Source:www.zcfdelhi.org
It is often assumed and asserted that the Zo people, currently scattered within the present political maps of India, Burma and Bangladesh embraced Christianity en masse in less than half a century essentially due to the fact that they were backward in every aspect including intellectually and spiritually and have nothing better to choose. This article argues that this assumption may not be fully correct for the simple reason that these people did have own their philosophy or ideas of God, life ,death, life after death and some highly valued social norms some of which are quiet akin to Christian values and teachings. Hence the higher level of acceptability of Christianity to the people.
Introduction:
When my family was Thimphu, Bhutan, in the years 2003-06, they had a family friend whose wife was from Aizawl, Mizoram.Her husband was a retired medical doctor from World Health Organization. We used to make a point to visit them whenever I visited my family and invariably they would insist for lunch or dinner. Once while discussing various topics of interest, the issue of the Mizos becoming Christian came up. Her husband observed the ‘If the Mizos have had proper religion, they would not have embraced Christianity en masse as they did today’. I found that his observation was quiet sharp but did not react to it as these could be how outsiders perceived the transformation of the Zo society. The issue however lingers in my mind for all these years. In one sense, I tend to agree that if the Zo people had been deeply engrossed in the religious teachings of Islam or for that matter in the clutches of Hinduism or Buddhism with the entire attendant practices, Christianity could not made much headway as it has been doing as of today. But it may not be fully correct to assume and assert that their conversion to Christianity was wholly due to this factor. There were certain other factors as well. Amongst them was the then existing beliefs and practices of the people during the pre-Christianity period which is broadly being termed as the ‘Zo philosophy ’for the purpose of this article.
(a). Concept of God:
It is admitted fact that the Zo people did worshipped anumber of gods or deities. What they did may not really be term it as ‘worship’ which signifies more of the ‘adoration and honor’ to the object. It was more of appeasement acts to various evil spirits whom they attributed them to be causes of their illnesses and ill lucks. Once the sacrifices were performed with or without the expected positive outcome they were ignored. The priest determined the nature of sacrifice and the right animal to be offered to the deity. Some of these spirits do not have even the name and often referred to as ‘Lolam’ ‘inlam’ or “vawkpi dawi’ or any other awesome reference. In addition to these spirits to whom sacrifices were offered, there were few more spirit whose names were known but generally sacrifices not offered such as Pheisam,Lasi,phung,khawmu etc to name a few. They were attributed with all kinds of shapes and sizes who may prank or harass the people but not necessarily expecting any offering.
They did have another deity usually refer to as ‘SA”. (This ‘SA’ does not mean meat).Unlike those harassing evils spirits to whom they offered various types of animal sacrifices, SA is a deity who does not cause harm to human beings. At the worst, it may not shower blessings on them. This deity is usually confined to the respective families. There used to be family worship of this deity called’Insunglam ho or insunglam kithawih”. Sacrifice ritual is done not because some family member suffers from any sickness or the family faces some unusually back luck. It is done as matter of essential obligations to get its blessings and to be on the right side of the deity. The animal used for this purpose is a pig usually the best and the biggest male pig by certain clans likes the Lusei or the motherly female pig by certain other groups. Leaving out certain detail procedural steps, it is essential that the meat is to be consumed inside the house only by the family members and no outsider or visitor is allowed during this period. The priest used for this purpose also has to be different usually called’Sadawt’ in Lusei and not the usual Puithiam or Thiampu who is more of a medicine man in the village.During the process of the worship the priest, amongst others recites the names of the previous villages where the family had settled invoking the bleesing of ‘SA’ who used to bless them in those villages.1 Due to this it is often cited that whenever somebody behaves in certain unusual way and socially not acceptable manner; such as having more than one wife or falling in love with closed relative etc people used to stay,’ A pu SA in a vei pei a hi’2ie to say ‘His grandfather’s SA is turning him the reverse way’.
