Reinhabitation:Through Storytelling, Bioregionalism in Northeast Indian Literature.

Abstract

The key concept of ‘bioregionalism’ as presented by Berg and Dassman is reinhabitation. It means how an individual becomes native to a place, by learning to live in it, knowing more about it and ultimately being respectful of the natural threshold, so that one does not turn out to be exploitative towards their own place. Through textual analysis, this paper, shall try to explore the theory of ‘reinhabitation’ by examining the description of rituals and folklores that attach the individuals exclusive to the land through the form of storytelling in the two novels named: Sky is My Father: A Naga Village Remembered(2003) by Easterine Kire and The Black Hill(2014) by Mamang Dai.

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Both of these novels set against the backdrop of North-East India vividly portray the struggle of indigenous communities against the colonial forces. To understand their struggle, it becomes crucial to see land as a form of protest in these stories. The rituals attached to the land, in the narratives are nothing but ways through which marginalised societies are set to free themselves from the central channelised authorities and get the chance to build their own identity. In Sky is My Father the portrayal of deep-rooted connection of tribe Angami to their village Khonoma through the rituals such as field day or genna day, Sekrenyi feast and the customs of birth and death which involves appeasing spirits shows the readers the processes of forming communities that not only involve humans,spirits but the land as well. Similarly, The Black Hill depicts the plight of Abor and Mishmi tribes against the British. When the character Kajinsha asked the individuals in his community to tell their stories, it gives the notion of oral tradition, which would shape oneness among all the clans. The stories determine every action, duties and identity of the tribes as recorded by their ancestors in the collective memory of the community passed across generations. 

Lastly, to grasp the politics of contestation between peripheral literatures and dominant narratives, I will explore Arnold van Gennep's notion of liminality. The  concept of liminality, which says  that the endless transition and continuity of cultural practices, parallels the way these stories are passed from one person to another, forming a tradition beyond any endpoint. This ongoing transmission reflects the continuous assertion of ‘own’ cultural connotations by peripheral literatures against the dominant forces

In the book:‘Literary Studies in India, Literary Historiography’, Ipsita Chanda in the very introduction has quoted the idea of history as the ‘flow of time’. To understand the ‘flow of time’ as integral to the conception of history, it becomes imperative to take in cognizance of specific and certain perspectives with which the ‘flow of time’ has been meaning-made across the discipline of humanities. The several representations of ‘flow of time’ through several perspectives is fundamental in the study of historiography. In this paper, I shall try to counter the dominant ways of understanding and ‘mapping’ history. When historian Ferdinand Braudel used ‘geohistory’ to emphasise the ‘history of man in his relationship to his environment’, he confirmed the significance of knowing ‘space’, to grasp history. This particular approach to question ‘history’ through the intersection of time, space  and human experience will serve as the analytical framework of this paper.

The act of writing does not mean that the writer describes the ‘place’ they have visited but they also create a ‘space’ of the text itself. This ‘space’ is the representation of the author's reality and ‘truth’ which has been interpreted and selections have been made on what can be included to shape the reader’s perception of the ‘place’. Yi- Fu Tuan in his book Space and Place: Perspectives of Experience has talked about ‘place’ and ‘space’ being mutually dependent and for him, it is not possible to define any one of them without the other one. He says, ‘Place is security, space is freedom, we are attached to one and long for the other’.’ Place’ is where an individual feels a sense of belonging while ‘Space’ is termed as ‘heterogeneousness’ by Foucault  meaning that the idea of ‘space’ which witnesses the pain and suffering of individuals in historical conditions is the resultant of the power relations residing in the societal ‘space’ itself.  Having said the distinction as well as the description of ‘space’ and ‘place’, it is pertinent to get into the idea of how the act of writing occurs in this context.  The essence of ‘space’ and ‘place’ will give a view in grasping Bakhtinian ‘chronotope’, he deals with the author’s method of writing their ‘horizon of expectation’ to create a fictional world through which the environment they lived in, this explanation regarding ‘chronotope’ suggests the interwoven relationship between ‘historical situation’ and ‘geographical space’ gives rise to the literary-ness of a particular form of art. These concepts of ‘place’, ‘space’ and chronotope which is defined as ‘time-space continuum’ are required to analyse a text, which is a communicative act, outcome of an entire communicative channel consisting of the author, reader and the text itself. And as a reader stands as the one of the core component of communicative complex, it is needed to think outside of Bakhtinian ‘chronotope’ which talks about how and why the author has decided to take on a specific ‘historical situation’ and ‘geographical space’,but it fails to take in how the reader perceives a text, in and outside of it. The idea of the reader's outlook of a text, is well reached by Robert T. Tally through the spatial theory of ‘geocriticism’ which focuses on how the reader focuses ‘attention on the ways literature represents, shapes or is formed by the real’. As I have already mentioned that the act of writing helps create the author a ‘space’ of the text by recalling the memories of the ‘place’ which inturn is encountered by the reader, who adheres as to whatever has been represented to them, we tend to forget that they create their own ‘space’ to encounter their own ‘place’ of dwelling, the ‘place’ they live in the moment. If a literary piece is considered aa a map of ‘place’ as sometimes through the descriptions of ‘place’ and locations the author has visited, it can be concluded a literary text gives the readers a perspective to look at a certain area in order to navigate the world. The communicative complex as much the author represents their ‘horizon of expectation’ through the text, it is our failure to estimate that the text which is the production of the ‘horizon of expectation’ of the specific ‘historical time’ can also have effects on the society within which the birth of the text has occurred. Tally’s idea to elucidate a theory which ‘maps’ from the inside of the text towards the outer world, instead of looking at the external ‘maps’ of the locations, to analyse the insides of the text. Therefore with this explanation, I can move onto the research question: Do literary representations affect our real-world perspective towards places which we encounter in daily-life? 

