular Knowledge in Colonial India (2020).

Borde, Radhika, is a researcher in the Department of Social Geography and Regional Development at
Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, and is also a research consultant at the University of Brighton,
United Kingdom. She has published on social movements against mining, indigenous culture and religion,
 List of Contributors ix
sacred natural sites in India, rural sanitation and waste management, activist media, and Ādivāsī women’s
movements. She has a PhD from Wageningen University, the Netherlands, and is a steering committee mem-
ber of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) specialist group on the spiritual and cul-
tural values of nature. She is also a published poet and author of short fiction, as well as the founder of a
social enterprise in India.

Bouchery, Pascal, is associate professor (HDR) of social and cultural anthropology at the University of
Poitiers, France, where he has taught since 2002. He has carried out extensive ethnographic fieldwork in
southwest China and northeast India and has published widely on the various Tibeto-Burman-speaking
ethnic groups living on the eastern fringes of the Himalayan region. He has written on a variety of issues
including cultivation techniques; language; ethnic identity; traditional political organization; religion; and
mythology of the Hani of Yunnan, the Naga of Nagaland and Manipur, and the Apatani of Arunachal Pradesh.
His most recent research and publications focus on kinship and kinship terminologies. He is completing a
book on the kinship terminological systems of India’s northeast.

Bowen, Zazie, is an anthropologist and visiting fellow in the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research
at the Australian National University. Her research focuses on childhood and education ethnography in
India and Australia. Her work also intersects with medical anthropology and gender studies. Her publi-
cations include the coedited book Children and Knowledge: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives from
India (2019) and the article “Students, Schools, State: Interacting Circles of Educational Desire in Rural Odi-
sha” (2018). She is interested in the development of visual anthropology methodologies and their application
in research with children and young people. She also explores the involvement and participation of young
people in children’s services institutions within Australia.

Carrin, Marine, is director of research emerita at the Centre d’Anthropologie Sociale (Centre national de
la recherche scientifique [CNRS]), Toulouse, France. She has worked on Santal culture and on religion and
society in South Kanara, Karnataka. She is the author of La Fleur et l’Os: Symbolisme et rituel chez les Santal
(1986), Enfants de la Déesse: Prêtrise et dévotion féminine au Bengal (1997), Le Parler des Dieux: Le discours
rituel santal entre l’oral et l’écrit (2015), and a large number of articles. She is also coauthor of An Encounter
of Peripheries: Santals, Missionaries and Their Changing Worlds (with H. Tambs-Lyche; 2008), and From Fire
Rain to Rebellion: Reasserting Identity through Narratives (with P. Andersen and S. Soren; 2011). Additionally,
she has edited and coedited several books. Her current research focuses on indigenous knowledge.

Chaudhuri, Sarit K., is the founder head of the Department of Anthropology, Rajiv Gandhi University
(RGU), Arunachal Pradesh, India, where he currently works as a professor. He was the director of the
anthropology museum Indira Gandhi Rastriya Manav Sangrahalaya (IGRMS), Bhopal, India. He is a for-
mer member of a think tank affiliated to the Indian Ministry of Culture. He has received the Young
Scientist Award from the Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA) and a postdoctoral fellowship from the
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), United Kingdom. He has published 20 books and 60 articles
in various journals and edited volumes. Three of his recent books focus on the cultural heritage of northeast
India, and his research interests include indigenous religion, art, identity, cultural heritage, ethnographic
museums, and the dynamics of India’s northeastern borderlands.

Chiara, Matteo De, is maître de conférence of Pashto and Iranian philology at the Institut national des
langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO) of Paris, France, and a member of the Centre de recherche sur
le monde iranien (CeRMI) of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS). His primary areas
of expertise include Iranian philology, Pashto linguistics, and folklore studies. Among his works are The
Khotanese Sudhanāvadāna (2013; critical edition), and The Khotanese Sudhanāvadāna: Commentary
(2014); several articles on Pashto etymology; two volumes coauthored with D. Septfonds on the Pashto
verbal system, Le verbe pashto: Parcours d’un territoire du verbe simple à la locution verbale (2019) and Le
verbe pashto: Fiches des verbes simples non suffixés (forthcoming); a series of publications on folktales in
x List of Contributors
Iranian languages, Favole e racconti popolari del Kurdistan (2015; with D. Guizzo), Favole e racconti osseti
(2020; with L. Arys-Djanaeva), and Favole e leggende pashtun (forthcoming); and a study on the toponymy of
the Swat valley, Pakistan, Swāt Toponymy (forthcoming).

Das Gupta, Sanjukta, is associate professor of modern and contemporary Indian history at the Dipartimento
Istituto Italiano di Studi Orientali, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. Her research interests focus on agrar-
ian and environmental history, the social history of marginalized communities in India, women’s studies,
and emerging identities in colonial and contemporary South Asia. She is the author of Adivasis and the Raj:
Socio-economic Transition of the Hos, 1820–1932 (2011) and has coedited In Quest of the Historian’s Craft: Essays
in Honour of Prof. B.B. Chaudhuri (2018), Subjects, Citizens, and Law: Colonial and Postcolonial India (2017),
Narratives from the Margins: Aspects of Adivasi History in India (2019; 2012), and Narratives of the Excluded:
Caste Issues in Colonial India (2008).

Dasgupta, Sangeeta, teaches in the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi,
India, and is also senior research associate at the Centre for World Environmental History, University of
Sussex, United Kingdom. Her areas of interest include Ādivāsī studies, environmental history, anthropol-
ogy, missionary studies, and visual representations. Her forthcoming monograph, Reordering Adivasi
Worlds: Representation, Resistance, Memory, is due for publication in August 2021. She is coeditor of The Poli-
tics of Belonging in India: Becoming Adivasi (2011), guest editor for a special issue of the Indian Economic and
Social History Review titled Reading the Archive, Reframing Adivasi Histories, and guest coeditor for a special
issue of Studies in History, with the title Margins and the State: Caste, “Tribe” and Criminality in South Asia.

Dollfus, Pascale, is senior researcher at the Centre for Himalayan Studies (CEH), a Centre national de la
recherche scientifique (CNRS) research unit. Social anthropologist by training (PhD from Paris X – Nanterre
University, 1987), she has been studying populations of Tibetan culture in the western Indian Himalayas
(Ladakh, Kinnaur, Spiti) since 1980 and has more recently been researching the Sherdukpen, a small popu-
lation living in the West Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh. She is the author of books, journal articles,
and edited volumes on these groups’ social organization, the daily lives of nomadic herdsmen and sedentary
farmers, local religions and beliefs, and masks and festivals. Her books include Lieu de neige et de genévri-
ers (1989, repr. 2005), Ghurras Népal (2007), Les bergers du Fort Noir (2012), Khiksaba, with F. Jacquesson
(2013), and Mascarades en Himalaya, with G. Krauskopff (2014).

