Folktales from the Hills: A Look into the Angami Naga Oral Tradition

Abstract

The Angami Nagas are a tribe inhabiting the hills of Nagaland, a mountainous terrain in north eastern India. The Angami Nagas, like the rest of the other Naga Tribes have no written documents, that would have otherwise serve as a source of documenting history and culture. They are a tribe that follows the oral tradition to pass down knowledge and culture to the younger generation. Every story they tell, every word they hum in a folksong and every detail we see in their traditional attires have different stories to tell and stories that they have lived. These folktales represent the oral folk literature of a tribe, becoming a source of repository for its history, culture, beliefs and ideologies. These folktales, however, are fast disappearing with cultural assimilation, westernization and the effects of the global village. As the world move toward a global village, modernity and technological advancement, old practices are abandoned and this is the case with the oral tradition of narrating folktales, which occurred in morungs and in the family circle. With each passing generation, these folktales have faced lack of opportune delivery and sustainability, even diversion and dilution of the original, as is usually the case with oral tradition. The need to document and preserve the rich folktales is felt like never before.

This article is qualitative in nature, where relevant literature will be studied, interviews will be conducted and analysis on the selected folktales will be made to highlight the significance of every folktale. This article will highlight three folktales and will make an attempt to study the oral tradition of the Angami Nagas, how and from where these folktales were told in the past and passed on to the younger generation in the absence of formal school system, and finally the present study will also show how their folktales direct their people and how these folktales shape their society.