Then there is another deity called’khuanu’ or khuavang’. This is another good a spirit usually residing in village amongst the hills, which often indistinctively, far away amid the clouds which hide the blue hill tops.3 It does not cause any harm to the human being but may shower blessings to them from time to time. It is obviously much more powerful than those harassing evil spirits. But the unfortunate part is that it does not intervene in their evils works or prevent them from causing harm and suffering to the people. Sometimes its name is also interchangeable used with the term’Pathian’.In fact, is asserted by educated person like Rev Zairema that initially there was an intension to translate’ God’ in English to ‘khuanu/Khuavang’. When an elderly person of Hmar community was consulted, he straightaway told that when we have “Chung Pathian’why should we go for something else and who is also known as‘chatuan pa’ or Patuan’. Hence ‘Pathian’ took prominence over ‘khuanu/khuavang in the Bible. But ‘khuanu’ is still usually used in the songs and poems in place of ‘Pathian’ even today.
The highest figure however is ‘Chung Pathian’ in the religious concept of the Zo people. He is a fatherly figure who lives at a very distant place. He is very detached in his outlook and does not intervene or interfere in the ordinary affairs of men and its relations with other objects both living and non living. He job is to create everything in the universe. He may occasionally showers blessings on people without much concern whether they make good use of His blessings or whether they are thankful to him or not. Some of the Zo intellectual asserts that the job of ‘Chung Pathian’ is to create the structure and shape and ‘khuanu’s; s job is to give flesh and bold and all other beautification works4.In some sense ‘Khuanu’ is subordinate to ‘Chung Pathian’5
In the last part of 19th century the British rule got extended to the region where the zo people settled. The first Welsh missionary who visited the present state of Mizoram was Rev William Williams a serving missionary from the Khasi-Jantia Hills in 18916.This was followed by other pioneering missionaries such as J.H Lorrain and F.W.Savidge. The southern Manipur got the first ever news of the gospel sometime in 1910 with the visit to Sevon village by Watkins Roberts and his teams. They started preaching about the Christian God, the God who is all powerful and creator of heaven and earth and everything living and non living in it. This idea of new God of the Christians was not obviously not repulsive or shocking to these people. In fact, the new God sounds quiet similar to their own ‘Chung pathian” There was no recorded major incident or downright rejection of the Christian God by the people. Reported opposition to Christian by people particularly by the village chiefs was due to something else which this paper would dwell in detail later. The concept of Christian God was quiet acceptable to them and there were reported eagerness on the part of the people to hear more about it since their knowledge of their own ‘Chung pathian’ was very limited. It is therefore, undeniable fact that due to the similarity of the concept of then existing God in the overall philosophy of the Zo people, and the concept of Christian God did help the spread of Christian faith.
(b) God as Human Being:
‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life’7
The zo people did not have problem with this Bible’s commandment as well. God, having a son may be an issue for many other people since God is believed to be spirit and he should not and can not have a son. However, the Zo people have not questioned this miraculous verse of the Bible. This is gain due to their philosophical background of the concept of God. For them God can do anything including having a son, however awkward it may appear be in human terms. There were many instances in their mythical stories and fables where human beings converted themselves into some other living or non beings such as Miss Tumchhungi converted into “Theihai (mango), Tualvungi and Zawlpala converting themselves into ‘Phengphelep (butterfly) etc to name a few8. Therefore God having a son or Gods son becoming a human was neither questioned by the people nor was the idea strange or repulsive to them. Similarly to believe in the son and having eternal life at the simplistic level was so not a questionable proposition to the people.
The difficulty possibly could come for them only when it says that ‘I am the way and the truth and the life.No one comes to the father except through me”9 It implies that one should have full faith only in Jesus, surrender everything to him and live your life according to his desire and commandments. Here, people started doubting and reportedly asked the missionaries. ‘Will your Jesus be able to defeat all these numerous evil spirits if we only trust in him?’ ‘Can he really protect us from all these harassments and evil designs?10In fact, because of this point of faith, many people started doubting the ability of the new Christian faith to take care of their future interest in this life. It was widely claimed that those families who fully converted themselves into Christianity did paid the price in some forms from the evil sprits such as serious illnesses in the family or even death. Many of them went back to the pre-Christian practices though those who did not give up apparently did not face extraordinary sufferings as expected of them by the people.