Egas, José, is a doctoral fellow at the Center for Indian and South Asian Studies (CEIAS) in Paris, France,
affiliated with the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS). His research focuses on the rela-
tion between the state and the Ādivāsīs of northern Kerala, with particular interest in the mutual dynamics
among castes and among identitarian construction, governmentality, and political representation. He has
published and presented his research at several conferences. Outside of India, he has conducted fieldwork
in Africa and among the indigenous groups in the Amazon region.

Fortier, Jana, is tenured lecturer in the Department of Anthropology and in the School of Global Policy and
Strategy at the University of California, San Diego, United States. Her research centers on resilience and sus-
tainability of endangered communities and the impact thereon of climate change, language loss, religious
persecution, and ethnocide. Her publications include the books Kings of the Forest: The Cultural Resilience of
Himalayan Hunter-Gatherers (2009) and A Comparative Dictionary of Raute and Rawat (2019). Her research
has been funded by the Fulbright Foundation, Wenner-Gren Foundation, the National Endowment for the
Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Gaenszle, Martin, is professor of cultural and intellectual history of modern South Asia at the Department
of South Asian, Tibetan, and Buddhist Studies, University of Vienna, Austria. He is also director of the Cen-
ter for Interdisciplinary Research and Documentation of Inner and South Asian Cultural History (CIRDIS)
at the same university. His scholarly interests include religious pluralism, ethnicity, local history, and oral
 List of Contributors xi
traditions in South Asia, in particular Nepal and the Himalayan region. He is the author of Origins and
Migrations (2000) and Ancestral Voices (2002), and has coauthored Rai Mythology (with K. Ebert; 2008).
Among his edited volumes are Visualizing Space in Banaras (with J. Gengnagel; 2006) and Ritual Speech in
the Himalayas (2018).

Gardner, Peter M., obtained his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, United States, in 1965. He is pro-
fessor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Missouri and has previously taught at the University
of Texas, United States, with a research focus on forager groups in south India and the Canadian Subarctic.
His major publications include Northern Dene Thought and Communication, with J.M. Christian (1977),
“Bicultural Oscillation as a Long-Term Adaptation to Cultural Frontiers” (1985), “Foragers’ Pursuit of
Individual Autonomy” (1991), “Pragmatic Meanings of Possession in Paliyan Shamanism” (1991), Bicultural
Versatility as a Frontier Adaptation among Paliyan Foragers of South India (2000), and Journeys to the Edge
(2006). He has also written on Hindu ascription of purity to south Indian foragers, foragers’ acculturation
in the deep past, the structure of Indian civilization, creative performance in Tamil sculpture, and theory
sets in science.

Ghosh, Abhik, is professor of social anthropology at the Department of Anthropology, Panjab University,
Chandigarh, India. He completed his MA, MPhil, and PhD in anthropology at the Department of Anthro-
pology, University of Delhi, India, with a research focus on tribal symbolism in Jharkhand. He began his
teaching career in 1998, and, alongside lecturing, he has been involved in research projects in northwest and
central India. He wrote six books (e.g. The World of the Oraon, 2006) and several research articles in national
and international journals of repute as well as in edited books. His interests include ecology, health, prehis-
tory, and policy analyses. He has also been a lead author for the United Nations’ Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment.

Ghosh-Das Talukdar, Sharmila, was born and pursued her education in Shillong, Meghalaya, India. Her
PhD dissertation was published in 2004, with the title Khasi Cultural Resistance to Colonialism. She taught
anthropology for many years at the Women’s College, Shillong, and has previously lectured as guest faculty
member at the Department of Anthropology, North-Eastern Hill University, and at the Mass Media and
Media Technology Department, St. Anthony’s College, both in Shillong. Since her transfer to Chandigarh,
she has worked with nongovernmental organizations in the health sector and also taught as guest faculty at
the Department of Anthropology, Panjab University, Chandigarh. Having grown up in Meghalaya, her inter-
ests revolve around the Khasi/Pnar communities, and she has published works mainly dealing with this
group’s ethnicity-identity issues, religion, healthcare, and so forth. She is currently a freelance consultant.

Gregory, Chris, is professor emeritus of anthropology at the Australian National University, where he has
been teaching since 1984. Originally trained as an economist, he developed an interest in anthropology while
working as a lecturer in economics at the University of Papua New Guinea from 1973 to 1975. He conducted
postdoctoral research in India in 1982–1983 and made some 16 short return visits to the Bastar district over
the next 36 years. His initial research focused on economic anthropology, but his interest has broadened
to include the relationship among politics, economics, and religion. Since 1991, he has been working on
the oral epics of the Halbi-speaking gurumais. With H. Vaishnav, he has published Lachmi Jagar: Gurumai
Sukdai’s Story of the Bastar Rice Goddess (2003), a trilingual Halbi–Hindi–English prose summary of one
epic intended primarily for the people of Bastar. They have recently completed an English translation of the
complete 31,000-line poem.

Guidolin, Monica, obtained a BA and a MA in Indian studies and languages at Ca’ Foscari University of
Venice, Italy, a second MA in social sciences of southern and oriental Asia at the École des Hautes Études en
Sciences Sociales (EHESS) of Paris, France, and a PhD in social anthropology and ethnology from EHESS. She
has been engaged in a long-term process of ethnographic research and fieldwork in Madhya Pradesh, India.
xii List of Contributors
Her research focuses on ethnographic and ethnohistorical configurations of identity and ritual dynamics
in the Gond-Pardhan interrelations. As a researcher, she is associated with the Centre for Indian and South
Asian Studies (CEIAS), Paris. She participated in the making of a documentary titled Kinnaur Himalaya
(2019) as scientific consultant and coproducer and published a book titled Gli strangolatori di Kali: Il culto
thag tra immaginario e realtà storica (2012).

Guillaume-Pey, Cécile, is a Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) research fellow at the Centre
d’études de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud (CEIAS), Paris, France. She obtained her PhD in social anthropology
from the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), with a dissertation focused on the ritual
practices of the Saora, a tribal group of central-eastern India. Her project as a Fyssen Foundation postdoc-
toral research fellow at University College Cork, Ireland, and as an ISM fellow at Yale University, United
States, entitled From Ritual Images to Animated Movies, investigated the reshaping of Saora murals into art.
Her current research project, which began when she was a fellow at the Centre français de recherche en sci-
ences sociales (CEFRES) in Prague, Czech Republic, and collaborating with the Laboratoire d’Excellence en
histoire et anthropologie des savoirs, des techniques et des croyances (LabEx HASTEC) in Paris, focuses on a
script created in the 1930s by a Saora teacher for the purpose of transcribing his language.

