THE MARAM CONCEPT OF SOUL Introduction This piece of work will introduce readers into the brief background of the people of Maram focusing mainly on the primitive beliefs of soul from the animistic religion to the contemporary concept and evaluate through the language of the Bible.

1. Geography, Language, Culture and Population of Maram Maram is a tribe from North-Eastern region of ethnically belong to group of Nagas confined within district of , under Tadubi block and Kangpokpi areas. Maram have some similar rapports with Thangal, Angami, Koireng, Paomei, Maos and . Marams are mongoloids in features, linguistically belong to the sub-family of the Sino-Tibetan family.1 It is said, “Maram used Roman script in writing their language.”2 “There are more than thirty Maram villages spreaded in the geographical expanse generally known as the Maram Area. As per Census 2001, the Maram Nagas number about 37,340 in total. According to UNESCO3 database on endangered languages, the number of the language speakers is about 37,000.”4 “Maram Khullen (also called Maramei Namdi) is the biggest and oldest village known so far. The quintessential role of Maram Khullen as the preserver of the tribe’s culture, social norms and ethos continues to hold sway. It zealously guards the many customs and traditions of the tribe. The people of this village continue to follow the “LUNAR” calendar for its customs and traditions. Willong is the second-largest Maram village where, awareness about and practice of, traditional mores and culture are still there.”5 Tracing back to the history of Maram, there are many common things, similar or even some ancestral practices with other Naga tribes, like most of the North-Eastern Indian tribal beliefs.

2. The Religion of Ancient Maram

1 S. Chongloi and Q. Marak, “Rang Taiba’s Stone: A Study of a Megalith in Maram Khullen, Manipur, India,“ Antrocom Online Journal of Anthropology vol. 11. n. 1 (2015) 97 -104 – ISSN 1973 – 2880, journal homepage: http://www.antrocom.net (Accessed 6 Feb. 2017), 88. 2Peter Ki, “Maram Naga Tribe” https://infomaram.wordpress.com/about-maram-naga-tribe/ (Accessed 6 Feb. 2017) 3 UNESCO: United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization 4 S. Chongloi and Q. Marak, 88. 5 Peter Ki, “Maram Naga Tribe” https://infomaram.wordpress.com/about-maram-naga-tribe/ (Accessed 6 Feb. 2017) The Maram have very interesting adherent ancestral religion called Animism. It is very strictly believed and obeyed like most of the tribal ancestral practice of the world where the rakot (soul) and ra’ngii (spirit) are the central for beliefs system to contact with the spiritual world. The traditions and customs are passing down orally from the ancestors and due to late educational penetration no written documents were maintained. The worship of primitive traditional animism form is still existing scantily though the major villages were transformed by the arrival of western missionaries. The number of spirits composed the belief system but there are specific kinds of religious traditions that distinctly perform according to its particular spirits to appease or request for wish. In the cosmology of Maram spirits and deities filled the greater part, and “there are some good spirits and some malicious spirits and deities. The effort to placate these malicious spirits and deities finds expression in a number of ways, and all the rites and ceremonies are directed to this one end.”6 The Marams since the time of ancestor believe in the existence of “Piimpii Pramha7” the supreme God and also inferior hierarchy of spirit gods. The divinity transcendental origin and the imminence order of God is believed without doubt and the super characters of Christian God is also equally attributed to“Piimpii Pramha”. The interesting things was that maram never practice or offer sacrifices to “Piimpii Pramha” but the worship and sacrifices were appeased to the spirits which are sub-ordinate to the supreme God. The regular form of rituals in relation with the spirits was the sacrifice of chickens or an animal, arranged from a small pigeon to a chicken up to a large bull depends on the demand of the particular rituals by the spirits, and it will be perform by the village priest or priests8 who conducts or initiate every rituals ceremonies unless. The ancient Maram people worship their ancestors’ spirit who died already by performing certain ritual for protection of their lineage. They believed that this worship will forgive their wrong they have done towards them and to reconcile with them so that the ancestors’ spirit may be at peace and the generation will lived a blessed life. The ancestors believed in the practice of divination, magic and witchcraft. There were many peimūmei, diviners or soothsayer. A person has many dreams and is liable to work more or less into a trance and is

6 Th. R. Tiba, History and Culture of the Maram Nagas: A Reconstruction from oral and Folklore Traditions (Ph. D, Thesis, school of social sciences university Silchar, 2003-2004), 155 7 Piimpii Pramha: the Supreme God who is the owner of all 8 Th. R. Tiba, 155-160 purported to interact with the deities and with the departed spirits to see things which are hidden from mortal physical human.9 Though Maram don’t deny the fact that supreme God exist, yet the lower gods or spirits occupied the centre of worshipping reality.

