Talom Rukbo and the Donyipolo Yelam Kebang: restructuring Adi religious practices in Arunachal Pradesh, Northeast India

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine and contextualize the recent changes in the articulation of Donyipolo faith among the indigenous community of the Adi from the 1980s until the present. This is achieved by documenting both ‘non-formalized’ and ‘formalized’ belief and ritual within this Eastern Himalayan community. Since the mid-1980s, the Adi – led by indigenous activist Talom Rukbo and the Donyipolo Yelam Kebang (Donyipolo Faith Council) – have been restructuring Donyipolo to fit the model of more mainstream religions via a series of processes that could be called ‘formalization’ or ‘institutionalization’, a reformation blueprint that has subsequently spread to neighboring ethnic groups. This ethnography, exploring both folk practice and the modern reformation, is rooted in radical empiricism – in this context, meaning to collect data and allow analysis to arise organically. Radical empiricism is employed alongside vernacular theorizing to allow for the acknowledgement of indigenous theory through which we can trace indigenous agencies and the construction of indigenous lifeworlds. Facilitating this space for the acknowledgement of ‘religious re-imaginings’ as a means of cultural preservation – and as a representation of creativity – is significant particularly when viewed in the context of contemporary research on similar movements in Northeast India, which sometimes tends toward the negation of indigenous innovation by representing such religious revivals as conversion tools attributed to the Hindu right. It is hoped that the reader will come away from this dissertation with an understanding of the ‘constellations of faith’ that comprise ‘traditional’ Donyipolo and a comprehension of the innovative institutionalization processes that have shaped the new Adi praxis. Donyipolo should be viewed as a complex, nuanced, and independent indigenous faith, whether in its forms of folk expressions or in its new structure as expressed through the Donyipolo Yelam Kebang.

The ‘Celtic’ dimension of pre-first World War religious discourse in Britain: Wellesley Tudor Pole and the Glastonbury phenomenon

This article will explore the contribution made to the construction of discourse around religion outside of mainstream Christianity, at the turn of the twentieth century in Britain, by a Celticist movement as represented by Wellesley Tudor Pole (d.1968) and his connection to the Glastonbury phenomenon. I will detail the interconnectedness of individuals and movements occupying this discursive space and their interest in efforts to verify the authenticity of an artefact which Tudor Pole claimed was once in the possession of Jesus. Engagement with Tudor Pole’s quest to prove the provenance of the artefact, and his contention that a pre-Christian culture had existed in Ireland which had extended itself to Glastonbury and Iona creating the foundation for an authentic Western mystical tradition, is presented as one facet of a broader, contemporary discourse on alternative ideas and philosophies. In conclusion, I will juxtapose Tudor Pole’s fascination with Celtic origins and the approach of leading figures in the ‘Celtic Revival’ in Ireland, suggesting intersections and alterity in the construction of their worldview. The paper forms part of a chapter in a thesis under-preparation which examines the construction of discourse on religion outside of mainstream Christianity at the turn of the twentieth century, and in particular the role played by visiting religious reformers from Asia. The aim is to recover the (mostly forgotten) history of these engagements.

Religious memory as a conveyor of authoritative tradition: The necessary and essential component in a definition of religion

In a landmark book published in 2000, the sociologist Danièle Hervieu-Léger defined religion as a chain of memory, by which she meant that within religious communities remembered traditions are transmitted with an overpowering authority from generation to generation. After analysing Hervieu-Léger’s sociological approach as overcoming the dichotomy between substantive and functional definitions, this article compares a ritual honouring the ancestors in which a medium becomes possessed by the senior elder’s ancestor spirit among the Shona of Zimbabwe with a cleansing ritual performed by a Celtic shaman in New Hampshire, USA. In both instances, despite different social and historical contexts, appeals are made to an authoritative tradition to legitimize the rituals performed. This lends support to the claim that the authoritative transmission of a remembered tradition, by exercising an overwhelming power over communities, even if the memory of such a tradition is merely postulated, identifies the necessary and essential component for any activity to be labelled “religious”.