Indian

Indigenous
Imagination:
Redefining
Literature
Dr. Vidya Premkumar
08 January 2019
The Problematic Term ‘Tribal’

• G.N. Devy
• Not possible to characterize in a single
ethnographic or historic framework
• Not necessarily racially distinct or the
original inhabitants of the areas
• Nomadism
• Migration – natural, forced,
rehabilitation, displacement
• Not completely cut off from non-tribals
 Problems with Constitutional
Definition of ‘Tribes’
• British government – Criminal Tribes Act
of 1871 – nearly 200 communities –
‘notified’
• After independence – denotified and
placed randomly under various listings -
tribes, castes and other backward
community under Schedule of Tribes
• Useful indicator of identifying –
language – G. N. Devy
 Culture of Indigenous
Communities in India

• Cohesive groups and unified communities

• Very little interest in accumulating wealth
or capital
• Worldview – nature based
• Man and God intimately linked through
nature
• Intuitive living
• Sense of time is personal rather than
objective
 Tribal Imagination

• ‘Dream like or hallucinatory’ – G.N. Devy

• Fusion of the various planes of
imagination
• Fantasy and real are fluid
• Spatial order and temporal sequence in
narratives may vary from the non-tribal
Indian society
 Tribal Imagination

• Principles of association between

emotion and narrative motifs
• Nature takes on the emotions that
humans feel
• Natural elements are important
characters in their narratives
• Racial and sensory memory than on
cultivated imagination
 Tribal Imagination

• Acute sense of time rather than space

• Domination of territory – realization not
possible
• Engagement with time through dead
ancestors
• Sharp memory – classifying objects and
observations of nature into a highly
complex system of knowledge
 Tribal Imagination

• Orally passed down to the next

generation
• Art, narratives and songs interlinked in a
cohesive whole
• Part of everyday living
• Design, organize, craft, build and express
aesthetics in daily life
 Tribal Imagination

• Understanding of indigenous
imagination
• Augment Indian literature
• Indian Literature – ‘Perspective
Imagination’ – Western Origin
• G.N. Devy – Tribal - only Indian
unaffected by the colonial consciousness
 Characteristics of Indigenous
Art

• Distinct manner of constructing space

and imagery
• Extremely flexible frame
• Boundaries between art and non-art
almost invisible
• Fusion of different art form like narrative
containing songs or paintings
 Characteristics of Indigenous
Art

• May not follow the linear narrative

mode
• Circular narration preferred
• Oral narrations use repetitions and
audience response
• Inclusion of audience as a part of
narration or narrative
 Characteristics of Indigenous
Art
• ‘Syntax of language and the grammar of
painting’ are similar
• ‘Creativity of the tribal artist lies in
adhering to the past while at the same
time slightly subverting it. The
subversions are mainly playful than
ironic.’
• ‘Playfulness is the soul of the tribal art.’
- G. N. Devy
 Modern Concerns in
Indigenous Literature
“The history of tribals during the last sixty
years is filled with stories of forced
displacement, land alienation, increasing
marginalization, the eruption of violence
and counter-violence by the state.”
- G. N. Devy in Indigeneity: Culture and
Representation
 Features of Modern Tribal
Literature
1. Based on oral literature and influenced
by it
2. Uncontaminated by the colonial
burden
- Clara Nubile in The Dangers of Gender:
Caste, Class and Gender in Contemporary
Indian Women’s Writing
 Debate
• Second characteristics which was
mentioned by G.N. Devy also is
debatable.
• Novel like Kocharethi: The Araya Woman
by Narayan from Kerala reflect history of
contact with the colonizers whether
internal or external.
• Cultural expression of the indigenous
community rapidly depleting
Kocharethi: The Araya Woman
• Maps enthno-history of Araya Adivasis
of Kerala
• Detailed etching of practices, customs
and relationships of the Arayars
• Counter writing to representation of
Arayars by the mainstream literature
• Resisting biased representation
• Mediational space of cultural memories
of the communities