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REPRESENTING THE ‘TRIBAL’ IDENTITY OF NORTH-EAST IN

INDIAN ENGLISH WRITING
(SELECT READINGS FROM MAMANG DAI AND TEMSULA AO’S POETRY)

“A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and soul of its people”

—Mahatma Gandhi

The term ‘North-East’ of India is a geographical location consisting of seven and if

Sikkim is included eight states; each state having distinctive linguistic and cultural features. It
is used as a classifying marker that specifies the identity of North eastern part of India in a
limited and exclusionary term. The characterisation of people or places as north eastern is an
attempt of homogenization that erases the significant cultural, social and geographical
differences of this region. This homogenization underpins certain stock images of north east
—as a naturally beautiful frontier territory inhibited by colourful primitive tribes and often
disturbed by insurgency problem. Thus, the discourse of the north east often validates tropes
like—violence, isolation, danger, nature, periphery etc.— used by the colonial and
postcolonial rulers to control and domesticate the space. Though the British colonizers did
not displaced the indigenous people of north-east of India from their land and allowed to
retain their own culture and religion, colonial exploitation was happening basically in the
economic and political level also affecting the psychic and spiritual life of the people. Due to
colonialism in India particularly in the North east region of India, the ‘tribal’ communities in
particular have suffered from a unique form of cultural dispossession which isolated them
from their roots and led to their spiritual and cultural crisis. Colonialism in these region
therefore has its effect on the lifestyle of its indigenous people, stretched its boundaries to the
cultural sphere that involves indigenous religion and traditional values that were central to
their being. Apart from religion and culture, language becomes another contesting field for
colonial imposition contributing to imperial domination.

In response to the systematic violence done to their own languages, some

postcolonial writers either advocated a complete return to the use of indigenous languages or
used the imposed English language to appropriate the dominant European tongue.
Postcolonial literature in English from north east has to resist the imperial codification of the
indigenous life style as ‘tribal’ and reproduce a counter-narrative of their own societies as
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distant cultures, exploited but with rich heritages that need to be recovered. So, the issue of
representation becomes important, and this representation is divided into two categories—the
indigenous lifestyle that is represented by the ‘self’ and that by the ‘other’. In such a context,
“writers in English from the north-east” is a useful category because of certain shared
contexts of class and social location. Interestingly, many of the writers from the north-east are
first-generation writers in English and often have lived outside of the region for work or
education and they are attempting to give a trans-regional perspective in their works and that
further complicates the category north-eastern.

In the context of representation of indigenous people of North east India by

themselves and by others the dimension of “tribal identity” needs to be addressed. The term
“tribe” is itself used as a signifier by white ethnographers and missionaries who came to
North East India in their civilizing mission.Clarification regarding the ‘tribal’ identity is
inevitable from a postcolonial perspective as according to several postcolonial thinkers,
‘tribe’ has been a colonial concept. Charlotte Saymore Smith writes:

...The concept of tribe was largely a colonial creation...tribal division and

tribal consciousness were largely a creation of the efforts of colonial rulers to
impose order and supralocal unity among the previously largely autonomous
local communities, and where there was previously loose and contextually
relative sense of ethnic identity, colonial rule often imposed a tribal division
which then acquired increasing concreteness due to the need to adapt to the
administrative and political demand of colonial rule(281)

By a kind of perverted logic, colonialism had destroyed and disfigured the culture of the
colonised tribes and also distorted their indigenous knowledge systems and literatures. The
systematic uprootment of culture and the conflict between the traditional belief system and
modern cultural and religious institutions are some vital issues that disturbed indigenous
people of North-East. In such a context, the postcolonial attempt of self-recovery of the
indigenous people through their representational agencies happened to be a natural
phenomenon. This attempt also involved a recovery of their cultural specificities not only in
relation to the colonizers but also with reference to other indigenous cultures with which they
are clubbed.On such an occasion,this paper is an attempt to explore how the north eastern
writers writing in English appropriate in their writing both western and mainstream Indian
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representational categories and stereotyping of their indigenous identity as ‘native’or ‘tribal’.

Mamang Dai and Temsula Ao’s poetry is felt to be apt resources for such analytical exercise.

Writer and activist Mahasweta Devi says, “The tribal and the mainstream have always
been parallel.There has never been a meeting point.The mainstream simply doesn’t
understand the parallel”(p.ii).This mainstream writer herself lived among indigenous people
like an insider and allows to unveil their life world through narrative agency. But however
sympathetic a mainstream writer be it is still considered to be an outsider’s half hearted
attempt and the uncertainity prevails regarding the authentic representation of the life of
indigenous people.Therefore, literary intervention has been a dominant mode of postcolonial
recovery for the indigenous people of North-East India. As K.C.Baral points out:

In the context of emerging literatures from Northeast, two interconnected factors are
important:colonial legacy in the form of ethnographies and the ethnocentic imaginary
that is the driving force behind contemporary writing. These two factors intersect
colonial identity, construction and resistance to it. Further, significant in this context is
that the past is an integral part of the present where the oral informs the written in that
the creative writers redefine ethnic-cultural identities in reprocessing cultural memory.
The creative energy that moves contemporary writing attempts to rewrite the history of
communities”( “Articulating Marginality” 7)

Creative authors of indigenous communities of North Eastern region like Mamang Dai and
Temsula Ao have appropriated the dominant colonial weapon—the English language to
represent themselves and reinvent their communal identy.

