Genna in Southeastern Asia

Abstract

and French Indo-China, is inhabited chiefly by peoples who belong to four linguistic stocks-the Tibeto-Burman, the Chinese, the Thai, and the Mon-Khmer. Of these, the first and last exhibit, in varying form and under diverse names, a social-religious complex, ordinarily called Genna by Englishspeaking writers.In the Tibeto-Burman group are included, from Burma, the Burmese, the Chin, and the Kachin, as well as their more northerly congeners, who, like the Moso and Lisu, occupy the borderlands between Yunnan, Burma, and Tibet; from Lower Assam, the Lushai and Kuki, derived from the Chin Hills; from Manipur, the Meitheis; from Assam and Manipur, the Naga tribes, and the Bodo, sometimes so-called-Garo, Mikir,' and Kachari; and, horn the foothills of the Himalayas and a distance south, the Aka, Dafla, Abor, Miri, and Mishmi. Three strata are in point of time distinguished. The oldest comprehends the ancestral Burmese certainly (references to these in Indian literature antedate the Christian era) and probably the Chin, Lushai-Kuki, Meitheis, and Naga. It also contains the Karen. The Karen dialects belong, with Chinese and Thai, to the Sinitic group of languages; the Sinitic and the Tibeto-Burman are the two great branches of the Tibeto-Chinese superstockf The most recent stratum is that constituted by the Abors, Miris, Mishmis, Daflas, and Akas, whose descent from their Himalayan homes into the valley of the Brahmaputra dates back not more than 150 years. There is a third, older than the latest yet considerably newer than the earliest, which I take to include the Gar0 and Mikir, the T G. A. Grierson, in the Linguistic Survey of India, 3, pt. 2, classifies 'Mikir as 2 I. H. R. Marshall, The Karen People of Burma. Ohio State Univ. Bull., v. 26, Naga-B odo. no. 3, 1922. 580 KATZ] GENNA IN SOUTHEASTERN ASIA 58 1Kachin, and, in a sense, the Kachari. The Kachari are ancient in the valley of the Brahmaputra, in whose western reaches they founded, at least as early as the first centuries of our era, the Kingdom of Kamarupa. Endle3 considers that they emerged originally from Tibet and China, and flowed in-two streams southward, the one into Western Assam, there to establish Kamarupa, the other down into Eastern Assam. The latter, if Endle be correct, might well be part of the first incursion of Tibeto-Burman peoples. Not un ti1 the thirteenth century, however, do we find the Kachari at Dimapur, whence come the present Kachari of North Cachar and northward, whom we may assign to the intermediate stratum.Each stratum is redivided into finer laminae, whose inclusion and interrelationship scanty historical materials do not permit us to determine. Three drifts there were, broadly speaking, long-continued and appreciably distinct. On their constitution and significance it is my endeavor in the present paper to shed light.Wilhelm Schmidt has demonstrated that the Munda tongues and the Khasi, the Mon, Palaung, and Wa spoken in Burma, the Khmer of Cambodia, and the languages of certain of the wilder folk of French Indo-China (of whom t...

Cosmology, Ecology, and Spirituality: Reappraising Stone Culture, Genna Tradition, and Ancestor Veneration among the Naga Tribes

“…They gradually evolved an annual cycle of agricultural ceremonies, diverse sorts of sepulchral monuments in wood, phallic posts, and phallicism (Katz, 1928). Katz (1928) has counted about 200 situations/rites under the Genna and Kenna-Penna, as proclaimed by the shaman-priests. Within the genna complex, both "religious" and "social gennas" are recognized.…”

“…Writing in 1928, Katz observed that the numerous “tribes” belonging to Tibeto-Burman and the Mon-Khmer stocks spread in vast peninsula of South-Eastern Asia, including Burma as also Northeast (then called Assam) exhibit, in varying form and under diverse names, a social–religious complex, ordinarily called “Genna” (Katz, 1928). These tribes had advanced the notions of Penna and Kenna, and erected great stones, dolmen, and menhir in honor of their dead (1928).…”

“…These tribes had advanced the notions of Penna and Kenna, and erected great stones, dolmen, and menhir in honor of their dead (1928). They gradually evolved an annual cycle of agricultural ceremonies, diverse sorts of sepulchral monuments in wood, phallic posts, and phallicism (Katz, 1928). Katz (1928) has counted about 200 situations/rites under the Genna and Kenna-Penna, as proclaimed by the shaman-priests.…”