From Fire Rain to Rebellion: Reasserting Ethnic Identity Through Narrative

From Fire Rain to Rebellion: Reasserting Ethnic Identity Through Narrative

By- Peter B. Andersen, Marine Carrin and Santosh K. Soren (eds. and trs.)

The Santals, a major tribal group of India, are known for their Hul, an important rebellion led by charismatic heroes in 1855-7, and analysed by subaltern historians as conveying political and intellectual concerns, such as peasant consciousness, pertinent to post-colonial India. After the rebellion, Christian missions were established in the Santal Parganas, among them, the Scandinavian Lutheran missionaries considered the Santals as a nation and wanted to create a Santal National Church, and their presence contributed to reinforce Santal identity. This volume presents selections from Rev. P.O. Bodding’s collection of Santal folklore—three thousand pages now found in the Oslo University Library—which he collected from 1892 to around 1927. The editors have selected narratives—mythological and historical—which Bodding left unpublished.

The introduction of writing allowed another texture of knowledge to emerge from the colonial encounter, expressing itself through these narratives. Bodding’s collections were done by Santals whom he trained, but at least one of them, Sagram Murmu merits consideration as an author in his own right. The choice of texts presented here shows us how the Santals recast their traditions as knowledge, as a body of institutions and laws, and as a way of life. These texts contribute to inform how marginalized people, such as the Santals, experienced colonial modernity but succeeded in negotiating for themselves the potential of national de-colonization. The book aims at documenting subaltern pasts, allowing their re-appropriation by the Santal themselves.

Peter B. Andersen is Associate Professor at the Department for Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen. His research area is religion and modernity. In India he has studied the transformation from oral to printed transmission of culture among the Santals.

Marine Carrin is Director of Research, CNRS at the LISST, Centre of Anthropology, Toulouse, France. She has worked for many years on the Santals and is currently working on the bhuta cults and other aspects of religion and society in South Canara, India.

Santosh Kumar Soren is a retired librarian from Roskilde University Library. He received his education in India and Denmark.

ISBN  978-81-7304-879-1    2011   400p.   Rs.995/ pounds 55

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