Indigenisation of Christianity in Oral Tales of Northeastern Naga Communities: An Ecotheological Reading

Melissa Brotton in Ecotheology in the Humanities (2016) defines ecotheology as the “study of how questions concerning our current understandings of ecology converge with theological inquiry to address the relationships between God, humans and non-humans” (xv). The platform of ecotheology thus attempts to construct a discursive space for converging ideas of environmental awareness and religious worldviews thereby taking into consideration the spiritual upbringing of people, and their ethico-moral responsibilities to create a sustainable social system. It creates a possibility of a nuanced reading of the non-institutionalised, heterogenous, and diverse aboriginal religious orders, their socio-political locations and their cultural transactions with the canonised religions. The confluence of these religio-cultural traditions and their interactions create complex and intricate dynamics that often subvert the institutionalised vertical power structures and present a more sustainable horizontal model, where the divine, nature and the living beings can coexist. These processes are distinguishably evident in the oral tales of the Northeastern Naga communities. With the advent of Christianity in Nagaland, the figure of Lijaba who has been a creator or godlike figure for the Ao Nagas, was aligned with Jesus Christ and was made into an entry point which was utilised and appropriated by the missionaries to bridge the gap between two distinct socio-religious contexts. The Jewish identity of Christ was cloaked, if not erased, and coalesced with the aboriginal legends to form an indigenised and distinct identity that served as a potent tool for religious conversion in the following years. The objective of this study is to correlate the ideas of religion and sustainability by analysing this infusion, modification and indigenisation of Christianity within Naga animism by looking at the folklores and other oral narratives produced by the Northeastern Naga communities and examining how they work towards constructing an inclusive cosmology that keeps the “divine, human and non-human” on the same plane and creates a space for an ecotheological environmentability.