Guneratne, Arjun, is professor of anthropology at Macalester College in Saint Paul MN, United States, where
he has taught since 1995. His research interests include the formation of ethnic identity, environmental
activism, and the history of science, particularly of ornithology. He is the author or editor of six books and
numerous articles on topics ranging from Tharu identity, social organization, and religion in Nepal to politics
and environmental activism in Sri Lanka. He is currently writing a book on the social history of ornithology
in Sri Lanka, looking in particular at the role played by amateurs in the development of that science. His
books include Many Tongues, One People: The Making of Tharu Identity in Nepal (2002), Culture and the Envi-
ronment in the Himalaya (2010), and Pathways to Power: The Domestic Politics of South Asia (2014).

Guzy, Lidia, Dr. hab., is director of the Marginalised and Endangered Worldviews Study Centre (MEWSC)
and lecturer in contemporary South Asian religions at the University College Cork (UCC), National Univer-
sity of Ireland. She is a social anthropologist and a scientist of religions, specializing in the anthropology of
religions and in global indigenous studies. She is author and editor of around 20 books and numerous arti-
cles in journals and edited volumes on various aspects on South Asian and indigenous religions. She served
as guest editor of Journal of Adivasi and Indigenous Studies 10/2, The Performative Power of Indian Tribal Art
(2020), and as editor of Marginalised and Endangered Worldviews (2017), of the Irish Journal of Anthropology
special issue 1–2, Emerging Adivasi and Indigenous Studies in Ireland (2015–2016), and of Marginalised Music:
Music, Religion and Politics from the Bora Sambar Region of Western Odisha (2013).

Hardenberg, Roland, is professor of social and cultural anthropology at Goethe University in Frankfurt,
Germany. Since 2017, he is also the director of the Frobenius Institute for Research in Cultural Anthropol-
ogy, Frankfurt. He has conducted research on royal rituals and the Jagannatha temple in Puri, Odisha, India
(1995–1996); on the buffalo sacrifice, marriage rituals, and social organization of the Dongria Kond in the
Rayagada district, Odisha, India (2001–2003); and on the graveyards and burial rituals at the Issyk Köl,
Kyrgyzstan (2006–2007). His most recent monographs and edited volumes include The Children of the Earth
Goddess: Society, Marriage and Sacrifice in the Highlands of Odisha (2018), Resource Cultures: Sociocultural
Dynamics and the Use of Resources – Theories, Methods, Perspectives (2017), and Approaching Ritual Economy:
Socio-cosmic Fields in Globalised Contexts (2016).

Heidemann, Frank, is professor of social and cultural anthropology at the University of Munich, Germany.
His regional focus is South India, Sri Lanka, the Andamans, the Laccadives, and the Maldives. His postdoc-
toral work focused on the religion and politics of the Badaga, the principal farming community of the Nilgiri
Hills. Among his theoretical interests are visual anthropology and the concepts of social aesthetics, atmo-
sphere, affect, emotion, islandness, and insularity. He published and coedited ten books, among them the
 List of Contributors xiii
textbook Ethnologie (2019), the monograph Akka Bakka. Religion, Politik und duale Souveränität der Badadga
in Südindien (2006), and the coedited volumes The Modern Anthropology of India (with P. Berger; 2013) and
Manifestations of History: Time, Space, and Community in the Andamans (with P. Zehmisch; 2016).

Heneise, Michael T., is associate professor in the study of religions at the University of Tromsø (UiT) – The
Arctic University of Norway, and director of the Highland Institute (formerly Kohima Institute), India. A
social anthropologist working primarily in the Bengal-Indo-Burma highlands and eastern Himalaya, he con-
ducts research on dreams and dreaming, healing and medical hybridities, and oral epics and epic bards. He is
the author of the Agency and Knowledge in Northeast India: The Life and Landscapes of Dreams (2019), editor
of the Passing Things On: Ancestors and Genealogies in Northeast India (2014), and coeditor of the Nagas in
the 21st Century (2017) and the Routledge Handbook of Highland Asia (2021).

Hockings, Paul, is professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Illinois, United States, and editor
in chief of the journal Visual Anthropology. He is well-known for editing the Encyclopedia of Modern Asia
(2002, editor of the South Asia section), Encyclopaedia of the Nilgiri Hills (2012), and Encyclopedia of World
Cultures, vol. III: South Asia (1992) and vol. V: East and Southeast Asia (1993). He has written several books on
the Badaga community, among them Kindreds of the Earth: Badaga Household Structure and Demography
(1999), So Long a Saga: Four Centuries of Badaga Social History (2013), Counsel from the Ancients: A Study of
Badaga Proverbs, Prayers, Omens and Curses (1988), and, with C. Pilot-Raichoor, A Badaga–English Diction-
ary (1992). He is known as a pioneer of observational cinema, particularly for his film The Village (with
M. McCarty; 1968).

Hussain, Ghulam, is senior research officer at the Institute of Policy Studies, Islamabad, Pakistan, and visit-
ing faculty member at the School of Politics and International Relations, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islam-
abad. Among his publications are “Understanding Hegemony of Caste in Political Islam and Sufism in Sindh,
Pakistan” ( JAAS, 2019), “‘Dalits Are in India, Not in Pakistan’: Exploring the Discursive Bases of the Denial
of Dalitness under the Ashrafia Hegemony” ( JAAS, 2019), and “Appropriation of Caste Spaces in Pakistan:
The Theo-Politics of Short Stories in Sindhi Progressive Literature” (Religions, 2019).

Jain, Jyotindra, is former director of the National Crafts Museum and professor of arts and aesthetics, Jawa-
harlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, India. He was visiting professor at Harvard University, United
States, and Rudolf-Arnheim Professor at Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany. He has published more than
35 articles and books on Indian vernacular art, popular visual culture, photography, and museum theory. He
is the author of Painted Myths of Creation: Art and Ritual of an Indian Tribe (1984), Ganga Devi: Tradition and
Expression in Mithila Painting (1996), Kalighat Painting: Images from a Changing World (1999), and Jangarh
Singh Shyam: A Conjurer’s Archive (2019); he is the editor of Picture Showmen: Insights into the Narrative
Tradition in Indian Art (1998) and India’s Popular Culture: Iconic Spaces and Fluid Images (2008). A recipient
of the Prince Claus Award in 1998 and of Germany’s Cross of Merit in 2018, he is on the international advisory
board of the Humboldt Forum, Berlin.

Joshi, Vibha (DPhil, University of Oxford, United Kingdom), is research affiliate of the School of Anthro-
pology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford, and a former professorial fellow in the Depart-
ment of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen, Germany (2013–2019),
and research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen,
Germany. Her books include A Matter of Belief: Christian Conversion and Healing in North-East India (2012)
and the coedited The Land of the Nagas (2004) and Naga: A Forgotten Mountain Region Rediscovered (2008),
based on a cocurated exhibition at the Museum der Kulturen, Basel, Switzerland. She has also written a
number of journal articles and book chapters. Her main research interests are religious conversion, healing,
and Naga material cultural heritage, especially textiles and museum collections.

