The veneration of the dead, including one's ancestors, is based on love and respect for the deceased. In some cultures, it is related to beliefs that the dead have a continued existence, and may possess the ability to influence the fortune of the living. Some groups venerate their direct, familial ancestors. Certain religious groups, in particular the Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Catholic Church, venerate saints as intercessors with God; the latter also believes in prayer for departed souls in Purgatory. Other religious groups, however, consider veneration of the dead to be idolatry and a sin.
A tutelary is a deity or a spirit who is a guardian, patron, or protector of a particular place, geographic feature, person, lineage, nation, culture, or occupation. The etymology of "tutelary" expresses the concept of safety and thus of guardianship.
The Ahom or Tai-Ahom is an ethnic group from the Indian states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. The members of this group are admixed descendants of the Tai people who reached the Brahmaputra valley of Assam in 1228 and the local indigenous people who joined them over the course of history. Sukaphaa, the leader of the Tai group and his 9,000 followers established the Ahom kingdom, which controlled much of the Brahmaputra Valley in modern Assam until 1826.
A household deity is a deity or spirit that protects the home, looking after the entire household or certain key members. It has been a common belief in paganism as well as in folklore across many parts of the world.
The Ahom dynasty (1228–1826) ruled the Ahom Kingdom in present-day Assam, India for nearly 598 years. The dynasty was established by Sukaphaa, a Shan prince of Mong Mao who came to Assam after crossing the Patkai mountains. The rule of this dynasty ended with the Burmese invasion of Assam and the subsequent annexation by the British East India Company following the Treaty of Yandabo in 1826.
Theyyam is a Hindu religious ritual practiced in northern Kerala and some parts of Karnataka. Theyyam is also known as Kaḷiyāṭṭaṁ or Tiṟa. Theyyam consists of traditions, rituals and customs associated with temples and sacred groves of Malabar. The people of the region consider Theyyam itself as a channel to a god and they thus seek blessings from Theyyam.
Sukaphaa, also Siu-Ka-Pha, the first Ahom king in medieval Assam, was the founder of the Ahom kingdom and the architect of Assam. A prince of the Su/Tsu (Tiger) clan of the Mao-Shan sub-tribe originally from present-day Mong Mao, Yunnan Province, China, the kingdom he established in 1228 existed for nearly six hundred years and in the process unified the various ethnic groups of the region that left a deep impact on the region. In reverence to his position in Assam's history the honorific Chaolung is generally associated with his name.
The Ahom kingdom was a late medieval kingdom in the Brahmaputra Valley that retained its independence for nearly 600 years despite encountering Mughal expansion in Northeast India. Established by Sukaphaa, a Tai prince from Mong Mao, it began as a mong in the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra based on wet rice agriculture. It expanded suddenly under Suhungmung in the 16th century and became multi-ethnic in character, casting a profound effect on the political and social life of the entire Brahmaputra valley. The kingdom became weaker with the rise of the Moamoria rebellion, and subsequently fell to repeated Burmese invasions of Assam. With the defeat of the Burmese after the First Anglo-Burmese War and the Treaty of Yandabo in 1826, control of the kingdom passed into East India Company hands.
Charaideo or Che-Rai-Doi is a town in Charaideo district, Assam, India and was also the first capital of the Ahom kingdom established by the first Ahom king Chao Lung Siu-Ka-Pha in 1253. Even though the capital moved to other places over the course of the 600 years of rule, Charaideo remained the symbol of Ahom power. It is now known for its collection of maidams, tumuli or burial mounds of the Ahom kings and Ahom royalty.
The Tai folk religion, or Satsana Phi, or Ban Phi is a form of animist religious beliefs intermixed with Buddhist beliefs traditionally and historically practiced by groups of ethnic Tai peoples. It is a syncretic mixture of Buddhist and Hindu practices with local traditional beliefs in mainland southeast Asia. Tai folk religion was a dominant native religion in mainland Southeast Asia until the arrival of Buddhism and Hinduism.
Me-Dam-Me-Phi is the most important veneration of the dead communal festival in the Ahom religion celebrated by the Ahom people on 31 January every year in memory of the departed. It is the manifestation of the concept of ancestor worship that the Ahoms share with other peoples originating from the Tai stock. It is a festival to show respect to the departed ancestors and remember their contribution to society.
