ECHOES OF THE EARTH: WOMEN, RESISTANCE, AND THE ECOLOGY OF MEMORY IN INDIAN INDIGENOUS ORAL TRADITIONS

Abstract

India’s indigenous oral traditions make up an enormous repository of ecological knowledge, historical experiences of resistance to colonialism and patriarchal domination, and countless other expressions of human experience. Women have played significant roles within these traditions; however, their contributions to Indian academia are frequently overlooked. The focus of this academic report is on examining how gender intersects with indigenous identity and oral traditions across four different geographical locations in India. These include the matrilineal hills of the North East of India, the central forest regions, the resistance fronts of the West, and the pastoral highland regions of the South. Using a compilation of archival data from colonial archives, field notes from ethnographic studies conducted in the region, and current ecofeminist theory, this research study posits that the oral literature of Adivasi (indigenous) women — which includes chants (Phawar), agricultural song (Li), forest ballads (Dadaria), and laments (Oppari) — functions as a counter-archive. In addition to preserving genealogical and ecological memory through the use of this literature, it serves as an expression of resistance to both the colonial epistemological violence and patriarchal invasion of indigenous lands as well as environmental destruction. Through analysis of specific lyric collections and performance contexts for this literature, this study demonstrates that such literature is more than mere folklore; it is rather sophisticated “technologies of memory” that maintain the indigenous peoples’ ontological connection to the land.