Krebs, Carola, is custodian at the GRASSI Museum für Völkerkunde in Leipzig, Germany. Her research is
based on the museum’s collections, particularly those relating to South Asia. In her work, she concentrates
xiv List of Contributors
on the materiality, religion, and arts of indigenous cultures of South Asia, especially the inhabitants of
the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the Vedda of Sri Lanka, combining fieldwork with evidence from
museum collections and historical and contemporary scientific research. Apart from publishing in the
Jahrbuch des Museums für Völkerkunde Leipzig and in several journals, she has rich experience in curating
exhibitions, world music concerts/performances, and consulting for ethnographic films.

Lepcha, Charisma K., teaches anthropology at Sikkim University, India. Her research interests include reli-
gion, ethnicity, identity, indigeneity, environment, and climate change in Sikkim Himalaya. She has pub-
lished numerous articles and coedited two books: The Cultural Heritage of Sikkim (2019) and Communities,
Institutions and Histories of India’s Northeast (forthcoming). In 2018–2019, she was a fellow at the Indian
Institute of Advanced Studies (IIAS), Shimla, India.

Lobo, Lancy, is a social anthropologist with extensive research experience on Dalits, tribals, and Other Back-
ward Classes (OBCs) in Gujarat, India. He has authored 25 books and coauthored/coedited a large number
of journal articles. His publications include The Thakors of North Gujarat (1995), Communal Violence and
Minorities (2006), Land Acquisition, Displacement, and Rehabilitation in Gujarat (2009), Malaria in the Social
Context (2010), and Marriage and Divorce in India (2019). Together with A.M. Shah, he has coedited a num-
ber of volumes of the Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay, such as Essays in Suicide and Self-
Immolation (2018), Anthropological Explorations in East and South-East Asia (2021), An Ethnography of
Parsees in India (2021), and Indian Anthropology: Anthropological Discourse in Bombay (2021).

Longkumer, Arkotong, is an anthropologist, senior lecturer in modern Asia at the University of Edinburgh,
United Kingdom, and senior research fellow at the Highland Institute, Nagaland, India. He is the author of
The Greater India Experiment: Hindutva and the Northeast (2020), coauthor of Indigenous Religion(s): Local
Grounds, Global Networks (2020), and coeditor of Neo-Hindutva (2019).

Lyngdoh, Margaret, is a researcher affiliated to the University of Tartu, Estonia, who received her PhD
in 2016. In the same year, she was awarded the position of Albert Lord Fellow at the Center for Studies in
Oral Tradition, University of Missouri, United States. In 2017, she received a prestigious Estonian Research
Council grant (PUTJD746) for the study of tradition and vernacular discourses in the context of local Chris-
tianities in northeastern India. She is editor of the newsletter of the International Society for Folk Narrative
Research (ISFNR). Her research interests include indigenous folklore, tradition, supernatural ontologies
with a theoretical focus on the development of a recursive indigenous research method, the study of religion,
and the folkloric aspects of vernacular religion.

Maaker, Erik de (PhD Leiden University, the Netherlands, 2006), is assistant professor at the Institute
of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology of Leiden University. His research focuses on the
social constitution of values, objects, and places and their relevance in terms of ethnicity, indigeneity,
heritage, environment, and religion in upland South and Southeast Asia. He is author of the monograph
Reworking Culture: Relatedness, Rites, and Resources in Garo Hills, North-East India (2021) and coeditor of
Environmental Humanities in the New Himalayas: Symbiotic Indigeneity, Commoning, Sustainability (2021)
and Media, Indigeneity and Nation in South Asia (2019). He has also published prolifically in journals such
as Asian Ethnography, South Asia, Visual Anthropology, and the Journal of Borderland Studies, and he is an
award-winning visual anthropologist.

Maru, Natasha, is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), United Kingdom, associ-
ated with the Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Resilience (PASTRES) project. She holds an MPhil in develop-
ment studies from the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, and has experience working with smallholder
farmers and pastoralists in India. Her areas of interest include pastoralism, mobility, temporality, the com-
mons, land tenure, and the politics of development. She consults with international development orga-
nizations on pastoral issues with a vision to better integrate field experiences and indigenous voices into
development programs and policy processes.
 List of Contributors xv
Morris, Brian, left school at the age of 15 and pursued a varied career as foundry worker, seaman, and tea
planter in Malawi before completing his education. He then became a university teacher, now professor
emeritus, at Goldsmiths College, University of London, United Kingdom. He has published articles and
books on a wide range of topics and issues in the fields of ethnobiology, hunter-gatherer studies, philosophy
of the subject, anthropology of religion, social ecology, and anarchist politics. His books include Insects and
Human Life (2002), Religion and Anthropology (2006), An Environmental History of Southern Malawi (2016),
and Pioneers of Ecological Humanism (2017).

Mummidi, Thanuja, is assistant professor in the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive
Policy, Pondicherry University, Pondicherry, India, where she has been teaching since 2009. She holds a
PhD in social anthropology from the University of Madras, India. After her PhD, she was awarded an Urgent
Anthropology Fellowship by the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain. Her specialization lies at
the interface of economic and ecological anthropology, focusing on issues of rights and development poli-
cies for indigenous populations. In the early 2000, she started her research on the Konda Reddis, an indig-
enous population in south India, and her publications largely refer to them.

Nayak, Prasanna K., taught anthropology at Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, India, for about 36 years and
superannuated in June 2011 as professor and head of the Department of Anthropology. He served as director
of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Research and Training Institute (SCSTRI) of the government
of Odisha (2000–2005), where he established the Museum of Tribal Arts and Crafts. Post-retirement (2012–
2015), he became the chairman of the Nabakrushna Choudhury Centre for Development Studies (NKCDS),
an Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR)-sponsored interdisciplinary research institute. He was
an Alexander von Humboldt fellow at the Free University of Berlin, Germany, Baden Wuertemberg fellow
at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, and Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) fellow at the
Institute for South Asian, Tibetan, and Buddhist Studies, Vienna, Austria. He also conducted and guided field
researches in tribal areas of Odisha, publishing several articles on the topic. His books include Blood, Women
and Territory (1989) and From Bondage to Rural Enterprise (2003).

Ngully, Meripeni, teaches history at Dimapur Government College, Dimapur, Nagaland, India. She obtained
her MA and MPhil in history from the Centre for Central Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New
Delhi, India, and is currently a PhD candidate at the Centre for Historical Studies of the same university, with
a thesis on the life of the British officer J.H. Hutton, administrator-ethnographer and collector. Her article
“Collecting the Nagas: John Henry Hutton, the Administrator-Collector in the Naga Hills” was published
in Things in Culture, Culture in Things (edited by A. Kannike and P. Laviolette, 2013). She is coauthor of the
Dimapur District Human Development Report 2014 and the State Human Development Report 2016, a col-
laboration project of the Indian government and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Her
research interests revolve around the Naga, especially their funerary practices.