(c) The concept life after death:
The concept of life after physical death is well theorised by the Zo people. In fact they have elaborate theology on the life after death, which of course if properly analyzed lead us to the point of vagueness11. First of all, as and when a person dies, his soul (thla) comes out of the body through the head (ludeep) and climb on to the pillar of the bed and ultimately gets out of the house through inliang. Some of them go upto the Rihdil, the lake at Burma-Mizoram border and return to stay around the house or village for about three months12. This belief also happens to coincide with the story of the Jesus spending over 40 days with his disciples after his resurrection. The Zo story of Zawltlingi (khupting) and Ngambawm, tells us the full story of how the life after death is spent. But there is a big hurdle to reach the “mithi khua.” Pu Pawla used to harass and torture the people on the way by hitting them with egg size stone of sling. The pain is so severe that it used to last three years to get ride of the pains. There were two ways of overcoming the punishment on the way to mithi KhuaLI) Inlam Thangchhuah and (ii) Ram (gam) lam Thangchhuah;13 and either of this achievement can make you free from the torture of Pu Pawla. To accomplish the first, you have to complete six steps (i) Sakung(ii) Chawng(iii) Dawino chhui(iv) Sedawi (v)Sekhawn leh (vi) Khuangchawi For the second set of honour you must hunt succesfully at least the following wild animals a) Sakhi(b) Sazuk(c) Savawm(d) sangal and(e) sele. There are adding on as well, such as Rulngan (Gulngan), Muvanlai and vahluk which would make you more glorified in the Mithi Khua. Those who accomplish either of these two are not only free from the harassment of Pu Pawla but also enjoy in the mithi khua, the free supply of rice without any need for physical labor.
To accomplish either of the above two is not an easy thing for common person. It could be only done by the rich and the powerful chiefs. According to their calculations,10 baskets(Zo basket) are required for one year food for one person. If there are 10 members then 100 baskets are required. If you would like to perform Sechhun (sialsun) thangchhuah, you need a minimum of 20 basket of clean rice for the rice beer a part from many other requirements. Therefore when the teachings of Christianity came, it became very attractive choice for the common people partly because life after death is generally similar to what they already had in their own philosophy but the means to reach there has now become very easy and simple14.The only requirement was to believe in Jesus and have faith in him. Therefore when one looks at the trend of the Christianity spreading in the Zo society, it is noticed that it was the common people who embraced much more easily than the rich people and the village chiefs. It was one of the reasons as well that the village Chiefs generally opposed Christianity in the early period as it was threatening their entrenched predominant social position in the Zo society.15But wherever the village chief became believer, the spread of Christianity also went much quicker. The pialral/pialgal, the much sought after by everybody was found within the reach of the common man without going through the tenuous journey of ‘Thangchhuah’.
(d) Social norms and Values:
In the Bible, particularly Gospel books of the New Testament record a numbers of incidents and stories wherein Jesus scorned upon the hypocrisy and the arrogance of the Jews people particularly the upper class such the Pharisees and Sadducees. His main thrust of the missionary work was humility combined with a strong sense of social service. A number of incidents were there where the arrogance of the rich people was thrown to the dustbin and the lowly sincere attitude of the ordinary persons was emulated by Jesus. His social service attitude is best exemplified by the story of the good Samaritan helping the poor victims of robbery on the roadside.