3. Rakot and Ra’ngii The important fact about human is revealed through life’s experiences that human is dual in nature as a matter of fact. Composed of mortal physical body and unseen person which is the emotional spiritual being having a consciousness, human is therefore, more than just a visible physical being.10The rakot is that centred the conscious, emotion, and pulse within and ra’ngii is that energy or desires controllers, or appetite of the whole thing in the body. The rakot and ra’ngii are although have different function yet they are categorised under spiritual dimension of human for the reason of their invisibility and immaterial in nature. In the anthropology of Maram, human origin has its story that explains the later but the term rakot is the mystery to explain explicitly. Every tribes and culture has their own understanding about the origin of soul.

3.1.The origin of the Rakot God is the source and author of rakot. In the genesis of human creation rakot is inflated into the body by God with His own breath. Similarly He put the rakot to a new body form in the womb and been born inbreathed with rakot at the time of birth. The developing foetus is lifeless unless God infuse into the body the rakot. The rakot is given by God to human and it is the special machine that activate body into motion and sensation, body is just a lifeless robot without the rakot.

3.2.The Functions of Rakot To understand the functions of rakot of the primitive people believed of animism cannot be separated from the ancestral cult. The ancient maram believed there are spirits inhabiting together with human being in this world, the world has two realms viz.: i. the physical realm: dominated by human being (physical being) ii. the invisible realm: controlled by spirits (immaterial)

9Th. R. Tiba, 165 10 H. Spencer Lewis, Mansions of the Soul: The Cosmic Conception (California: Naglee Ave, San Jose, 2015), 19 The rakot is that intersect the two realms possible to see both side. Of these realms the rakot links the gap. Always the rakot have to accompany the body, the absence of rakot is vulnerable to any evil attack and the chance is very less to stand and prolong absence of rakot will lead body to trance and even to death. During dreams, trances or comas unconsciousness is the result of the absence of rakot. In the dream travelling or going around different new places of the world is not just dreams but it’s the rakot on trip visiting those places leaving the body behind on the bed at rest. The struggles we faced in our dreams are the signs that our soul is in trouble or going through tough time bearing the consequences of the sins committed by the body. Body is filled with desires and therefore every time the rakot insist the body not to commit wrongs, but in disobedience and lack of self-control body grieve the rakot often. The personal life is guarded by rakot whatever bad luck or injuries happen to the body is accounted to the absence of rakot in the body. The rakot is that controls every pulse or beat that pumps and runs to and fro in our veins and sometime a person is shocked “bolt out of the blue” or “bolt from the blue”11 and the person’s heart beats give a strong stroke and the pulse shoots up beyond normalcy rate and reaches extreme speed is because it shocked out the rakot and release akhii12 (conscious/pulse) out of the body and which may cause unconscious or even death. When a person is critically sick and almost to the point of death, in that trance there are magic rituals sara kanat 13 a “divination, an invocation of spirits, or a necromancy”14 to bring back rakot inorder to revive the body again but if the rakot went too far from time or distance towards spiritual sphere then possibility is that the body has no choice but death. Body is just the suitable thriving conditioned place for the rakot so also rakot is the suitable animator of the body, both are “inseparably blended.”

3.3.The Rakot-Ra’ngii Relation Rakot and ra’ngii are puzzling terms sometimes for they interchangeably designate the spiritual invisible part of human. Although they are different and has dissimilar operations inside the body in their activity. From the study of Maram ancestral anthropology, human