Otten, Tina, is assistant professor at the Department of Comparative Religious Studies, Faculty of
Theology and Religious Studies, University of Groningen, the Netherlands, and taught at the Free University
of Berlin, at Ruhr-University Bochum, and at the Institute of Ethnology of Westphalia-Wilhelms-University
of Münster, Germany. Her research focuses on ways in which people conceptualize social identity; expe-
rience change; and incorporate new ideas into their ritual and political structure, medicine, and gender
and kinship relations. Her PhD, from the Free University of Berlin, dealt with concepts of illness, focusing
on healing rituals and social change among the Rana people of Odisha, India. Her postdoctoral research,
granted by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and based at the School of Oriental and
African Studies, University of London, United Kingdom, investigated social and political relations in
Phulbani, Odisha. Her earlier research, conducted with grants from the German Research Foundation
(DFG), focused on emerging rituals and oral epics in southern Odisha.

Péquignot, Sofia, is a PhD candidate and lecturer in social anthropology at the University of Toulouse –
Jean Jaurès, France, currently writing a dissertation entitled “Black India: The Social Constructions of
Siddis, African Descendants in India.” Her research focuses on Siddis’ ongoing processes of identification
xvi List of Contributors
and unification, building on existing and emerging networks of Indians of African descent at different levels:
regional, national, and transnational. She examines the various social constructions enabling these unifica-
tion processes, reflecting the ways Siddis are constructing and negotiating their place in Indian and global
societies. She has published in the journal South Asian History and Culture (2020), in Afro-South Asia in the
Global African Diaspora, vol. III (2020), and in Les Carnets de l’EHESS (School of Advanced Studies in the Social
Sciences): Perspectives sur l’après – George Floyd (2021).

† Pfeffer, Georg, was associate professor of ethnology at the University of Heidelberg, Germany (1979–1985),
and professor of ethnology at the Free University of Berlin, Germany (1985–2008). He conducted field
research in South Asia (Punjab, coastal Odisha, highland Odisha, India) and wrote on kinship patterns of
public order in a worldwide comparison (e.g. Verwandtschaft als Verfassung. Unbürokratische Muster öffentli-
cher Ordnung, 2016).

Ramirez, Philippe, is a social anthropologist affiliated to the Centre for Himalayan Studies, Centre national
de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), France. His early research focused on the political anthropology of
Nepal, while currently he is inquiring into the cultural complexity of northeast India, particularly the con-
nections between descent and ethnicity. His recent publications include People of the Margins: Across Ethnic
Boundaries in North-East India (2014), “Conversions, Population Movements and Ethno-cultural Landscape
in the Assam-Meghalaya Borderlands” (Asian Ethnicity 17/3, 340–352, 2016), and “Revisiting Asymmetric
Marriage Rules” (with S. Legendre; Social Networks 52, 261–269, 2018).

Rasheed, Yusuf, is a member of the Nicobarese community, spokesperson of the Nancowry Tribal Coun-
cil, and chairman of the Tribal Development Council (TDC). He holds a postgraduate diploma in business
management from Chennai Business School, India, and a PhD from Medicina Alternativa, affiliated to the
Open International University for Complementary Medicines, Colombo, Sri Lanka. He has been represent-
ing his community at various national and international forums for over 25 years. In 2013, he was awarded
the Commendation Certificate by the lieutenant governor of the Andaman and Nicobar administration for
his outstanding contributions in the field of social work and community leadership. He has founded and is
a member of and/or advisor to several indigenous organizations on the Nicobar Islands.

Rousseleau, Raphaël, is a social anthropologist specializing in religious studies in relation to politics, par-
ticularly of the Scheduled Tribes of middle India. His doctoral studies (École des hautes études en sciences
sociales [EHESS], France, 2004) focused on the ethnohistory of the relations between tribes and kingdoms
in Odisha, India, through the case of the Jodia Poraja. He received a postdoctoral scholarship by the Quai
Branly Museum (2006–2007), with a project about Indian tribal art, and subsequently worked within a
project funded by the European Research Council (SOGIP, dir. I. Bellier, CNRS) on the complex issue of the
implementation of the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in India. He taught temporarily at
EHESS (2004–2006) and at the Institut National des Langues et Cultures Orientales (Paris, France) before
joining the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, as professor of anthropology of religions. He is an associ-
ated member of the Center for Indian and South Asian Studies (CEIAS), Paris.

Sales, Anne de, is an anthropologist and a senior researcher at the National Centre for Scientific Research
(CNRS), Paris, France. Her area of expertise is Nepal, and her research interests are shamanism, ritual lan-
guage, social change, Maoism, and revolution. She is the author of Je suis né de vos jeux de tambour: La reli-
gion chamanique des Magar du nord (1991) and numerous articles on shamanic practices and oral literature.
Her publications have also addressed anthropological issues concerning the impact of the Maoist insurrec-
tion on rural Nepal. She coedited Out of the Study, into the Field: Ethnographic Theory and Practice in French
Anthropology (2010), The Aftermath of the People’s War (Nepal): Studies in Nepali History and Society (2011),
and “Words of Truth: Authority and Agency in Ritual and Legal Speeches in the Himalayas,” published in
Oral Tradition 30/2 (2016).

Schleiter, Markus, is lecturer of social anthropology and media anthropology at the Institute of Ethnol-
ogy, University of Münster, Germany. Before that, he was affiliated to the Frobenius Institute in Frankfurt
 List of Contributors xvii
am Main, Germany, and to the International Institute of Asian Studies, Leiden, the Netherlands, where he
researched indigenous South Asian communities. His present major research interest is the connection
between concepts of belonging and popular media infrastructures in the global south. On this subject, he
coedited the book Media, Indigeneity and Nation in South Asia (with E. de Maaker; 2020) about the rise of
indigenous documentary and video media in South Asia from the 2000s onward. He has published exten-
sively on (post)colonial ethnographic writing in South Asia and on the everyday life of the Birhor people.
His research is based on more than three years of field studies with the Birhor and Santal people in India and
Bangladesh, including an 18-month study in a Birhor settlement.

Schlemmer, Grégoire, is a research fellow in social anthropology at the Institut de Recherche pour le Dével-
oppement (IRD) and a member of the Migrations et Société (URMIS) research unit, University of Paris,
France. He is the author of about 15 articles on various aspects of the Kulung Rai communities and their
religious practices. His main theoretical contribution is “Presence in Spirit: What Spirits Are to the Kulung,”
ASSR 145/1, 2009, 93–108. He is the editor of the special issue of the journal Moussons 19, 2012, which includes
his contribution “Rituels, territoires et pouvoirs dans les marges sino-indienne – Rituals, Territories, and
Powers in the Sino-Indian Margins” (5–18, 19–32). He also works on ethnicity in Laos.

