Ecoethical Praxis in The Legends of Pensam
Mamang’s The Legends of Pensam unravels Adi cosmology and explores the challenges to the Adi ecoethics during the colonial and postcolonial times. The novel explores a symbolic travel from the earliest past to date depicting an Adi tribal’s journey from the most remote past to date amidst the British colonial incursion which has caused utter harm to the Adi ecoethics and their ideas of deep ecology.
Hence the Adis have challenged the colonisers and resisted their trespass into their evergreen world. The shaman/miri dances and chants and with that he explains the very purpose of a tribe’s existence/habitation in this world. He says,Our purpose is to fulfil our destiny. The life of a man is measured by his actions and his actions are good if their origin is pure. From nothingness, we have come to be born under the stars, and almighty Donyi-polo, the sun and the moon, whose light shines on all equally; in the invisible force that guides each one of us. All life is light and shadow; we live and we die, and the path of destiny is the quest for faith
(Dai 2006:57)
This faith is the ecoethic that guides the tribe in his life by inspiring him in the lore of truth, humility, and honesty. Again regarding the origin and development of this cosmos, the shaman says:
In the beginning, there was only Keyum. Nothingness. It was neither darkness nor light, nor had it any colour, shape, or movement. Keyum is the remote past, way beyond the reach of our senses. It is the place of ancient things from where no answer is received. Out of this place of great stillness, the first flicker of thought began to shine like a light in the soul of man. It became a shimmering trail, took shape and expanded and became the Pathway. Out of this nebulous zone, a spark was born that was the light of imagination. The spark grew into a shining stream that was the consciousness of man, and from this all the stories of the world and all its creatures came into being.
(Dai 2006:56)
The shaman thus gives the idea of the evolution of the cosmos and the internal and external ecology and the essence of ecoethics that guides the whole cosmos. The community was led/ ruled by the chieftain and his words were like the words of the God and there was proper administration which was far better than present-day democracy. Justice was delivered to the aggrieved honestly and there was no favouritism at all:
No one stole or killed and any man who could find his way into the compound of a chief’s dwelling was automatically protected from all danger. In a dispute the chiefs would look up to the sky, consult the sacred fire, speak to the spirits and there would be justice. Food was sown, harvested, stored and dispensed fairly. It was a clan. Fathers and sons followed in the footsteps of their ancestors.
(Dai 2006:42)
But with the advent of the colonisers, the mountains were levelled, roads were built, and impenetrable dense forests were destroyed. The routes of serpentine rivers were discovered and cities were built on mountain tops. The big trees were cut and forests cleared. With the fall of the tall trees, the spirits of ancestors who dwelt in the tall trees fell and went away cursing the future generations. The hills, forests, and valleys are the home of the tribes. They live peacefully in the bosom of nature and they are a part of the nature. But with the British colonisers oppressing the evergreen nature of Arunachal Pradesh, the Adis resisted the ways of the colonisers. Hence, they were challenged several times. In 1911, Noel Williamson, a British political officer was struck down by an angry Adi. With him a tea garden physician, Dr. Gregorson, and 47 sepoys and coolies were also killed by the angry man and other men of his tribe which resulted in the punitive expedition of 1912 (Dai 2006:48).
The Legends of Pensam presents several ideas of evils/sagas of evil spirits. By appeasing the evil spirits a tribal can survive peacefully and progress in his life.
Appeasing the evil is inevitable and that is a responsibility and prime ritual in a tribal’s life. The evils surround him and it is his way of life to invite the miri and hold rituals to appease the evil spirits. Mamang Dai presents an ecohistory of the Adis and a detailed ecoethic mapping the colonial and postcolonial regime. The novel gives accounts of different types of evils honoured by the Adis like supernatural evils (Biribik, Mitimili, Dimitayang, and Danki), physical evils, hunting accidents, the python spirit, the tiger/fire spirit, si-ye, black moments, symbolic evils, ecological evils, and mysterious/mystical evils (Das 2012:70-77).The natural world is the abode of the spirits. One has to be cautious and treat the environing natural world with love and respect or else one has to face the consequence. Biribik is a mysterious water serpent which Hoxo’s father had seen and also a fisherman on a night of heavy rain saw this serpent with a head with horns coiled up in the branches of a tree under which he was sheltering. The fisherman had a terrible vision of this water serpent and died of wasting illness within a year (Dai 2006:9-10). Mitimili is a race of supernatural beings who first prepared the mysterious si-ye cakes out of the white powder of yeast mixed with ground rice, roots, and berries. A bad spirit lurking the si-ye cakes makes men go mad and hence these cakes are forbidden before a hunt or a journey (Dai 2006:28-29). Dimtayang is a lonely spirit who stirs up the lake waters and clutches the trespassing men in an embrace of ice. Adis during their journey to the snow mountains in winter for harvesting deadly aconitum for the preparation of poison arrows pray to this spirit before return and perform rituals to ward off the danger. Sometimes, in spite of prayers they also face cyclonic wind as wrath of this spirit (Dai 2006:59-60). Danki is a fabulous vessel made of the strongest metal alloy owned by the Lotang family of the Migu clan which was believed to be an auspicious gift from the gods.
