Karbi

Karbi religion, known as Aronban, is followed by the Mikir, or Karbi, of the hills of central Assam. It centres on a trinity of gods: Hemphu, the creator and protector; Mukrang, linked with strength and justice; and the goddess Rasinja.

The Karbi honour place spirits called Longri Arnam and household and ancestral spirits called Karhi, and have no temples or idols, offering eggs, chickens and pigs at sacred groves. The Rongker festival, held by the village elders in April before the shifting cultivation begins, asks protection from disease and crop failure.

The Chomangkan, the greatest Karbi ceremony, is a funerary rite held months or years after a death to guide the soul to the land of the ancestors. Ritual singers, the lunsepo, chant the mosera, narrative songs that carry the tribe's migration history.