Sengupta, Monimalika, has been researching the Chakma of northeast India and Bangladesh since 2009,
with a focus on their status and conditions as refugees in India and worldwide. She obtained a double MA
(women’s studies and gender research and comparative literature) from Jadavpur University, India, and sub-
sequently earned her PhD from Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. She currently works as an advisor
for several think tanks in India and is also a freelance writer. Previously, she worked as a consultant and
researcher for the Refugee Council of Australia and for the organization Women’s Health in the South East
(WHISE). She also worked as associate editor for Palaver, the Jadavpur University journal on African studies.
Over the years, she has attended several international conferences, seminars, and roundtables on refugee
crises worldwide.

Sherpa, Pasang Yangjee, PhD, is an anthropologist from Nepal. Her research areas include the Sherpa dias-
pora, human dimensions of climate change, and indigeneity in Nepal and the Himalayas. She has taught
at the New School in New York, the Pacific Lutheran University, Penn State University, Washington State
University, and the University of Washington, all in the United States.

Singh, Simron Jit, is professor at the University of Waterloo, Canada. He is a social and human ecolo-
gist with a PhD from Lund University, Sweden. Since 1995, he has conducted extensive fieldwork among
remote indigenous communities: first with the Van Gujjar in the Indian Himalayas, and, since 1999, with the
Nicobarese of the Nicobar Islands, India, with whom he was intensely involved after the 2004 Asian tsunami.
He has published two books and a number of scientific articles on the Nicobarese and is the recipient of
the Royal Anthropological Fellowship in Urgent Anthropology for his work among the Nicobar islanders.
He has received extensive media attention, including profiles in the journals Science, New Scientist, and
Current Anthropology. He is the protagonist of a full-length documentary titled Aftermath: The Second
Flood, which received positive reviews in Nature.

Skoda, Uwe, is associate professor of Indian and South Asian studies at the Department of Global Studies,
Aarhus University, Denmark. Currently, he is working on the one hand on visual culture and photography
and on the other hand on themes within the field of political anthropology – particularly transformations
of kingship, indigenous people, and domestic politics. His recent books include Bonding with the Lord:
Jagannath, Popular Culture and Community Formation (with J. Tripathy; 2019), India and Its Visual Cultures:
Community, Class and Gender in a Symbolic Landscape (with B. Lettmann; 2018), and Highland Odisha:
Life and Society beyond the Coastal World (with B. Pati; 2017).

Stegeborn, Wiveca, is a cultural anthropologist focusing on the hunters and gatherers of Sri Lanka, the
indigenous Wannilaeto, with whom she lived for several years and interacted for almost half a century. After
the 1982 ban on their foraging subsistence in, and their removal from, the rainforest, she specialized on the
xviii List of Contributors
legal aspects of indigenous peoples’ international human rights covenants. She has published articles in
several journals and edited volumes, including The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers (1996),
and has been writing for the International Work Groups for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) since 1985. In 1996,
when the Wannilaeto were allowed to leave their country to represent themselves at the United Nations, she
served as their interpreter. She has worked as an instructor at Michigan State University and Washington
State University, United States, and served as guest lecturer at universities in Sweden, Sri Lanka, and Norway.

Steinmann, Brigitte, is professor emerita of anthropology at the University of Lille, France, where she has
been teaching for the last two decades. Her areas of expertise include ethnography and general anthropol-
ogy in Nepal since 1980, Buddhism, material culture, oral epic poetry of Tamang, and history and religion
of Sikkim/India. She is member of and/or affiliated to different research laboratories of the Centre national
de la recherche scientifique (CNRS). She taught at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orien-
tales (INALCO) and directed an international MA in anthropology at the University of Lille. Her authored
and edited works include Les Enfants du Singe et de la Démone (2001), Le maoïsme au Népal (2006), and
Exorcizing Ancestors, Conquering Heaven (2020). Recently she has studied the anthropology of politics
and labor-oriented migrations in Nepal as well as providing education to underprivileged Nepalese Tamang
children of Rnying ma lamas.

Subba, Tanka B., is professor of anthropology at North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, India. He has
authored and edited 16 books and over 80 articles on various topics related to the peoples of the eastern
Himalayas. His areas of interest are ethnicity and development, politics of culture and identity, and diaspora.
He served on the editorial board of numerous national and international journals and was a member of the
advisory board of several national institutions of India. He also held prestigious fellowships like the Homi
Bhabha Fellowship, the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) Guest Professorship, and the
Baden-Württemberg-STIPENDIUM. In 2016, the Asiatic Society of Kolkata conferred him the R.P. Chanda
Centenary Medal for his contribution to anthropology. His last book, edited with A.C. Sinha, is titled Nepali
Diaspora in a Globalised Era (2016).

Sultan-i-Rome, born in Hazara village, Swat, Pakistan, is former associate professor of history and depart-
ment chairman at the Government Post Graduate Jahanzeb College, Swat. He is a life member of the
Pakistan Historical Society and part of its executive committee, among other organizations. His fields of
interest include the political, social, and economic history of the region; its culture; and its natural resources.
He has published more than 50 research articles in academic journals, anthologies, and edited volumes,
and two working papers, mostly on the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa area, and Swat in particular. He has authored
the books Swat State (1915–1969) (2008; also translated and published in Urdu), The North-West Frontier
(Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) (2013), Matalunah (2013), Land and Forest Governance in Swat (2016), Tapay (2018),
Swat (2020), and Swat through the Millennia (2021).

Tambs-Lyche, Harald, is professor emeritus of ethnology at the University of Picardie – Jules Verne, Amiens,
France. His research has focused on caste, ethnicity, and popular Hinduism in Gujarat and southern Karna-
taka. He has written four monographs: London Patidars: A Case Study in Urban Ethnicity (1980), Power, Profit
and Poetry: Traditional Society in Kathiawar, Western India (1997), The Good Country: Individual, Situation and
Society in Saurashtra (2004), and Business Brahmins: The Gauda Saraswat Brahmins of South Kanara (2011).
Additionally, he published a theoretical work on caste titled Transaction and Hierarchy: Elements for a Theory
of Caste (2017). He has coauthored, edited, or coedited several other books and a special issue on Gujarat for
the journal South Asia and has written a large number of articles.

