By Anna Notsu
During my first visit to Meghalaya in December 2023, my dear friend in Jowai, Banbha, took me on his motorbike to Nartiang. He wanted to show me the historic site of monoliths. For many, it is a place of deep significance, but this significance depends on whom you ask. To some, it is sacred, where Niamtre memories and divine migrations are told and felt. To others, it is a cultural landmark, its history and origin blurred by time.
As Banbha and I slowly entered the barely gated ‘site’, we both naturally fell silent. Not so far away, a group of boys were blasting English pop music while playing football. Their ordinary laughter, next to the enormous, gnarled body of an ancient tree with coiling vines, felt surreal. And surrounded by these aged trees stood the gathering of megaliths and resting stones – places where not only humans but also deities visit.
Although he is a Christian, Banbha added quietly that he would not want to disrespect the place or cause any trouble there: ‘Everyone knows this.’ The extraordinary serenity of the grove created a tension between reverence and unease, beyond a matter of faith. But what caught my attention even more was a sign put up in English and Hindi: “Famous for large megalithic stone memorials of the local tribes generally known as U-Mawthaw-Dur-Briew. It is a tradition still in vogue in some parts of the state.” It then declared the site “of national importance under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act (24 of 1958).”
Here was a space alive with memory and ritual, somewhat reduced to an archaeological curiosity – or at best, a monument of ‘culture’. That description made me pause, wondering about what the term ‘culture’ means: What happens when sacred spaces are framed as ‘culture’? What may be lost when indigeneity is folded into mere material heritage or tourism?
I was keenly reminded of this question again during Meghalaya’s proud festival, Behdienkhlam. Commonly known as a festival to drive away plague and evil spirits, Behdienkhlam is a celebration of the Niamtre faith. The last day of the Jowai Behdienkhlam is a state holiday, drawing photographers, TV crews, tourists and locals alike.
In 2024, a year after my Nartiang visit, I witnessed the festival myself. With the help of friends and family in Jowai, I followed four days of ancestor veneration, prayers, sacrificial rites and community rituals. As the festive atmosphere in the Niamtre quarter (Pohshnong) grew, rainfall also intensified, and the sacred pool, Ka Aitnar, slowly filled. To Niamtre, this was a sign of divine presence – the pool, now sacred, accommodating one of the Jowai deities, Ka Syiem Aitnar. As my friend simply explained during this period, I understood that ‘Behdienkhlam is a religious festival.’
Yet on the last day, back at the Aitnar, the scene transformed. The crowd was vast – not just Niamtre, but local Christians, special guests, tourists, visitors across India and beyond, observing the Jowai Behdienkhlam’s grand finale. Giant decorated ‘rot’ were carried into the sacred pool through throngs of people, while cries of joy filled the air. It was spectacular, broadcast-worthy. And in that moment, the festival seemed less religious than cultural, as if a symbol of ‘indigenous culture’.
Culture is, in general, a word that carries a positive glow. It suggests rich history, distinct traditions and ways of life seen as ‘different’ from the mainstream. Sometimes, religion slips under this label, too. Temples, churches, mosques and sacred groves are often presented as cultural destinations as much as religious ones. When approaching indigeneity through this framework, this cultural-religious overlap is even more apparent and often celebrated in the name of cultural diversity. For those considered indigenous, it reinforces the idea that being ‘indigenous’ means demonstrating cultural or religious authenticity.
But at some point, this relationship between religion and culture raises discomfort. Can we take ‘religious’ and ‘cultural’ as interchangeable? And if we do, what happens to the meaning of indigeneity?
To say that the Nartiang megaliths are cultural artefacts strips away their religious history, obscuring how Niamtre have come to be who they are today. To call the Niamtre faith the essence of indigeneity, on the other hand, risks erasing Meghalaya’s Christian majority from the picture, reinforcing a divide: indigenous/non-indigenous based on one factor. In reality, Meghalaya is both: at once a majority Scheduled Tribe state and a majority Christian state – and much more. Its identity cannot be reduced to either-or through terms like religion, tradition or culture. It is shaped by a complex mix of all.
I saw this more clearly when I joined the Behdienkhlam procession in Wahïajer in August 2024, in the Christian quarter, where Banbha’s family lives. His siblings, nieces, nephews and neighbours crowded both sides of the streets, smiling and waving at the Niamtre chants and the sound of rhythmic drumbeats and trumpets as they passed through. They were not participants in the rituals, yet they were part of the festival all the same, carrying their own histories and narratives that also make up the fabric of Meghalaya. Christian or Niamtre – these are not opposites. They each play a different role, but together form an integrated whole, shaping how indigeneity is lived, experienced and felt.
Today, debates about who should still hold Scheduled Tribe rights and entitlements are growing louder in Meghalaya. Across the state, homestays rise where houses once stood, seasonal vegetables are replaced by cash crops, and religious sites are becoming tourist destinations. Against this backdrop, the question is often posed: What counts as indigeneity? Can someone still be indigenous if they practice a ‘non-indigenous’ faith? But perhaps that is not the question we should be asking.
Framing religion as culture, or culture as the measure of indigeneity, brings about old colonial habits of dividing and categorising people. It leads us towards searching for ‘authenticity’ in the ‘remote’, the ‘traditional’, or the ‘primitive’, instead of recognising how people actually live, experience and narrate. If this logic, still seen in global diversity talks, is left unchallenged, it can promote divides within the very communities that ‘culture’ wishes to unite.
Calling indigeneity “cultural” may seem harmless, sometimes even celebratory. It fits neatly with global enthusiasm for cultural diversity. But beneath that positivity, it can flatten lived histories into neat categories that serve outside imaginations more than local realities.
Festivals like Behdienkhlam tell us that indigeneity is something lived in relation – to religion, to history, to others. It cannot be captured by labels alone. Understanding indigeneity is less about measuring and defining, and more about listening to and understanding people’s lives on their own terms.
(The author is a PhD scholar at Leiden University, the Netherlands, currently conducting research in the Jaintia Hills. Her doctoral work forms part of a five-year project, Futuring Heritage: Conservation, Community and Contestation in the Eastern Himalayas, jointly initiated by Leiden University and Ashoka University).