The thrust of the social values largely embodied in the Bible is quiet receptive to the Zo people. Since time immemorial, they had had certain ethical social codes. These have been well emulated all along by various groups of the Zo people. Humility, sincerity, respects for elders, concern for others particularly the widows and other weaker sections of society and courtesy in speech and behavior were very much part of the cultural ethos of the Zo people. It could be due to these reasons that there are very few words for cursing others except to call the other person as Zawng(monkey) or a woman’Mihur/Mihuk”.However on the positive side what stands prominently is ’Tlawmngaihna’. This connotes and implies uprightness, courage and self sacrifice. It also plies courstey, humility and modesty. Its essence is consideration for what is good and pleasing for others and for society, respect for parents and older people and ready to help for the needy.16The degree of sacrifice for the sake of ‘Tlawmngaihna’ if so great that when the readiness of Taitesena to do anything for the sake of ‘Tlawmngaihna’ was known to his village Chief and when he proclaimed it to the people, Taitesena’s father was reported to have exclaimed : “I have lost my son’.17
Conclusion:
The philosophy of the Zo people may be rudimentary compare to that of the Greeks or the Romans or the Chinese. But they did have their own concept of God, life, death, life after death and other social norms. These ideas and values were largely uninfluenced by the surrounding civilizations and religious thoughts such as Buddhism in the east, the Islam in the South and west and the Hinduism in the North and North West. Their ideas and thoughts remained pristine, unpolluted by these larger and more influential thoughts. When Christianity arrived in their part of the world, though quiet late due to the physical distances and poor communications, they found many of own in tune with that of Christian concepts and values. This undeniably helped them to be more responsive to the teachings of Christianity and its values. It is therefore not wholly correct to attribute their backwardness and absence of organized religion for rapid Christianization of the Zo people. This evangelization took more speedy speed particularly when the preaching was taken up by the native believers who have similar background so much so that in the present state of Mizoram their number increased from 45 (0.05%) of population in 1901 to 1,57,515 (80.31% in 1951.18
~ This is the seminar paper delivered by Pu Nehkhomang Neihsial on One Day Seminar organised by the Zomi Christian Fellowship, Delhi at Mizoram House, Vasant Vihar, New Delhi on July 9, 2010.
It is often assumed and asserted that the Zo people, currently scattered within the present political maps of India, Burma and Bangladesh embraced Christianity en masse in less than half a century essentially due to the fact that they were backward in every aspect including intellectually and spiritually and have nothing better to choose. This article argues that this assumption may not be fully correct for the simple reason that these people did have own their philosophy or ideas of God, life ,death, life after death and some highly valued social norms some of which are quiet akin to Christian values and teachings. Hence the higher level of acceptability of Christianity to the people.
Introduction:
When my family was Thimphu, Bhutan, in the years 2003-06, they had a family friend whose wife was from Aizawl, Mizoram.Her husband was a retired medical doctor from World Health Organization. We used to make a point to visit them whenever I visited my family and invariably they would insist for lunch or dinner. Once while discussing various topics of interest, the issue of the Mizos becoming Christian came up. Her husband observed the ‘If the Mizos have had proper religion, they would not have embraced Christianity en masse as they did today’. I found that his observation was quiet sharp but did not react to it as these could be how outsiders perceived the transformation of the Zo society. The issue however lingers in my mind for all these years. In one sense, I tend to agree that if the Zo people had been deeply engrossed in the religious teachings of Islam or for that matter in the clutches of Hinduism or Buddhism with the entire attendant practices, Christianity could not made much headway as it has been doing as of today. But it may not be fully correct to assume and assert that their conversion to Christianity was wholly due to this factor. There were certain other factors as well. Amongst them was the then existing beliefs and practices of the people during the pre-Christianity period which is broadly being termed as the ‘Zo philosophy ’for the purpose of this article.