With the disappearance of this vessel, the Migu clan also finally disappeared (Dai 2006:62-63). Besides these supernatural evils, the Adi tribals face the evils like hunting accidents, snakes, evil elements of nature like wind, river, treacherous paths, and some trees having evil spirits in them. These are the physical evils. Adis believe that some spirits are instrumental for the hunting accidents. These accidents are ferocious and hunters do not know how they kill each other or get killed. Lekon, Pinyar’s husband died in a hunting accident and Kalen was killed by Loma in a hunting accident also.The spirit of a python killed by Togum in the timber depot took revenge on his son Kepi, making him suffer from a long fever. While performing a special ceremony to appease the python spirit, Hoxo, the miri invoked the spirit and called the spirits back and got Kepi recovered from the fever (Dai 2006:24). Like the fire/tiger spirit completely gutting 20 houses in Duyang village and the villagers performing special rituals to propitiate the fire spirit (Dai 2006:122), Pinyar, the widow’s house also caught fire and she was banished to the outskirts of the village and had to undergo the taboo (Dai 2006:28). But fire watching was a sacred duty and the young men were expected to devote time and keep vigil through the night in their bango for fire watching. The angry fire spirit causes immense harm (Dai 2006:121). At some moments evil spirits board on humans and make them go mad and kill others or chase others with weapons to kill. It happened with Kamur, the son of Pinyar, who killed his infant daughter and younger son with a sword one afternoon and chased his wife with the bloodied sword. This is called black moments when the evil spirits board on humans (Dai 2006:30). There are some symbolic evils like right/wrong kind of marriages, or right/wrong kind of life, which is traced to defects in the bloodline. Due to the defects in the bloodlines some see visions visited by spirits.
Beyond these, there are certain things/agents that represent good or evil values, e.g., the tooth of a tiger and a wild boar are symbols of luck and success (Dai 2006:35), whereas the aubergine plant growing into a size of a tree with small poisonous-looking flowers and long bloated fruits, becomes a ghostly tree that brings psychopathic behaviour in people who come under it. It is a taboo for women to go near rivers/streams/water sources after sunset as those places are visited by spirits (Dai 2006:83). Agents of nature like wind, water, fire, sky, open space in valleys, and gorges are also inhabited by spirits, which are mysterious and magical (Das 2012:77). High mountains/peaks, dense forests full of wild animals, poisonous snakes, insects and reptiles, ferocious rivers, streams, steep gorges, and dangerous intense valleys with wild and innocent tribes prove to be a difficult terrain and an eco-evil for the tribes and strangers, whereas outsiders, thieves and diseases, and roads are symbolic evils (Dai 2006:156).The ideas of evil/taboo and fear/respect for spirits/ghosts make the tribe cautious, humble, and honest in their living style and keep them engaged in maintaining a life of rituals/ celebrations for propitiating these evils so that they would escape difficulties, dangers and sufferings in their lives. As their abode is the bosom of nature, and they themselves are integral to nature, it is their ecoethics to observe rituals and propitiate the spirits. Hence, this is religion-like and their objects of worship/appeasing/propitiation are their gods and the whole paraphernalia of propitiation with invocation, singing, dancing, and associated activities come under their ecoethics. Mamang Dai in both of her ecofictional narratives has dealt with the ecoethics of Adis, Mishmees, trespassing Brokpas, and bordering Tibetans.
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