Recently, writers, research scholars and historians are talking about the authors who are ‘writing from the margin’, of India’s North-East to break away from the hegemonic perception of North-East as a ‘hub of conflict zone’, these writers who are ‘writing from the margin’ they think beyond the geo-politically contentious area towards very mundane, repertoire of everyday traditions and rituals. Since India has gained independence there has been overnight changes in the region of North-east due to urbanisation; alienation from their own customs and traditions has crept in which is witnessed in the literary production from this region. Researchers mainly focus on two things: firstly how the writings present the ‘changes’ and ‘shifts’ occurring in the society and secondly on how the history of people and their tradition is destroyed with the lack of written record. This anxiety of lack of ‘written record’ has been undertaken by two writers from this region namely: Easterine Kire and Mamang Dai. This angst to preserve the traditions and rituals to call something of their own can be looked at within the theory known as ‘Place-lore’ studied in Estonia since the 19th century which is simply described as a relationship between the people and the environment. The ‘place-lore’ are of two types, firstly you have local lores which reveal the local knowledge of nature and the methods through which people make use of it. Secondly the regional folklore captures the intimate knowledge of the dwelling ‘place’, passed down from one to the next generations. These ‘regional’ and ‘local’ folklores impart the very ‘lived’ personal experiences of the people, which can be considered as unwritten, unrecorded history of the past. Again, the personal experiences are established on the memories against landmarks and ‘places’ where the sense of belongingness is felt. In this paper, the concept of ‘place-lore’ shall be looked at within the texts: Sky is My Father by Easterine Kire and The Black Hill by Mamang Dai. As I move forward, I shall try to look for another set of perspectives, but at this moment it is crucial to understand why writers like Kire and Dai have chosen fiction to write about their 'place'?

Both of these writers are born in a community of oral tradition and are essentially story-tellers. The authors their fictitious plot on the history which was recorded and institutionalised. Story-telling isn't about reporting facts, but about expressing deeper experiences. The experiences which take shape in the ‘places’ of dwelling, described through rituals, traditions of people who lived in such ‘historical space’. When authors share stories, they don't always need to have personally witnessed the events. Memory can be an imperfect, non-linear connection of past to the present which has been negotiated to capture the cultural and emotional essence of lived experiences rather than listing chronological events.Through using personal memoirs,imaginative descriptions and the form of ‘story-telling’ which is non-linear, an indigenous way of writing history within fiction is birthed. Paul Ricoeur said, to understand ‘history in its entirety' it is important to intertwine history with fiction because ‘seeing’ the past and recreating those events in imagination almost creates a distance with the traumatic event, and this process acts like catharsis for the authors. In examining "Sky is my Father," I will explore two key concepts. First, I'll look at what makes up a 'bioregion' - the natural area where people live, including its landscape, plants, animals, and climate. Then, I'll study the idea of 'reinhabitation,' which means how people can reconnect with and live again in their traditional lands in meaningful ways. For "The Black Hill," my analysis will take a different direction. Here, I'll examine the important difference between 'space' and 'place.' While ‘space’ is defined as an empty container, ‘place’’ carries deeper meaning and significance for the people who live there. I'll also explore how Arnold Van Gennep's theory of liminality - which deals with transitions and in-between states - helps us understand the complex relationship people have with place’. 

