Inimkond: Margaret Lyngdoh

'"What dreams may come": Human Animal Transformation among the Khasi of Northeastern India

The Khasis of Northeastern India are a matrilineal society where the phenomenon of human animal transformations are made manifest through narrating the transformation experience in the alternate reality of the dream world. Dependant upon region, there are two kinds of human-animals: the khla phuli (were tigers) and the sangkhini (hybrid human snake). The form taken by these transformations is deeply contextual to the society and takes place in the ramia, (alternate reality) which is also conceptualised as the dream reality. Ancestors, the guardian deities of the human animals and the human animals themselves inhabit this reality alongside a host of non humans.

In earlier research (Lyngdoh 2016; Kharbani 2004; Kharmawphlang 2001), human animal transformations in the indigenous Khasi ontology have been shown to perform the function of upholding Khasi religious norms. But this is not their only function. Also, such transformations mediate the human-ecology relationship as a way of understanding and “domesticating” the forces of nature. Further, the persistence of these expressions of Khasi belief reveal the sustainability of culture to re-frame itself within new, discursive frames of modernity and Christianity. The tradition is sustained through variations in narratives pertaining to the phenomenon.

This presentation will focus primarily on ethnographic fieldwork data gleaned from the northern and western sections of the Khasi Hills over last seven years. I argue that one of the markers of the alternate reality, landscape, has a significant role in creating intimacy and familiarity between the community and the experiences of the human animals.

References:

Kharmawphlang, Desmond L. 2001. In Search of Tigermen. The Were-Tiger Tradition of the Khasis. India International Centre Quarterly 27/28 (17), 160–176.

Kharbani, L. L. 2004. U Sangkhini. Shillong: Bluebell Printers.'

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