The Sonowal Kachari are one of the oldest indigenous peoples of the state of Assam in Northeast India. They are of Tibeto-Burman origin, and are closely related with other indigenous ethnic groups of Assam, which are commonly referred to as Kachari.
The di inferi or dii inferi were a shadowy collective of ancient Roman deities associated with death and the underworld. The epithet inferi is also given to the mysterious Manes, a collective of ancestral spirits. The most likely origin of the word Manes is from manus or manis, meaning "good" or "kindly," which was a euphemistic way to speak of the inferi so as to avert their potential to harm or cause fear.
Mo or Moism is the religion of most Zhuang people, the largest ethnic minority of China. It has a large presence in Guangxi. While it has a supreme god, the creator Bu Luotuo (布洛陀), numerous other deities are venerated as well. It has a three-element-theory. Mo is animistic, teaching that spirits are present in everything.
Chinese folk religion plays a dynamic role in the lives of the overseas Chinese who have settled in the countries of this geographic region, particularly Burmese Chinese, Singaporean Chinese, Malaysian Chinese, Thai Chinese and Hoa. The Indonesian Chinese, by contrast, were forced to adopt en masse either Buddhism or Christianity in the 1950s and 1960s, abandoning traditional worship, due to Indonesia's religious policies which at the time forbade Chinese traditional religion or did not recognize it as a "religion" thus making it vulnerable to discrimination. Some Chinese Filipinos also still practice some Chinese traditional religions, besides Christianity of either Roman Catholicism or Protestantism, of which some have also varyingly syncretized traditional Chinese religious practices with. Chinese folk religion, the ethnic religion of Han Chinese, "Shenism" was especially coined referring to its Southeast Asian expression; another Southeast Asian name for the religion is the Sanskrit expression Satya Dharma.
The Chutia people are an ethnic group that are native to Assam and historically associated with the Chutia kingdom. However, after the kingdom was absorbed into the Ahom kingdom in 1523–24, the Chutia population was widely displaced and dispersed in other parts of Upper Assam as well as Central Assam. They constitute one of the core groups that form the Assamese people.
Tamreswari temple is a temple for the tribal goddess called Kecaikhati is situated about 18 km away from Sadiya in Tinsukia district, Assam, India. The temple was in the custody of non-Brahmin tribal priests called Deoris. Some remains suggest that a Chutiya king built a wall or the temple itself in the year 1442. There were four different kinds of Deori priest who looked after the temple. The Bar Bharali and the Saru Bharali collected dues of the temple and provides animals for sacrifice. The Bar Deori and the Saru Deori performs the sacrifice and sung hymns. The temple was dedicated to Kechaikhati/Pishasi, a powerful tribal deity or a form of the Buddhist deity Tara, commonly found among different Bodo-Kachari groups. The worship of the goddess even after coming under Hindu influence was performed according to her old tribal customs.
Charaideo district is an administrative district in the state of Assam in India. It was formally declared a new district of the state on 15 August 2015 by then Chief Minister of Assam Tarun Gogoi. It has been carved out of Sivasagar district with Sonari as its administrative headquarter. It comes under Upper Assam division.
Ahomisation was an assimilation process in the former Ahom kingdom of Assam by which the people from different ethnic groups in the region became a part of what is now considered as the Ahom population.
Chumdeo or Chum Fra Rung Mung or Chumpha is an Ahom deity or the god of heaven in the Furalung custom. The Ahom kings worshipped and kept it in the Deoghar alongside the royal palace. It was customary to hang Chumdeo around king’s neck at the coronation of the new king or Singarigharutha ceremony. It was given by his maternal grandmother to the first Ahom king Sukapha and he brought Chumdeo with him while he crossed the Patkai mountain and came to Assam. According to public belief, Chumdeo grants infinite wealth and with the deity in possession the enemy cannot win over. The size and shape of the Chumdeo is not much known though it is described to be a stone. According to some sources the shape of this stone is like a heron. It was kept in a small box in a golden seat. Chumdeo disappeared after the end of the Ahom reign in Assam.
