Traditional institutions in the Khasi-Jaintia society are “living organisms” which have existed for centuries and internally evolved from one phase to another. Despite having come into contact with newer and more modern forms of administration, they continue to exist, backed by local public opinion that has called for their continuity amidst diminishing responsibility and utility. This collection of papers explores the landscapes of traditional institutions that exist in the present Khasi and Jaintia Hills in Meghalaya, India. The chapters blend oral tradition with historical records and available sources from secondary literature. They examine the interplay of power and functions between the constitutional authorities, such as the state government, and the Autonomous District Councils and traditional authorities represented by the traditional institutions.

With reference to United Khāsi-Jaintia Hills (India).

The essays are written in the context of the so-called tribal areas of the north-eastern region of India. The base data in most cases have however been collected from Meghalaya, the Khasi-Jaintia Hills in particular, my primary research universe. However, the ethnic groups living in the mountainous terrain of India’s north-east, show a characteristic unity, despite linguistic and cultural diversities, that of being in a state of social format called ‘tribal’ facing similar problems of static life, economy and under-development. Added to this are the tensions generated in recent years when education and some waves of development reached the region and tribal self-governing states in the Indian Union came in to being. Consequently, new issues have come into the fore–the issues relating to self-assertion, retention of the age-old cultural identity, the crisis of adjustment between tradition and modernity, and above all, the tensions of a change-over from the tranquil folklife to modern hurly-burly including those of the fast moving world in the days of globalization. Consequently, there also appeared a concern with folklore, the search for a ‘lore’ of essential core, to write a new history. Khasi Jaintia Oral Texts Folklore and Development Antithetic NorthEast India Mentalities,The Folklife and the Socio Psychologial Issues of Development Identity Narrative, Ritual and Historical Jaintia Religion and Identity Khasi Orality Khasi-Jaintia Genre of Folklore The Nongkrem Dances of Khasi Meghalaya Hills, Dales and Groves Folk, Court, Popular Hermeneutics of Religious Practices Verrier Elwin North-East Frontier

People from India’s Northeast have crafted distinct as well as diverse cultural cryptograms, discernments and personality which is frequently at loggerheads with the power politics from outside the region. Thus, attention is often on the societies of the Northeast India as they putter with transforming institutions and more intensive resource consumption in the wake of modernization and development activities. This volume is an examination into questions of who exercises control, who constructs knowledge/ideas about the region and how far such discourses are people-centric. It inspects how India’s Northeast have been understood in colonial and post-colonial contexts through the contributions from research scholars and faculties from different academic spaces. These contributions are both from within the region as well as from neighbourhood. Thus, presenting a cross-dimensional gaze on social, political, economic as well as issues related to space-relation. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

An impressive collection of writings on women's issues in Indian history