RONO HILLS, 19 Sep: A two-day national seminar on ‘Shamanistic practices and narratives among the tribes of Arunachal Pradesh’ began at Rajiv Gandhi University (RGU) here on Monday.
On the first day of the seminar, organised by RGU’s Arunachal Institute of Tribal Studies (AITS), in collaboration with Lower Dibang Valley-based Research Institute of World’s Ancient Traditions, Cultures and Heritage (RIWATCH) and Shillong (Meghalaya)-based North Eastern Council, Indigenous Affairs Director Sokhep Kri expressed deep concern over “the challenges faced by shamans throughout their lives, across Arunachal Pradesh,” and informed that the state government, “particularly the indigenous affairs department,” is trying its best to safeguard the practice of shamanism and its related institutions,” the university informed in a release.
Kri informed about the establishment of gurukuls in some parts of the state, “which aims to teach shamanistic chants, arts, crafts and indigenous language.”
University of Delhi’s Anthropology Professor Ram Prasad Mitra emphasised on “how, in contemporary times, we must start to revisit and reconstitute indigenous knowledge through documentation.”
He added that “language, rituals, symbols and musical instruments have been the core pathways attached to shamans and their way of practicing shamanism.”
RIWATCH executive director Vijay Swami said that “the importance of the shaman in any society cannot be ignored.”
“Shamans act as counsellors, healers, mediators of the human and spiritual worlds, and, above all, keepers of the vast indigenous knowledge system,” he said.
RGU Social Science Dean Prof Sarit K Chaudhuri stated that “the death of shamans is the death of human intellectual knowledge.”
AITS Director Prof Simon John emphasised on “how, in the context of academics, researchers often face challenges and have to overcome through the documentation process of shamanistic practices and the associated chanting of Arunachal Pradesh.”
He also highlighted the work carried out by the AITS with regard to documentation and preservation of cultures and traditions of various communities of Arunachal.
Twenty-eight research papers, representing various tribes and communities from across the country, are being presented during the seminar.