11 “bolt out of the blue” or “bolt from the blue”: sudden and totally unexpected; whatever happened really surprised you 12 Akhii: the pulse or the conscious 13 Sara Kanat: It refers to a ritual pleading the spirit(s) for favour, or magical rituals to please the spirit(s). All kind of rituals that are related to make appease or request the spirit(s). 14 Necromancy: magic, sorcery, power, spell, divination, wizardry, power, sorcery, enchantment etc. being is a component of material and immaterial parts. Rakot and ra’ngii are categorised under immaterial part but not as one. The primitive believe of “rakot strength vary”. Ra’ngii kasangtingmei 15(Person with strong rakot) are dauntless and the evil spirit gets frightened or worried by hearing the person’s roar and even the enemies can’t stand against with the opponent who has more ra’ngii kasangtingmei. The victory depends on the strength of rangii or rakot, skill is secondary. They are courageous, dauntless (no matter what physical) and the people with the weak rakot can feel (a kind of like goose bumps) the passing or the nearness of a ra’ngii kasangtingmei. A person with weak rakot flinch or are shocked easily by the sudden booming, blasting, or roaring sound and is vulnerable to evil harms anytime. The person’s individual spiritual strength is determined by the power of rakot/ra’ngii. It is believed that each individual has only one soul but there are many spirits. According to the primitive concept there are multiple forms of spirits, ra’ngii kamatai 16, ra’ngii kashyii 17and kalung rakuii 18, a’bah19 and one can be possess with many spirits apart from own spirit. “The Marams believe in the existence of spirits and they call them rangii. These spirits were of two categories- benevolent called rangii kabi and malevolent called rangii kushyii. The malevolent spirits were impersonal supernatural beings that reveal their power through material and non-material signs. These spirits manifests their divinity through natural phenomena and objects bringing good and bad fortunes according to their power.”20 The rakot and ra’ngii are immortal being which will continue to live in spiritual world afterlife, death cannot destroy them, and they are indestructible. They are immortal, death cannot dissolved or destroy but allows them to escape the body and continue their existence in the spiritual realm, the katailam sazyii. Hence, the immortality of human rakot or ra’ngii is the central imagination of afterlife on this earth and transferred to the “katailam sazyii” which is a place of all immortal rakot to live in community.

3.4.The Rakot and Life after Death

15 Ra’ngii kasangtingmei: person with strong or powerful spirit of soul-ra’ngii here is referring to soul (rakot) 16 Ra’ngii Kamatai: Pure, undefiled or set-apart Spirit = Holy Spirit 17 Ra’ngii Kashyii: Evil, bad Spirit = satan or Devils 18 Kalung Rakuii: The village guarding Spirits are friendly and harmless 19 A’bah: extra additional spirit(s) (of animals or other human) possess by an individual and help the person meeting the wishes 20 Th. R. Tiba, 161 In the folk tale of Maram, death is not the ultimate end of existence of a human rakot but rather a transition from visible realm to an invisible realm and introduce one to the spiritual life. The primitive animist believed in the immortality of human soul, at death something (invisible) survive death which is indestructible immaterial part of human. It is beyond just setting the spirit free, letting go to a dead land waiting there until the final judgment. Rakot will go to the death village after the body is death and continue to live in spiritual form with the family, relatives who have died in the past. That katailam sazyii 21 is the interim or another temporary place for rakot before the final judgment. When the rakot completely abandoned the body then the body lays down to death. But sometime death happened when the rakot purposely leave the body and goes around to visit other parts of the world, but after a while of trance the rakot will return and revive the body again, that death is not the permanent disconnection of body and rakot but a temporary break. For the reason primitive Maram don’t burry the body until “waiting day” 22 is over to confirm complete death. “There were number of rites and rituals to be performed when a person dies. People have the notion that the soul of the person does not leave the house immediately after the death.”23 One of the interesting fact about the rakot is that it comes back from grave and live around the living as spirit. The rakot link between the living and the death. Even the rakot of the living can visit the death world, the katailam sazyii where the rakot of all the death live together. Sometimes in our dreams we see and meet the departed or family member who have died is the rakot travelling into katailam sazyii or the rakot of the death person is coming into this world and communicating the living person’s rakot. On the day of death the rakot of the dead welcome the new arriving rakot at the entrance of the katailam sazyii or kateinam to receive by their kins’ rakot. The grief or the misfortune in the dream is the effect of the rakot of the death’s visit. And most of the illness or sickness were caused by sara kashyii24 “evil spirits”25 and sometimes the rakot of the dead also causes similar way.