The literature in Engilsh from the North East India is marked by its uniqueness. This
sense of being unique arises from the rich diversity of its culture, customs and social
practices. This region is unique for its myth, legend, folklores, dance, art and craft and
distinct social structures and festivals. For most of the poets from North East these legends,
myths and folklores are the main source through which they try to connect the past and the
present. Oral narratives just like written ones play a dominant role in shaping the entire
literature as well as the social life of this region. Temsula Ao being a writer from this region
sticks to the rich cultural diversity while conveying her feelings through her poetry. She
belongs to the indigenous community of Nagas from the North East that are known for their
rich oral tradition and heritage. Almost every facet of Naga life ranging from history,
religious belief, social life, culture, love, romance, marriage etc. are deeply embedded in their
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folktales, folklores, legends etc. Temsula Ao uses these tales to let the entire world aquaint
itself with the culture and belief of her community. In her poem, Stone People from
Lungterok she uses the legend concerned with the coming of the first progenitors of her
community. The poem brings to light the rich traditional heritage of the Ao Naga community:

STONE-PEOPLE
The Woeshippers
Of unknown, unseen
Spirits
Of trees and forests,
Of stones and rivers,
Believers of souls
And its varied forms,
Its sojourn here and pssage across the water
Into the hereafter.

STONE-PEOPLE
Savage and sage
Who sprang out of LUNGTEROK,
Was the birth adult when the stone broke?
Or are the stone people yet to come of age?
(‘Stone –People from Lungterok’, 66)

Here, she speaks of a collection of six stones that are associated with the origin of her
community. At the end of the poem she provides a note to her readers where she explains the
meaning of ‘Lungterok’ which is ‘Six Stones’. According to the Ao creation myth the
forefathers of the community “emerged out of ‘Lungterok,’ meaning ‘the six stones.’ The
myth further says that six humans ‘burst out’ or ‘poktet,’ of the six stones. Hence the place of
origin is known as Lungterok. Out of the six stones, there were three males: Longpok,
Tongpok and Longjakrep. The women were Longkapokla, Yongmenala and Elongse. It is a
common belief among the Aos that these first patriarchs established the first Ao village called
Chungliyimti, where all laws and social norms were established.”(Chandra and Sentinaro, A
Discourse on Ao Naga Folktales).
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Ao begins her poem by invoking the place of her origin and in the process brings to light the
characteristic features of her community.
Lungterok,
The Six Stones
Where the progenitors
And forebears
Of the stone-people
Were born
Out of the womb
Of the earth.
(‘ Stone People from Lungterok’ 66)
Temsula Ao, in the preface to her seminal book The Ao-Naga Oral Tradition has said that for
the Aos “folklore is culture and culture is folklore”(29). The Aos take tremendous pride in
their folklores for they believe that folklores preserve their rich cultural heritage. These
culturally rich folklores exist in the form of storytelling as well as in the forms of proverbs,
folksongs, myths and folktales. Since time immemorial story telling has served as an
important way of preserving the cultural heritage of any community. Story tellers by retelling
stories and tales transmit the culture from one generation to the other and thus pave the way
for the preservation of the rich heritage. In due course of time certain folklores were written
down while certain others still continued to be orally transmitted from one generation to the
other. As it has already been mentioned that the Aos do not have any documented folklores
still but they have succeeded to preserve their heritage in the form of oral narratives that has
given them a distinct colour of their own.
In oral narratives memory plays a decisive role in the way the folk narratives are told
and retold from generation to generation. Memory connects the past to the present where
mythic heroes and heroines are brought to the present to encourage children as well as adults
to face adverse situations boldly. It is via memory that culture is transmitted to the younger
generation by the ancestors. In this way culture remains preserved generation after
generation.Thus we find that the oral as well as written narratives of the tribal world have
given a distinct colour to the literature of this region. The literature particularly the poems are
rich in local myths, legends and folktales that have provided a hue of nature which is found
only in this part of the country. The Aos consider the oral tradition as not merely a process of
telling or retelling the myths, legends associated with their social and cultural life but it has
been treated as a lifeline of their community. These folklores connect the past to the present.
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They have no written script of their own so the preservation of their rich heritage which is
nothing but the identity of the community depends on to what extent the new generation
accepts it as a part and parcel of their life and their identity. Temsula Ao is full of respect and
pride for the oral narratives of her community but she doubts the present generation when she
says in Songs from the Other Life:
“I have lived my life believing
Story-telling was my proud legacy.
But now a new era has dawned.
Insidiously displacing the old.
My own grandsons dismiss our stories as ancient
gibberish.
Who needs rambling stories
When books will do just fine?”
(‘ The Old Story Teller’ 29)
Like Ao, in the poetry of the Adi writer from Arunachal Mamang Dai; the mystique
and grandeur of mountains along with myth and folklore surrounding them weave an ethereal
story around these land masses. The mountain, for her, is not merely another memory of
childhood and youth but it forms part of a continuing relationship with the environment. In
‘The Voice of the Mountain’, Dai says that the mountain can identify itself with the desert
and the rain. The mountain tells us of ‘life with particles of life that clutch and cling for
thousands of years’. It represents life forms and contributes to a churning of life of ‘thousands
of years’. The tribes’ belief systems are intrinsically entwined with nature and its preservation
and their lifestyles replicates the traditional practices. The mountain is like an oracle, telling
stories of change and yet bearing the nature of permanence.
In an interview with Nilanshu Aggarwal, Mamang Dai has explicated the beliefs of
union among the Arunachali tribes. She says that the traditional belief of the Adi community
to which she belongs is full of respect for nature. Everything has life - rocks, stones, trees,
rivers, hills, and all life is sacred. They worship Donyi-Polo, literally meaning ‘Sun-Moon’ as
the physical manifestation of a supreme deity, or what she calls ‘world spirit.’ In ‘The Voice
of the Mountain’,Dai says that the mountain is like an old man sipping the breeze that is
‘forever young’. In the poem, the mountain narrates the story of its omnipresence and the
mountain claims to be allknowing. These memories hibernate in the minds and thus the
mountain becomes symbolic of being a repository of traditions and events of the past. “I am
the place where memory escapes/the myth of time/ I am the sleep in the mind of the
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mountain”(12-13). In the end of the poem, the mountain knows that the universe gives
nothing but ‘an appearance of being permanent’. The last line of the poem is significant as it
is a resonance of the conditions of the world. Regimes may change and the dream of a true
homeland may be fulfilled, but peace ever eludes. The existence of truth is an existential
reality, but behind it is the turmoil and dissatisfaction of a nation. Thus for Mamang Dai, the
mountains are not merely a landmass or a hunting ground for tribal folk; it is a living oracle
of the past and the future.Most of the poets from Northeast use myths and nature alongside
other themes of corruption, violence and politics.
Being deeply rooted in their past, these poets articulate about their history and their
past, the land and its people, its myth and rituals, cultures, values and traditions. Legends are
portrayed with the “intensity of reality and reality is portrayed with the intensity of longing
for a vanished past” (Dai, 2006). Thus:
The history of our race begins with the place of stories.
We do not know if the language we speak
belongs to the written past.
Nothing is certain. (“An Obscure Place”)

