A Terrible Matriarchy

Easterine Kire is a well-known writer from Nagaland who writes in English.

Most of her writings are about the Naga people and their society. She has
lucratively captured not just the true essence of Naga life by exploring their
oral history but also their problems and the trauma caused by the insurgency
conflicts. The novel A Terrible Matriarchy (2007) revolves around the lives of
Dieleino, Nino and Vibano representing three generations of Angami- Naga
women of the same family. This is the evocative tale of a young girl growing
up in a traditional society in India’s Northeast, which is in the midst of
tremendous change.

Set in an Angami Christian community Kohima, Nagaland, Kire takes us to

conventional pursuits of the traditional community through the eyes of a five-
year-old who grows as the novel progresses. Dielieno, the youngest and the
only girl child in her family is sent to live with her paternal grandmother at
the age of five against her will. According to her grandmother girls don’t
need education, time to play, or even a good piece of meat with their gravy,
cannot enjoy any kind of privileges that life offers. With all these
conventional reasoning her grandmother aspires to raise Lieno as a good
Naga wife and mother. And for this Lieno grew up hating her grandmother
with a vengeance. She stayed with her grandmother from the age of five till
the age of twelve. Eventually, her grandmother’s redemption is displayed on
her deathbed at the end of the novel and Lieno forgives her grandmother.

Greatly inspired by the author’s own life and mostly based on real people,
the book portrays the patriarchal set-up of society, albeit amidst many
changes. Kire’s book is remarkable in bringing out the lives of many women
of three generations. The Angami society is essentially patriarchal and
patrilineal and the same is visible in the society’s approach towards girl
education, inheritance of property, marriages and divorces, and their way of
life. Interestingly, however, the role of Angami women is imperative to the
family and society as they are the main source of income. Women are mostly
engaged in weaving, handicrafts, and agricultural activities, besides their
household work. Even though Naga society is patriarchal, women enjoy
considerable freedom and play important roles in the family and community.
Kire, in her book, makes a deeper analysis of the real situation and presents
quite a different picture from an ordinary understanding of how a patriarchal
society operates.

Greatly inspired by the author’s own life and mostly based on real people,
the book portrays the patriarchal set-up of society, albeit amidst many
changes. Kire’s book is remarkable in bringing out the lives of many women
of three generations. The Angami society is essentially patriarchal and
patrilineal and the same is visible in the society’s approach towards girl
education, inheritance of property, marriages and divorces, and their way of
life. Interestingly, however, the role of Angami women is imperative to the
family and society as they are the main source of income. Women are mostly
engaged in weaving, handicrafts, and agricultural activities, besides their
household work. Even though Naga society is patriarchal, women enjoy
considerable freedom and play important roles in the family and community.
Kire, in her book, makes a deeper analysis of the real situation and presents
quite a different picture from an ordinary understanding of how a patriarchal
society operates.

Division of rights between the gender is made evident in most parts of the
novel. It appears like a story narrated by young Dielieno but the novel, for
the most part, is about growing up as a woman in a patriarchal society as
seen in Lieno’s life. The novel also talks about so many other aspects like the
everyday Naga village life, grief and deaths in the family, the significance of
sticking to traditional laws and customs, and ageing. Another aspect of the
novel is the visitation of the good spirits and the bad spirits. Spirits of the
dead visits their home one last time to say final goodbye or the wicked spirits
who takes souls. Kire potently brings out traditional practices of the past
making it a significant part of keeping her traditions alive.

A noteworthy aspect of Kire’s book is her delineation of the constant tug-of-

war between tradition and modernity. In the evolving Angami society where
modern ideas and thoughts are dawning in, it is interesting to see how a
natural process such as menstruation is referred to as ‘the curse’. Young girls
like Lieno feel terrified of such ‘grown-up matters’. Kire’s portrayal of how
Lieno and her friend hesitate to approach shopkeepers to buy sanitary
napkins conveys many ideas of society’s perspective of such situations.
However, true to the genre of a Bildungsroman, Lieno too sheds her cocoon
and is finally able to deal with such situations practically.

Easterine Kire writes about a place and a people that she knows well and is a
part of and brings to the storytelling a lyrical beauty which can on occasion
chill the reader with its realistic portrayals of the spirits of the dead that
inhabit the quiet hills and valleys of Nagaland. She presents a situation
where some women have the upper hand in their households and community
and also can manipulate men into thinking that they are the decision makers
whereas in reality the strings are subtly drawn by the women.