21 Katailam Sazyii: land of the death where all the souls of the death will continue to live together as community (invisible Spiritual Realm) 22 Waiting day: normally twenty-four hours is waited to confirmed death and the burial takes place in the next twenty-four hour in the Maram and is still in practice. 23 Th.R. Tiba, 175 24 Sara: in general referring to god but in this context it’s pointing to the spirits; kashyii: bad, evil, malicious 25 Th. R. Tiba, History and Culture of the Maram Nagas: A Reconstruction from oral and Folklore Traditions, 157 Rakot transcend beyond the physical world and connect with spiritual realm that is why some of the death people return back to life after hour(s) or day(s) of death and testifies facts about the spiritual world. The rakot bears the whole memory of lifetime and carry it to the death land and regret about all the things he/she has done during lifetime and if the family of the decease forgot or intentionally not buried his or her most possessive possession the ra’ngii (or rakot)26 will come and demand in the dream of the living. Rakot act as an “affinity of fitting27” because it has the key access from physical world to spiritual world. It is impossible for physical body to understand about the spiritual things without the rakot. Rakot surpasses beyond physical realm and associate with spiritual realm too.

All the possible harms from the ra’ngii kashyii (evil spirit) to us can be foreseen or feel by the rakot and warn us through conscience, or feeling of the body since rakot is a spiritual form understand all about spiritual realm. But failing to response to the warning, rakot hesitate to go with the body and the free movement of the body without the guidance of the Rakot may possibly meet unexpected accident if the body encounter with ra’ngii kashyii (evil spirit). Maram people believed that the rakot of the death will come back to call the living to join them, and if the death person rakot convince the living person’s rakot and led it away from body then the person will die. But the living also can call the rakot back by doing divination or sara kanat 28(magical rituals) and bring to the body to live again.

3.5.The contemporary concept of rakot and ra’ngii in Maram church In the teaching of the church today concept of rakot interpretation has been influenced and mingled with western concept. The term rakot and ra’ngii retains its original name but the inner ideas seems to have bended toward concept of the west. The western Christian concept of spirit and soul has embraced or intertwined and the traditional concept has developed into complexity. The immortality of soul was believed strongly and it will go into death land or the interim where all the souls of the death gather in suspension waiting for the final judgement. But the church today doesn’t make differentiation between the rakot and ra’ngii rather they are used

26Ra’ngii: in this context ra’ngii is used to mean rakot N.B.: they are used interchangeably depends on the context 27 Affinity of fitting: rakot can only connect to both realms and adapt with both environment familiarly. 28Sara Kanat: general term that refers to a ritual (s) pleading the spirit(s) for favour, or magical rituals to please the spirit(s). All kind of rituals that are related to make appease or request the spirit(s). interchangeably for the spiritual person of human being. In the Maram Baptist church today, soul is not taught separately from spirit. At death one union split into two the corpse/carcass and spirit/soul. Though Soul and Spirit are two different entity, invisible, immaterial and yet sometimes interchangeably they are used as immaterial, invisible part of a person. There are not written records of the ancestor’s beliefs of soul and spirit but through the oral tradition rakot and ra’ngii are not distinguished or separated so much but rather they are seen as two sides of a coin and flip according to fit the context.

Summary The soul of the ancient Maram was entirely animistic concept and human possess two natures, physical aspect and spiritual aspect which is invisible. The rakot and ra’ngii are two terms used interchangeably which makes anthropology a hard subject to explain but it is referring only to the immaterial parts of human. The rakot links the spiritual and physical realm, and communicates the spiritual things hidden from physical sight. Death introduces rakot into katailam sazyii or katainam the land of the death or the village of the death and continues its existence in spiritual figure in suspense for the final judgement.

SOUL OF THE BIBLE

Introduction Soul is one mystery in living creation of God. The origin can be traced back as far as the beginning of Human creation when God breathed into Adam’s nostril the soul begins to exist with the body according to Biblical record apart from that there is no vivid clue or evidence.

