My presentation will bring perspectives from fieldwork and I will show how magical traditions mediate parallel realties. I try to look at general ritual practice and try to elucidate the base rationale behind magic among Khasi and Karbi as faciliatory and how reality can be blurred.
Paper long abstract
Core discussions on the concept of what constitutes reality comprises the focus of this presentation. Reality as every-day, shared, and experienced with other group members constitutes popular and general understandings of the world and vernacular life. But reality is not absolute and fixed. Located at the intersections of Khasi and Karbi Indigenous belief worlds, the practice of Myntor/ka Mintor is so secret and taboo, that any discussions of it are prohibited in social or sacred spaces. Myntor is one of the categories of magic that are common to practices between Khasi and Karbi communities. My presentation will bring together fieldwork over the last 14 years and I will show how knowledge connects over ethnicity and constructed boundaries. I try to look at general practices of magical traditions and try to elucidate the base rationale behind magical rituals among Khasi and Karbi as faciliatory of how reality can be blurred. Using my ethnography, I will describe what myntor tradition is among Khasi and Karbi. Embedded into ethnographic descriptions, I try to look at how people position their relationality toward parallel realities that are catalysed through the medium of magic.