Acculturation and the Misings of the Brahmaputra  Valley

Dr. Rajeev K. Doley

Volume : II, Issue : III, March - 2013

Acculturation and the Misings of the Brahmaputra Valley

Dr. Rajeev K. Doley

Abstract :

Social interrelation and cultural intermixing give rise to the process of acculturation where one group accepts and adopts the practices of another group. The present paper examines how the Misings, a major tribe of the Brahmaputra valley, got acculturated to the plains of the valley over a period of eight hundred years. It is interesting that while the Misings, once dwellers of the hills of the present Arunachal Pradesh, have adopted a substantial amount of the contact culture, they are still continuing with a good amount of their original culture also. The paper empirically looks at the stages of their acculturation in the light of the four–fold model propounded by John Berry. The paper also looks at the threat perception of a possible cultural extinction with regard to the Misings.