(a). Concept of God:
It is admitted fact that the Zo people did worshipped anumber of gods or deities. What they did may not really be term it as ‘worship’ which signifies more of the ‘adoration and honor’ to the object. It was more of appeasement acts to various evil spirits whom they attributed them to be causes of their illnesses and ill lucks. Once the sacrifices were performed with or without the expected positive outcome they were ignored. The priest determined the nature of sacrifice and the right animal to be offered to the deity. Some of these spirits do not have even the name and often referred to as ‘Lolam’ ‘inlam’ or “vawkpi dawi’ or any other awesome reference. In addition to these spirits to whom sacrifices were offered, there were few more spirit whose names were known but generally sacrifices not offered such as Pheisam,Lasi,phung,khawmu etc to name a few. They were attributed with all kinds of shapes and sizes who may prank or harass the people but not necessarily expecting any offering.
They did have another deity usually refer to as ‘SA”. (This ‘SA’ does not mean meat).Unlike those harassing evils spirits to whom they offered various types of animal sacrifices, SA is a deity who does not cause harm to human beings. At the worst, it may not shower blessings on them. This deity is usually confined to the respective families. There used to be family worship of this deity called’Insunglam ho or insunglam kithawih”. Sacrifice ritual is done not because some family member suffers from any sickness or the family faces some unusually back luck. It is done as matter of essential obligations to get its blessings and to be on the right side of the deity. The animal used for this purpose is a pig usually the best and the biggest male pig by certain clans likes the Lusei or the motherly female pig by certain other groups. Leaving out certain detail procedural steps, it is essential that the meat is to be consumed inside the house only by the family members and no outsider or visitor is allowed during this period. The priest used for this purpose also has to be different usually called’Sadawt’ in Lusei and not the usual Puithiam or Thiampu who is more of a medicine man in the village.During the process of the worship the priest, amongst others recites the names of the previous villages where the family had settled invoking the bleesing of ‘SA’ who used to bless them in those villages.1 Due to this it is often cited that whenever somebody behaves in certain unusual way and socially not acceptable manner; such as having more than one wife or falling in love with closed relative etc people used to stay,’ A pu SA in a vei pei a hi’2ie to say ‘His grandfather’s SA is turning him the reverse way’.
Then there is another deity called’khuanu’ or khuavang’. This is another good a spirit usually residing in village amongst the hills, which often indistinctively, far away amid the clouds which hide the blue hill tops.3 It does not cause any harm to the human being but may shower blessings to them from time to time. It is obviously much more powerful than those harassing evil spirits. But the unfortunate part is that it does not intervene in their evils works or prevent them from causing harm and suffering to the people. Sometimes its name is also interchangeable used with the term’Pathian’.In fact, is asserted by educated person like Rev Zairema that initially there was an intension to translate’ God’ in English to ‘khuanu/Khuavang’. When an elderly person of Hmar community was consulted, he straightaway told that when we have “Chung Pathian’why should we go for something else and who is also known as‘chatuan pa’ or Patuan’. Hence ‘Pathian’ took prominence over ‘khuanu/khuavang in the Bible. But ‘khuanu’ is still usually used in the songs and poems in place of ‘Pathian’ even today.
The highest figure however is ‘Chung Pathian’ in the religious concept of the Zo people. He is a fatherly figure who lives at a very distant place. He is very detached in his outlook and does not intervene or interfere in the ordinary affairs of men and its relations with other objects both living and non living. He job is to create everything in the universe. He may occasionally showers blessings on people without much concern whether they make good use of His blessings or whether they are thankful to him or not. Some of the Zo intellectual asserts that the job of ‘Chung Pathian’ is to create the structure and shape and ‘khuanu’s; s job is to give flesh and bold and all other beautification works4.In some sense ‘Khuanu’ is subordinate to ‘Chung Pathian’5
In the last part of 19th century the British rule got extended to the region where the zo people settled. The first Welsh missionary who visited the present state of Mizoram was Rev William Williams a serving missionary from the Khasi-Jantia Hills in 18916.This was followed by other pioneering missionaries such as J.H Lorrain and F.W.Savidge. The southern Manipur got the first ever news of the gospel sometime in 1910 with the visit to Sevon village by Watkins Roberts and his teams. They started preaching about the Christian God, the God who is all powerful and creator of heaven and earth and everything living and non living in it. This idea of new God of the Christians was not obviously not repulsive or shocking to these people. In fact, the new God sounds quiet similar to their own ‘Chung pathian” There was no recorded major incident or downright rejection of the Christian God by the people. Reported opposition to Christian by people particularly by the village chiefs was due to something else which this paper would dwell in detail later. The concept of Christian God was quiet acceptable to them and there were reported eagerness on the part of the people to hear more about it since their knowledge of their own ‘Chung pathian’ was very limited. It is therefore, undeniable fact that due to the similarity of the concept of then existing God in the overall philosophy of the Zo people, and the concept of Christian God did help the spread of Christian faith.