OT Concept of Soul The Hebrew word nephesh appear first in Genesis 1: 20, 21, exclusively refer to animals. The term soul as we understanding is English word soul is from the Latin solus meaning alone or sole, translated from the Hebraic language.29 Nephesh can mean “a breathing creature, i.e.,

29 Thomson Gale, Soul: Jewish Concept Encyclopedia of Religion COPYRIGHT 2005 Thomson Gale. animal or vitality” and is also rendered in the English as “appetite, beast, body, breath, creature, man, mind, mortally.”30 As Old Testament Hebrew language nephesh root term is “to breathe.” Things that breathe have “life,” one of the meanings for nephesh is “life.” Since the “body” is that breathe, one of the meanings for nephesh is ”body.” Because a “dead body” is what once breathed, one of the meanings for nephesh is “dead body.” Thus, all three (to breathe, life and body) renderings of nephesh.31 In its original writing the writer of the Old Testament used nephesh or life as derived from God’s breath and human being become living. Even animals and fishes etc. are referred as nephesh because they too have life, nephesh is life principle therefore all living creatures can be called as nephesh in common. The whole person is composed of spirit and body combined and formed as soul. The formation of human from the genesis account, that God blow softly into first man’s nostril and actuated the moulded clay into “a living being” is the nephesh translated as soul. The Hebrew Old Testament is precisely simple in establishing the concept of soul, it is just fusion or mixture of body and breathe of God. Genesis 2:7, “Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” Ezekiel 37: 14 reads, “I will put my Spirit in you and you will live....” For e.g. Spirit (breathe) + body (dust) = Animated Body “living body” Spirit + Body = Soul 32(Soul is an inseparable component)… From the above passages the Soul story is as simple as God put breathe into earthen vessel and activated it. Soul is the vital part of all creatures, the life is in the bag of body and motion the body from within each every cells as an animating machine. The Bible in its original written language from the very creation has laid the plain explanation that God formed Adam out of the dust and breathed in the “breath of life” and that dust vessel became a “living being”

30 Garner Ted Armstrong, Do you have an Immortal Soul? (Pasadena, California: Ambassador College Press, 1973), 11. 31 Bob Pickle,“What is the Soul and Spirit?” http://www.pickle-publishing.com/papers/soul-and-spirit.htm (accessed 13 October 2016). 32 Spirit + Body = Soul: when the breath or spirit is absorbed in the body then it becomes life

NT Concept of Soul In the NT “soul” (Gk. psychḗ) refers to the living being of the whole person (Acts 2:41; 3:23) and to a person’s life33 or the breath of life; the vital force which animates the body and shows itself in breathing (Acts 20:10).34 Soul is just the life, formed out of the fusion of God’s breath and dust (mysterious or combination) which connect both side, the spiritual world on the one side and the physical world on the other, hence soul is an “affinity of fitting”35. Therefore soul is immaterial yet bound by material aspect “affinity of fitting” described best. It is the spirit that survive death not soul. The soul is out of question existing apart from body, it is the totality of the body and spirit fused component. The mid-point is where the soul dwelt or live, once the spirit and body is separated then the soul at the same time vanishes away from the body. The life is ceased because the spirit lost the contact with the body. In precise simple expression, the term soul in Hebrew nephesh which is equivalent weightage with the Greek word psuche is nothing but the “absorbed” in other words the spirit or air or breath completely soaked into the body and finally becomes the living being called the soul. Human being is created and appointed by God as mortal. Death ceases its existence but the victory over death brought about by Christ will resurrect us on the last day to become immortal with Him. Hence, soul is the whole being of human infused or blended with the breath of God and therefore it is treated as spiritual and sometime physical for its “affinity of fitting” nature interfacing the body and spirit. Soul from mother to child is shared or transferred without losing any property of the mother- soul like the fire lighted the another object but the original light doesn’t lose any property so it keeps on passing on multiplying through biological birth but the ultimate origin is from

NT New Testament Gk. Greek 33Freedman, David Noel; Myers, Allen C.; Beck, Astrid B.: Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible. Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans, 2000. - "This outstanding source is the place to find definitions, personal names and their derivation, places, and concepts from the Bible. Six hundred leading scholars from a wide spectrum of theological perspectives have come together to provide almost 5,000 articles that reflect current biblical scholarship, archaeological discoveries, trends, and issues. A must for every library."--"Outstanding Reference Sources," American Libraries, May 2002, S. 1245 34 NT: 5590 (from Thayer's Greek Lexicon, Electronic Database. Copyright © 2000, 2003, 2006 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.) 35 Affinity of Fitting: according to researcher soul is that fits both side, in the spiritual community on the one side and physical community on the other side being the interface. Fitting to both environment. God. It dies with the body and there is no transition from one realm to another realm for continuity of existence but lay silent, lifeless and unconscious in the grave in suspension where all death will rise to live again in the resurrection and then the final separation of the righteous and wicked soul will happen on the final judgment for eternity.