A two-day national seminar on Shamanistic Practices and Narratives Among the Tribes of 'Arunachal Pradesh' begins today at Rajiv Gandhi University. 

the seminar is being organised by the Arunachal Pradesh Institute of Tribal Studies (AITS), Rajiv Gandhi University (RGU) in collaboration with the Research Institute of world's ancient Traditions, Cultures and Heritage (RIWATCH) and North Eastern Council (NEC), shillong Govt of India.

In his inaugural address, Chief Guest of the program, Sokhep Kri Director, Department of Indigenous Affairs, Government of Arunachal Pradesh expressed deep concern about the challenges faced by shamans throughout their life across the state of Arunachal Pradesh. 

Prof. Ram Prasad Mitra, Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi in his keynote address positively articulated his perception of the shamans and its practices. he emphasized on how in comtemporary times, we must start to revisit and reconstitute indigenous knowledge through documentation.

He added that language, ritual,symbols and musical instruments have been the corre pathways attached to shamans and their way of practicing shamanism. He also added that psychological and cognitive factors played an important mechanism in understanding shamanistic practices.

Vijay Swami, Executive Director, RIWATCH while sharing his years of experience in documenting culture stated taht the importance of the shaman in any society cannot be ignored. Shamans act as counsellor, healer, mediator of human and spiritual world and above all the keeper of vast indigenous knowledge system, he added.

Prof.Sarit K Chaudhuri, Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, Dept.of Anthropology, RGU while addressing the gathering stated that 'the death of shamans is the death of human intellectual knowledge'.

Prof. Simon John, Director, AITS,RGU emphasizeed on how in the context of academics, research often face challenges and have to overcome through the documentation process of shamanistic practices and associated chanting of Arunachal Pradesh. He also highlighted about the work executed by the AITS with regards to documentation and preservation of cultures and traditions of various communities of Arunachal Pradesh.

Earlier, Dr. Tarun Mene, coordinator of the seminar while giving the welcome address highlighted about aims and objective of the seminar. He informed that the main objective of the seminar is to enrich the understanding of shamanistic traditions and documentation of time-tested living traditions.

Altogether 28 numbers of research papers representing various tribes and communities from across the country will be presented during the seminar.