(b) God as Human Being:
‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life’7
The zo people did not have problem with this Bible’s commandment as well. God, having a son may be an issue for many other people since God is believed to be spirit and he should not and can not have a son. However, the Zo people have not questioned this miraculous verse of the Bible. This is gain due to their philosophical background of the concept of God. For them God can do anything including having a son, however awkward it may appear be in human terms. There were many instances in their mythical stories and fables where human beings converted themselves into some other living or non beings such as Miss Tumchhungi converted into “Theihai (mango), Tualvungi and Zawlpala converting themselves into ‘Phengphelep (butterfly) etc to name a few8. Therefore God having a son or Gods son becoming a human was neither questioned by the people nor was the idea strange or repulsive to them. Similarly to believe in the son and having eternal life at the simplistic level was so not a questionable proposition to the people.
The difficulty possibly could come for them only when it says that ‘I am the way and the truth and the life.No one comes to the father except through me”9 It implies that one should have full faith only in Jesus, surrender everything to him and live your life according to his desire and commandments. Here, people started doubting and reportedly asked the missionaries. ‘Will your Jesus be able to defeat all these numerous evil spirits if we only trust in him?’ ‘Can he really protect us from all these harassments and evil designs?10In fact, because of this point of faith, many people started doubting the ability of the new Christian faith to take care of their future interest in this life. It was widely claimed that those families who fully converted themselves into Christianity did paid the price in some forms from the evil sprits such as serious illnesses in the family or even death. Many of them went back to the pre-Christian practices though those who did not give up apparently did not face extraordinary sufferings as expected of them by the people.
(c) The concept life after death:
The concept of life after physical death is well theorised by the Zo people. In fact they have elaborate theology on the life after death, which of course if properly analyzed lead us to the point of vagueness11. First of all, as and when a person dies, his soul (thla) comes out of the body through the head (ludeep) and climb on to the pillar of the bed and ultimately gets out of the house through inliang. Some of them go upto the Rihdil, the lake at Burma-Mizoram border and return to stay around the house or village for about three months12. This belief also happens to coincide with the story of the Jesus spending over 40 days with his disciples after his resurrection. The Zo story of Zawltlingi (khupting) and Ngambawm, tells us the full story of how the life after death is spent. But there is a big hurdle to reach the “mithi khua.” Pu Pawla used to harass and torture the people on the way by hitting them with egg size stone of sling. The pain is so severe that it used to last three years to get ride of the pains. There were two ways of overcoming the punishment on the way to mithi KhuaLI) Inlam Thangchhuah and (ii) Ram (gam) lam Thangchhuah;13 and either of this achievement can make you free from the torture of Pu Pawla. To accomplish the first, you have to complete six steps (i) Sakung(ii) Chawng(iii) Dawino chhui(iv) Sedawi (v)Sekhawn leh (vi) Khuangchawi For the second set of honour you must hunt succesfully at least the following wild animals a) Sakhi(b) Sazuk(c) Savawm(d) sangal and(e) sele. There are adding on as well, such as Rulngan (Gulngan), Muvanlai and vahluk which would make you more glorified in the Mithi Khua. Those who accomplish either of these two are not only free from the harassment of Pu Pawla but also enjoy in the mithi khua, the free supply of rice without any need for physical labor.
