Abstract This article tracks the dual ethnic and religious metamorphosis of the Shinlung, a collectivity of tribes from north-east India and Burma, to Christianity and then to Judaism. Conversion to Christianity took place after missionaries established themselves in the tribal areas in the second half of the nineteenth century. Conversion to Judaism among a minority during the last twenty years was the result of a general dissatisfaction with Christianity, a search for ethnic autonomy, and an attempt at “re-traditionalisation”, through Judaism dovetailed with pre-Christian indigenous religion. A millenarian connection to Judaism was made through imputed affiliation to the Lost Ten Tribes and the inclusion of converted Shinlung in Israel as descendants of the tribe of Menasseh.

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