The Misings, like their kins – the Adis of Arunachal – believe that the original state of the universe was one of nothingness, called Kéyum. The other states that followed Kéyum were Yumkang, Ka:si, Siang (Sian), Anbo, Bomug, Mukseng, which are interpreted as different stages of evolution of the universe. After Mukseng evolved Se:dí and Me:lo, the primeval Mother and the primeval Father respectively, or Se:dí-Me:lo, an inseparable combination of the male-female principle. Se:dí (Sedí-Me:lo) begot Dí:lung, Dí:lung begot Lí:tung, Lí:tung begot Tu:ye, Tu:ye begot Yepé and Yepé begot Pédong, usually referred to as Pédong Na:né (literally Mother Rain), who, after being wedded to Yi:dum Boté, the god of the winds, created everything on earth, including human and supernatural beings. The creation myths occur in Mibu/Miri a:bangs, the rhapsodic chants of the shamans amongst Adis and Misings. It may be noted that such myths, as narrated by the shamans, tend to vary in their details as well as in their interpretations.
The traditional faith of the Misings is a kind of animism, practised under the religious leadership of a Mibu, their medicine man. The institution of the Mibu amongst the Misings is now nearly extinct as a result of the spread of modern education and healthcare amongst them, but animism persists even today. Ancestor worship is also a prominent feature of Mising religious life. The neo-Vaishnavite, monotheistic Hindu faith, propagated by the great saint-poet Sankaradeva of Assam, also found a place in the religious life of the community in the form a sub-sect, called kewal. Although Vaishnavism insists on the singing of the glory of Hari, the One and the Only Being, as preached by Sankaradeva, the kewal sub-sect does not forbid strictly the practice of animism or ancestor worship and so both monotheism and animism came to be practised side by side by the Misings. This gave the religious life of the Misings a syncretic character. A revivalist form of religion, called Do:nyi-Po:loism (literally, Sun-Moonism), which struck root amongst the Adis in Arunachal half a century or so ago, is beginning to be practised by a small section of Misings now. The Adis and the Misings regard Do:nyi, the sun, as their Mother and Po:lo, the moon, as their Father, and begin all auspicious rites and rituals with an invocation to Do:nyi-Po:lo. This practice has been upgraded to an institutional religion, consisting in the worship of the two heavenly bodies. A small section of Misings has embraced C hristianity. Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of Misings (98.8 per cent at the time of the last Census of India, 2001) identify themselves as Hindus.
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