To accomplish either of the above two is not an easy thing for common person. It could be only done by the rich and the powerful chiefs. According to their calculations,10 baskets(Zo basket) are required for one year food for one person. If there are 10 members then 100 baskets are required. If you would like to perform Sechhun (sialsun) thangchhuah, you need a minimum of 20 basket of clean rice for the rice beer a part from many other requirements. Therefore when the teachings of Christianity came, it became very attractive choice for the common people partly because life after death is generally similar to what they already had in their own philosophy but the means to reach there has now become very easy and simple14.The only requirement was to believe in Jesus and have faith in him. Therefore when one looks at the trend of the Christianity spreading in the Zo society, it is noticed that it was the common people who embraced much more easily than the rich people and the village chiefs. It was one of the reasons as well that the village Chiefs generally opposed Christianity in the early period as it was threatening their entrenched predominant social position in the Zo society.15But wherever the village chief became believer, the spread of Christianity also went much quicker. The pialral/pialgal, the much sought after by everybody was found within the reach of the common man without going through the tenuous journey of ‘Thangchhuah’.
(d) Social norms and Values:
In the Bible, particularly Gospel books of the New Testament record a numbers of incidents and stories wherein Jesus scorned upon the hypocrisy and the arrogance of the Jews people particularly the upper class such the Pharisees and Sadducees. His main thrust of the missionary work was humility combined with a strong sense of social service. A number of incidents were there where the arrogance of the rich people was thrown to the dustbin and the lowly sincere attitude of the ordinary persons was emulated by Jesus. His social service attitude is best exemplified by the story of the good Samaritan helping the poor victims of robbery on the roadside.
The thrust of the social values largely embodied in the Bible is quiet receptive to the Zo people. Since time immemorial, they had had certain ethical social codes. These have been well emulated all along by various groups of the Zo people. Humility, sincerity, respects for elders, concern for others particularly the widows and other weaker sections of society and courtesy in speech and behavior were very much part of the cultural ethos of the Zo people. It could be due to these reasons that there are very few words for cursing others except to call the other person as Zawng(monkey) or a woman’Mihur/Mihuk”.However on the positive side what stands prominently is ’Tlawmngaihna’. This connotes and implies uprightness, courage and self sacrifice. It also plies courstey, humility and modesty. Its essence is consideration for what is good and pleasing for others and for society, respect for parents and older people and ready to help for the needy.16The degree of sacrifice for the sake of ‘Tlawmngaihna’ if so great that when the readiness of Taitesena to do anything for the sake of ‘Tlawmngaihna’ was known to his village Chief and when he proclaimed it to the people, Taitesena’s father was reported to have exclaimed : “I have lost my son’.17
Conclusion:
The philosophy of the Zo people may be rudimentary compare to that of the Greeks or the Romans or the Chinese. But they did have their own concept of God, life, death, life after death and other social norms. These ideas and values were largely uninfluenced by the surrounding civilizations and religious thoughts such as Buddhism in the east, the Islam in the South and west and the Hinduism in the North and North West. Their ideas and thoughts remained pristine, unpolluted by these larger and more influential thoughts. When Christianity arrived in their part of the world, though quiet late due to the physical distances and poor communications, they found many of own in tune with that of Christian concepts and values. This undeniably helped them to be more responsive to the teachings of Christianity and its values. It is therefore not wholly correct to attribute their backwardness and absence of organized religion for rapid Christianization of the Zo people. This evangelization took more speedy speed particularly when the preaching was taken up by the native believers who have similar background so much so that in the present state of Mizoram their number increased from 45 (0.05%) of population in 1901 to 1,57,515 (80.31% in 1951.18
~ This is the seminar paper delivered by Pu Nehkhomang Neihsial on One Day Seminar organised by the Zomi Christian Fellowship, Delhi at Mizoram House, Vasant Vihar, New Delhi on July 9, 2010.
No comments:
Post a Comment