1. Introduction
On the night of August 15, 1950, the region of Assam was rocked by one of the most powerful earthquakes in recorded history, measuring 8.6 on the Richter scale. The Great Assam Earthquake caused catastrophic damage across the Brahmaputra Valley, altering river systems and displacing thousands. While the geological and infrastructural impacts have been extensively studied, far less attention has been paid to the cultural imprint of the disaster-particularly how it is remembered and ritualized by the Mising community.
The Mising’s, who predominantly inhabit the floodplains of Upper Assam, possess a rich oral culture that preserves history through sacred songs, ritual chants, and communal narratives. For them, the earthquake was not just a physical event but a cosmological rupture, interpreted through frameworks involving divine wrath, ancestral displeasure, and ecological imbalance. This paper examines how the Mising community encodes and transmits its memory of the 1950 earthquake through folklore, revealing processes of cultural resilience and historical meaning-making.
2. Methodology and Ethnographic Context
This study adopts a qualitative, ethnographic approach focused on oral history methods and folkloristic analysis. Fieldwork was conducted in villages such as Sisimukh, Silapathar, Dhakuakhana, Selek and Boralimora, where elderly community members, ritual practitioners (Mibus), and folk singers were interviewed. Semi-structured interviews and participant observation were employed to collectoi: nitoms(folk songs), ritual narratives, and local proverbs.
Transcription and translation were supported by native speakers and local linguists, ensuring cultural accuracy. Secondary sources, including ethnographies and folklore collections, were also consulted to contextualize the oral material. The study focuses not only on content but also on performance, ritual setting, and the moral and spiritual interpretations attached to the earthquake.
3. Theoretical Framing Cultural Trauma and Vernacular Historiography
Cultural trauma theory, as outlined by Alexander (2004), provides a lens for understanding how communities internalize and respond to catastrophic events. Among the Mising’s, the 1950 earthquake is remembered as a rupture in both ecological and spiritual terms. Rather than being understood as a purely geological event, it is interpreted as divine punishment or ancestral warning - reflecting a cosmology where environmental and moral orders are inseparable.
This paper also engages with vernacular historiography (Pandey, 2006; Guha, 1997), which emphasizes the legitimacy of subaltern historical narratives produced outside state archives. Mising folklore, situated in song, ritual, and proverb, acts as an alternative archive that critiques dominant narratives while preserving local understandings of history and identity.
4. Oral Histories and Cultural Themes
4.1 Oi: Nitom (Folk Song)
"The land quivered like a leaf,
The mother's hearth cracked in silence.
Was it the wrath of Donyi, or the sorrow of the river?
The trees did not dance in joy, but fell in grief."
This folk song from Sisimukh encapsulates the emotional and cosmological trauma felt by the community. The earthquake is personified as both natural upheaval and divine lamentation, articulating grief in ecological terms.
4.2 Ritual Narrative: The Earth-Cracking
The Misings are the worshippers of numerous Uyus (spirits). In this context the Miboo (the priest) plays a significant rule among them. He is supposed to know the Uyus responsible for all evils happenings of the Misings. It is notable that for any ritual works in Misings the creator of the mother earth is remembered by offering a prayer to Chedi-melo & Donyee (the sun), Polo (the moon).
In Silapathar, an elder recounted a tale of the earth splitting open after the quake - a sign interpreted as
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