Thakur, Vikramaditya, is assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology, University of Delaware,

United States. He is trained in sociocultural anthropology, and his research interests include the anthropol-
ogy of development, political anthropology, and environmental anthropology, informed by ethnographic
research, oral history, and archival records. Among his publications is the coauthored book Ground Down by
Growth: Tribe, Caste, Class and Inequality in 21st Century India (2018).
 List of Contributors xix
Tilche, Alice, is a lecturer in anthropology at the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester, United
Kingdom. She has conducted extensive research with India’s indigenous groups and with its diaspora on the
politics of indigeneity, the uses of culture in the name of religious nationalism, and the relationship between
heritage and migration. She has showcased her work through films (Broken Gods, 2019; Sundarana, 2013) and
exhibitions, and her book Adivasi Art and Activism: Curation in a Nationalist Age is forthcoming in 2022. She
is currently leading a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, United Kingdom, on the
impact of COVID-19 on India’s indigenous and nomadic communities.

Toffin, Gérard, is emeritus research director at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris,
France. He is a renowned anthropologist and an expert on the societies and cultures of Nepal. He has been
undertaking anthropological research there since the early 1970s, specifically material life, architecture, reli-
gious space, social organization, kingship, festivals, sacred dances, theatre, and anthropological literature
of the Himalayas. He is the author of 12 books and more than 200 articles. Among his books are Société et
religion chez les Néwar du Népal (1984), Le palais et le temple (1993), Les tambours de Katmandou (1996), Newar
Society (2007), and La fête-spectacle (2010). Other publications include the edited volumes The Politics of
Belonging in the Himalayas (2011), Théâtre d’Asie à l’oeuvre (2012), The Politics of Ethnicity (2014), and Man
and Its House in the Himalayas (2016).

Vandenhelsken, Mélanie, is a researcher in anthropology at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research and
Documentation of Inner and South Asian Cultural History (CIRDIS) of the University of Vienna, Austria. Her
research interests include the construction of ethnicity in relation to both state practices and transborder
connections, citizenship and belonging, and ritual performances. Her current research focuses on ritual
dynamics from a transborder perspective among the Limbu, between east Nepal and Sikkim, India. She
recently edited the special issue Ancestrality, Migration, Rights and Exclusion: Citizenship in the Indian State
of Sikkim of the Asian Ethnicity (22, 2021), in which she contributed articles on subjecthood and citizenship
in Sikkim, land ownership, and the political participation of the Limbu through history.

Wouters, Jelle J.P., is associate professor at Royal Thimphu College, Bhutan. Previously, he taught at Sik-
kim Central University, India, and was a visiting fellow (2014–2015) at Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen,
Germany, on a Teaching for Excellence Award granted by the German Research Foundation (DFG). His
primary areas of expertise are political life, state, development, and democracy in the Naga highlands of
northeast India, where he carried out two years of ethnographic fieldwork funded by the Wenner-Gren
Foundation. His latest books are Nagas as a Society against Voting and Other Essays (2020) and In the Shadows
of Naga Insurgency (2018).
 Journals

AAe Anthropology and Aesthetics

AAION Anglistica AION
AAAG Annals of the Association of American Geographers
AaM Anthropology and Medicine
AAn Anthropologischer Anzeiger
AAnth Asian Anthropology
AAS African and Asian Studies
ABORI Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute
AD African Diaspora
Adibasi Adibasi
Ādilok Ādilok
Adivasi Adivasi
AE American Ethnologist
AES Archives Européennes de Sociologie
AÉSC Annales: Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations
Aesthetics Aesthetics
AEth Asian Ethnicity
AFF Annales de la Fondation Fyssen
Africa Africa: Journal of the International African Institute
AFS Asian Folklore Studies
AJ Art Journal
Alternatives Alternatives
AmAn American Anthropologist
AMi The Ahmedabad Missionary
Anthropologist Anthropologist
Anthropos Anthropos
Anzo Anthropozoologica
APa Ancient Pakistan
APe Asian Perspectives
AR Asiatic Researches
ARA Annual Review of Anthropology
ARN Annual Review of Neuroscience
AsA Asian Affairs
AsE Asian Ethnology
ASo L’Année Sociologique
ASoR American Sociological Review
ASSR Archives de sciences sociales des religions
ASu Asian Survey
ATh Anthropological Theory
AWE Ancient West and East
BCAS Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars
BDADU Bulletin of the Department of Anthropology, Dibrugarh University
BDCRI Bulletin of the Deccan College Research Institute
BÉFÉO Bulletin de l’École française d’Éxtrême Orient
BHS Bangladesh Historical Studies

