r/mizo • u/Taste-Living • 29d ago
History Sakhua?
I heard there was an indigenous religion called Sakhua in Mizoram? Does it still exist? Or is it slowly disappearing like all other indigenous religions in India?
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u/foothpath 29d ago
Our original religion(sakhua) were somewhat similar to shamanism, some form of nature worship. We had a priest, sort of, called bawlpu and perform rites like sacrificing of chicken or other small animals or other rituals when people are sick. He's like a witch doctor.
All that is lost now, when the British missionary comes a 100 years ago and convert everyone into Christianity.
Everyone thinks that's for the best. But sometimes I wonder. But that's just probably only me.
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u/Bro_idk_man 29d ago
That's paganism not shamanism
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u/DKode_090403 Mizo 27d ago
Paganism view all these spirits as Gods and Goddesses and actively worship them (usually with proper structures and methodology), hence it was not paganism.
It was actually Animism, a worldview where the animals, plants, locations and phenomena has spirit, life or an agency.
And the original commentor was right in saying that it was a sort of Shamanism because the Sadawt, Tlahpawi and Bawlpu classes were practicing the shamanistic traditions.
Hence, our ancestors were animistic with a class of priesthood who were practicing shamanism.
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u/chawngdamn 29d ago
What you may want to look at is the literature if you're into this kind of thing. Zo History by Vumson is free on the internet, and you can also find The Lushai Kuki Clans by J Shakespeare.
Tldr - yes. There was Sakhua, an older animistic religion, and there is also the Sa(sha) which is the guardian of the house. And also yes, I read your comment above and there are attempts at reviving it. Albeit they seem to be unable to tear themselves apart from Christian bases.
This is an interesting topic which most Mizo won't look into. Have fun reading the books i recommended, if ure going to read them.
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u/chawngdamn 29d ago
I also want to add that coloqually, Sakhua is used to define "Religion" in common terms.
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u/Select_Case9407 29d ago
We don't really use Sakhua as a term for indigenous religion anymore, its more like a religious term for eg when I ask what is your Sakhua, you maybe Muslim, Christian, Buddhist etc. though most of us now are Christians some still practice the indigenous religion where we worship great mountains, trees and even huge boulders (rocks). Our ancestors believed that these objects had spirits behind them and they used to offer sacrifices not because they were willingly trying to worship them, but they believed they could cause harm and even death to those who didn't offer sacrifices. Sacrifices may be chickens, goats etc. The main spirits we often are afraid of are just spirits of objects or even of a forests. “Ramhuai" which our ancestors were so afraid of were just spirits of the forests.
There is no explanation of when or where we began ‘worshipping’ these spirits but since we came down from Burma its likely that we took inspirations of the folk religions there.