Naharlagun, Arunachal Pradesh: On a recent Sunday, in a prayer hall near Itanagar, a tribal service began winding down. Singing and clapping suddenly gave way to meditation. Priestess and healer Chigam Karlo sprinkled holy water from the altar on everyone’s head as they watched incense sticks burn out. Kneeling over every devotee in queue, she chanted incantations to heal broken or dislocated bones or tied talismans made of straw to their wrists and said a prayer for good health.
Many tribals come to this room in an apartment building for weekly prayer. Dressed mostly in modern clothes, they pray to the spirit of the sun and the moon, pictures of which sit on a low altar, surrounded by flowers, incense and Buddhist bells. “We love coming here. We sing, we meditate, we pray. It connects us to our culture,” said Jirpok Zirdo, a member of the Galo tribe and a member of the “Donyi-Polo”, or sun and moon, movement sweeping through the state.
For most of its history, this state shunned organized religion or such prayer meetings. But about four years ago, tribals—attracted to the idea of a merciful god, regular community prayers and healing without sacrifice—began converting to Christianity in large numbers. Alarmed, tribal priests and leaders realized that reformation was the only way to stem the outflow and protect tribal beliefs.
But not everyone welcomes change; traditionalists believe the new movement is destroying the essence of tribal animism. Reformists say there is no choice and if the culture is to survive, everyone will have to recognize that the old ways of worship did not connect modern people with their gods. “Our religion demanded too many animal sacrifices, which were too expensive, people always needed a priest to connect with spirits, and our women were not given due respect,” said Tony Koyu, one of the founders and former president of the Indigenous Faith and Cultural Society of Arunachal Pradesh, or IFCSAP, that formalized Donyi-Polism into a religion.
Koyu said that instead of clinging harder to tribal religion and beliefs, as the traditionalists would like, they began to borrow ideas from Christianity: prayer meetings on Sundays, reduced stress on sacrifices and a hierarchy of religious authority. The movement has also borrowed ideas of bhajans, aartis, and meditation from Hinduism and used Buddhism’s stress on non-violence to reduce the importance of animal sacrifices.
“Those propagators (Christian missionaries) were very well-equipped with money, books. They constructed houses, schools and hospitals and gave free education and medical care. Our people were influenced. We had to choose wisely,” Koyu said.