ABSTRACT
Transitions in history have often been associated with time. Points of turn and break have always fascinated historians. The search for points of transition has enabled historians to argue that human history has neither been static nor a unilinear progression. Transitions have changed the course of human history and have created new trajectories. From transitions came the notion of periodization of history which despite its problems has convenience in reading and writing of history. Contrary to the view that transition has universalized the pattern of human history, it has actually diversified the history of mankind. This is because no nation or community has the same turning point of history or transition to the same phase. Each community had their own transition point of their history and moved to newer paths thereby multiplying history. Hence we have multiple histories and not a single history. This chapter argues that transition need not necessarily be with time and periods or even social formations. It could be with people. A thorough transformation of people could also be a point of transition in their history. The argument is enforced through a chain of events that occurred in the Mizo hills in North East India where due to the colonial and evangelical intervention the people felt ashamed of themselves, and in a bid to ‘civilize themselves’ they wanted desperately to erase traces of their past where evidences of their ‘savagery’ existed.
