Between Gods and Genders: Rethinking Deodhani as a Precolonial Site of Gender Plurality in Assam
The Criterion An International Journal in English February 28, 2026 Rimjim Boruah
This paper critically examines the ritualistic performance of Deodhani in Assam as a rich cultural archive that embodies precolonial understandings of gender plurality and sacred nonnormative identities.Often overlooked in dominant gender and historical discourses, the Deodhani tradition, where individuals, often assigned female at birth but not exclusively so, embody the goddess through trance...