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 BERIPSA

Also available online – www.brill
 Journals xxi
BICUAER Bulletin of the International Committee on Urgent Anthropological and Ethnological
Research
BIPPA Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association
BLS Berkeley Linguistics Society
BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
BSRVRI Bulletin of the Sri Rama Varma Research Institute
BT Bulletin of Tibetology
BTRDI Bulletin of the Tribal Research and Development Institute
CA Cultural Anthropology
CAJ Central Asiatic Journal
CAn Critique of Anthropology
CCAP Cahiers du CAP
CCo Communalism Combat
CCor Clinical Cornerstone
CE Cahiers d’Ethnomusicologie
CH Cahiers de l’Homme
Childhood Childhood
CIS Contributions to Indian Sociology
CLO Cahiers de Littérature Orale
CM Connaisance du Monde (Paris)
CML Chotanagpur Mission Letter
CNML Chota Nagpur Mission Letter
CNS Contributions to Nepalese Studies
CNS Capitalism Nature Socialism
CRe Calcutta Review
CS Conservation and Society
CSSA Comparative Studies of South Asia
CSSRB Council of Societies for the Study of Religion Bulletin
CuA Current Anthropology
DA Dalit Adab
Daedalus Daedalus
DBM Die Biene auf dem Missionsfelde
EA Eastern Anthropologist
EAS European Archives of Sociology
EBHR European Bulletin of Himalayan Research
EBHS European Bulletin of Himalayan Studies
EE Ecological Economics
EH Environment and History
ELG The East Lakes Geographer
EMM Evangelisches Missions Magazin
EPDSS Environment and Planning D: Society and Space
EPW Economic and Political Weekly
ER Etudes rurales
Ethnology Ethnology
Ethnopolitics Ethnopolitics
Ethnorêma Ethnorêma
Ethos Ethos
Exhibitions Exhibitions
EYMS European Yearbook of Minority Issues
EZZ Ethnologische Zeitschrift Zürich
FA Fieldiana Anthropology
FEQ The Far Eastern Quarterly
xxii Journals
Folk Folk
Folklore Folklore
FR Fortnightly Review
Geoforum Geoforum
GMJIE Global Media Journal – Indian Edition
GR Geographical Review
GRB Geography of Religions and Belief
HAn History and Anthropology
HAU HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
HD Human Development
HE Human Ecology
Herpinstance Herpinstance – Newsletter of the Madras Crocodile Bank
HI Hamdard Islamicus
Highlander Highlander
HL Himalayan Linguistics
HR History of Religions
HRB Himalayan Research Bulletin
HS Himalaya Studies
HSA Himal South Asian
Humankind Humankind: The Journal of Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya
IA Indian Antiquary
IACS Inter-Asia Cultural Studies
IAs Internationales Asienforum
IESHR Indian Economic and Social History Review
IHQ Indian Historical Quarterly
IICQ India International Centre Quarterly
IJA Irish Journal of Anthropology
IJAL International Journal of American Linguistics
IJBA The Internet Journal of Biological Anthropology
IJCL International Journal of Constitutional Law
IJDS International Journal of Dharma Studies
IJSD Indian Journal of Social Development
IL Indian Linguistics
ILSc In Language Sciences
IMR Indian Missiological Review
IOSR-JHSS International Organization of Scientific Research-Journal of Humanities
and Social Sciences
IPCSRS Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies Research Paper
IPJ Indigenous Policy Journal
IQAS International Quarterly for Asian Studies
IRSH International Review of Social History
IWCD India’s Women and China’s Daughters
JA Journal des Anthropologues
JAAR Journal of the American Academy of Religions
JAAS Journal of Asian and African Studies
JAC Journal of Asian Civilizations
JAF Journal of American Folklore
JAHRS Journal of the Andhra Historical Research Society
JAS Journal of Asian Studies
JAs Journal Asiatique
JASB Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay
JASBe Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal
JBORS Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society
 Journals xxiii
JBRS Journal of the Bihar Research Society
JBS Journal of Borderlands Studies
JCCP Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics
JCG Journal of Cultural Geography
JDACU Journal of the Department of Anthropology Calcutta University
JDSt Journal of Development Studies
JEF Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics
JEMB Jahresberichte der evangelischen Missionsgesellschaft zu Basel
JHES Journal of Human and Environmental Sciences
JJRS Japanese Journal of Religious Studies
JPRASB Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Anthropological Society of Bengal
JRAI Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
JRAIGBI Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
JRASB Journal of the Royal Anthropological Society Bengal
JRS Journal of Refugee Studies
JRSP Journal of the Research Society of Pakistan
JSALL Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics
JSAS Journal of South Asian Studies
JSEALS Journal of South East Asian Linguistics Society
JSRNC Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture
JSS Journal of Social Sciences
JSSt Journal of Social Studies
JSuS Journal of Sufi Studies
JWC Journal of World Christianity
JWH Journal of World History
Kailash Kailash
L’Ethnographie L’Ethnographie
L’Homme L’Homme
Lalies Lalies
Liber Liber
LMB Lahore Museum Bulletin
LRF La Ricerca Folklorica
Man Man: Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
Marg Marg
MAS Modern Asian Studies
MASB Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal
MBGAEU Mitteilungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte
MCCM The Madras Christian College Magazine
MedA Medical Anthropology
MI Museum International
MiI Man in India
Mimeo Mimeo
MiS Man in Society
MJLS Madras Journal of Literature and Science
ML Man and Life
MMHN Mémoires du Muséum d’ Histoire Naturelle
MRe Modern Review
MW Man and World
NEHU NEHU Journal
New Quest New Quest
NGM National Geographic Magazine
NM Nordisk Missionstidsskrift
NMML Nehru Memorial Museum and Library Occasional Paper History and Society
xxiv Journals
NP Nomadic Peoples
NV Newāh Vijñāna: The Journal of Newar Studies
OA Oriental Anthropologist
Œuvres Œuvres
OHRJ Orissa Historical Research Journal
OM Objects et Mondes
OR Orissa Review
OS Organization Studies
OT Oral Tradition
Our Field Our Field
PAPS Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
PG Political Geography
PI Performing Islam
PIHC Proceedings of the Indian History Congress
PJPA Pakistan Journal of Public Administration
Pluriel Pluriel
PP Past and Present
PPe Pakistan Perspectives
PQ Political Quarterly
Psychiatry Psychiatry
Purusartha Purusartha
QI Quaternary International
QJMS Quarterly Journal of the Mythic Society
RC Religion Compass
Representations Representations
RET Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines
RHR Revue de l’histoire des religions
RPJ Research Paper Journal
RRS Regmi Research Series
RSA Religions of South Asia
RSAR Religion and Society: Advances in Research
RSSAS A Research Journal of South Asian Studies
RST Religious Studies and Theology
RT Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift
SAB South Asia Bulletin
SAHC South Asian History and Culture
SAJ The South Asianist Journal
Samaj Samaj
SAR South Asia Research
SAs The South Asianist
SB Sociological Bulletin
Science Science
SCSA Society and Culture in South Asia
Seminar Seminar
SES Senri Ethnological Studies
Shaman Shaman
SiH Studies in History
SJoA Southwestern Journal of Anthropology
SMSR Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni
SNHS Studies in Nepali History & Society
SNR Sudan Notes and Records
SNR Society and Natural Resources
SoAn Social Analysis
 Journals xxv
SocA Social Anthropology
SoF Social Forces
SS Social Scientist
SSM Social Science and Medicine
SSR Social Science Review
STT Studies of Tribes and Tribals
SV Scholar’s Voice: A New Way of Thinking
TAPS Transactions of the American Philosophical Society
TC Transforming Cultures
TDR The Drama Review
Temenos Temenos
Terrain Terrain
TJ Tibet Journal
TPS Transactions of the Philosophical Society
TWQ Third World Quarterly
VA Visual Anthropology
Vestnik Vestnik
WF Western Folklore
WVM Wiener Völkerkundliche Mitteilungen
ZE Zeitschrift für Ethnologie
 General Abbreviations

approx. approximately
Arab. Arabic
Ass. Assamese
b. born
BCE before the Common Era
bot. botanical
c. circa
CE Common Era
cent./cents. century/centuries
ch./chs. chapter/chapters
d. died
Des. Desia
diss. dissertation
ed./eds. editor, edited by/editors
ET English translation
et al. and others
f./ff. following page/following pages
fem. feminine
fig. figure
Guj. Gujarati
Gut. Gutob
Hind. Hindi
Khas. Khasi
km kilometer
Lad. Ladakhi
Lim. Limbu
lit. literally
m meter
Mar. Marathi
masc. masculine
n note/notes
n.d. no date
n.l. no location
Nag. Nagamese
Nep. Nepali
New. Newari
no./nos. number/numbers
Odi. Odia
Oll. Ollar
p./pp. page/pages
Pers. Persian
pl. plate
plur. plural
publ. published by/publisher
repr. reprint
rev. ed. revised edition

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 BERIPSA

Also available online – www.brill
 General Abbreviations xxvii
Sin. Sinhala
Sind. Sindhi
sing. singular
Skt. Sanskrit
Sut. Sutsa
Tam. Tamil
Tib. Tibetan
trans. translator, translated by, translation
unpubl. unpublished
Urd. Urdu
vs. verse
vol./vols. volume/volumes