Life, Death, and Afterlife: The Disappearance of the Rituals of Thisam Phanit (the Festival of Dead)

In 1907-1908, William Pettigrew, the first Western missionary in Manipur, prohibited the observation of Thisam Phanit, festival of the dead, among the Indigenous Tangkhul Nagas. This suppression, supported by colonial power, led to the gradual disappearance of Thisam Phanit’s rituals – including song, dance, and oral performance – while simultaneously diminishing both Indigenous spirituality and an entire artistic tradition rooted in the sacred. However, I argue that this historical event and the presumption that resulted in the prohibition of the festival should be re-examined, and the artistic rituals associated with Thisam Phanit ought to be recovered in contemporary contexts. Reviving these traditions offers a means of decolonial reclamation by informing their views about life, death, and the afterlife, as well as reinventing Indigenous artistic expressions.