Mamang Dai’s poem landscape the past and the present with recurrent images embedded in
nature. Through these lines, Mamang Dai tells about the mystery that conceals the origins of
the people of this region. In ‘The Voice of the Mountain’, Mamang Dai talks about the people
who:
still follow the age old tradition even in a rapidly changing world:
The other day a young man arrived from the village.
Because he could not speak
he brought a gift of fish
from the land of rivers.
It seems such acts are repeated:
We live in territories forever ancient and new,
and as we speak in changing languages.
(“The Voice of the Mountain”12)

We find that the oral as well as the written narratives of the indigenous life of North East
tribes gives a distinct colour to the literature written in English from this region. Both
Temsula Ao and Mamang Dai are attempting to represent the rich cultural heritage of their
respective ethnic tribes through the medium of poetry.
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Works Cited:

Ao, Temsula. “Stone-People from Lungterok”.The NEHU Journal 1, No.2, 2003.

----------------. “Blood of Other Days”. Songs from the Other Life. Pune:Grassroots, 2007.
----------------.The Ao Naga Oral Tradition. Baroda:Pasha Publ;ications, 1999.
Baral, Kailash C. “Articulating Marginality:Emerging Literature from Northeast India”.
Emerging literature form Northeast India:The Dynamics of Culture, Society and Identity. Ed.
Margaret Ch. Zama. New Delhi:SAGE Publ;ications, 2013.
Chandra N.D.R. and I.Sentinaro. “A Discourse of Ao-Naga Folktales”.Open Journal
Academic System. Vol 2.3,January-June 2010.
Dai, Mamang.”Oral Narratives and Myth”.Glimpses from the North-East.National
Knowledge Commission.2009.
-----------------. North East Poetry. Muse India, The Literary ejournal, July-August, 2006.
----------------. “An Obscure Place”.Muse India Archives. Issue 8 2006. Web 13, September
2012.
----------------. “ The Voice of the Mountain”. India International Centre Quarterly, Vol.
No.2/3,2005.
Devi,Mahasweta. “The Author in Conversation”.Imaginary Maps, Trans.Gayatri Chakraboty
Spivak. Calcutta: Thema,1993.
Seymour-Smith,Charlotte. Macmillan Dictionary of Anthropology.London:Macmillan Press
Ltd.,1986.