Sky Is My Father: A Naga Village Remembered is settled in the little village of Khonoma, which witnessed the high-end battle between Angami warriors of Khonoma in Nagaland against the British between 1832 and 1880. This novel is filled with mapping stories, lores and rituals and the labour and love of the people who survived Khonoma of the 19th century. The individuals in the village are rooted to their land, and they proved this connection through both working on the land and fighting to protect it. The novel is woven with the Naga ways of life, the lived-in experiences, and lives of the individuals going along with the change of seasons. The term ‘bioregionalism’ which I seek to ‘map’ in this novel deals with the act of rejuvenating the indigenous to seek in the ‘place’-rooted knowledge and how each clan and its diverse traditions are contrasting from the other. The novel can be studied how the people residing in the bioregion of Khonoma and the form of relationship they have created with land. This novel can be called the ‘Narrative of land’, a narrative which is an orally or written account which captures events, attaches meaning to them. So if the novel is considered as the ‘Narrative of land’, is it possible for the land to speak or communicate? The answer to this question lies in the deliberate and intentional commitment demonstrated by the people of Khonoma towards land and their traditional way of life. It is also at the possible degradation of ‘space’ brought by the British who were driven by the belief that the natives were savage and they needed to be civilised. In the book: Bioregionalism and Civil Society: Democratic Challenges to Corporate Globalism by Mike Carr expressed that the ‘bioregion’ is built with people who connect with ‘places’ and help others to connect as well through rituals performed. Therefore, in the beginning of the novel the rituals performed by Angami communities such as title-taking or thena, customs of constructing new water channel to fetch water after killing a tiger, compulsory-going on field work or genna day, can be seen as repositories of forming communities not only with humans but with animals and plants as well. 

The society in the ‘bio-region’ of Khonoma consists of men belonging to different age-groups. These men are made to perform the ritual of initiation, for example the Kelevizo and the other boys gone through the ritual of ‘coming-of-age’ and have started working in the fields and their money in the feast of Sekrenyi. Every act in the village has to be performed through customs and every taboo needs to be fulfilled. The reason behind it, is the belief of people of Khonoma who trust in the need to perform the festivals and customs can only keep the spirits of the unclean forests away. The Thehou community collectively narrated the stories of war and unanimous urge to go on passing them down through generations with a shared, unwavering urge to embrace conflict. Levi and Lato often found themselves captivated by these tales, never doubting their authenticity. Within the village, the existence of spirits is regarded as pivotal—guiding decisions and rituals, and imbuing every activity with a profound spiritual significance. Interestingly, these spirits themselves are not detached entities but are intricately tied to the geo-political realities of the community, furthering their influence over the lives and actions of the villagers. As I have already mentioned that this book can be called ‘Narrative of Land’, another aspect to this ‘narrative’ is that it unfolds the Naga community. Observance of taboos and genna were the guiding principles of the Nagas as far as their relationship with the environment is considered. The term genna and taboo are closely linked in nature. The basic difference is that the former suggests to refrain yourselves from going on field-work on certain occasions while later advises prohibition on religious terms as what cannot be done, spoken or even thought of. The word genna is believed to be derived from the Angami word ‘kenna’ meaning prohibition. During genna nothing is taken out or brought into the household. Genna is observed on certain specific occasions namely: when paddy fields are destroyed by pests, birth of a new baby in the family or unnatural death of a person either by murder or drowning in the river. Therefore Genna poses serious religious and social moorings. 

The expansion over the concept of ‘Narrative of Land’ through the observation of ritual and taboos gives the idea of community as ‘bioregion’. In bioregion every individual is involved in providing shape and ‘meaning’ to a community through their personal experiences. Reinhabitation implies a re-turn to the community, and as theorised by Berg and Dossman it is about learning to live in a ‘space’ which has been destroyed and disrupted by past conflicts. Kire has tried to emphasise ‘reinhabitation’ in the novel in the form ‘relearning’ on how to live in a previously inhabited ‘place’ which is damaged at this moment. In the narrative, when Levi returned from the jail six years after, he felt simultaneous belonging and detachment to the ‘space’ of Kohima which was once ‘place’ of dwelling. When he went back and found his childhood friend Billie having a family, he felt dislocated, the ‘place’ was no longer familiar, indeed a feeling of being left out occurred inside of him. The need to-belong and relearn the ‘space’ was so keen on the idea of caring and labouring for the land, and possessing it at the same time, that he felt the need to strongly feel for a mistress. In this very circle of life where there is no definite end and beginning, people who do not belong in this ecosystem find themselves outside of the ‘bioregion’. The story of sisters who were believed to have been cursed by the spirit of Kirhumfumia, are denied of creation as in the narrative it mentions that if they pointed their finger towards a plant, it got wilted. The inability to nurture and regenerate life has left them with no sustenance and no future. However, if tracking back to the character of Levi, he was blessed with the chance of re-turn to the village, but the feeling of being left out, hindered him to accept Sato’s decision of converting his faith. Levi, as a father, probably wanted his son to feel protected against the struggle of reinhabitation. The novel’s form also undergoes literary reinhabitation,when Levi and Lato’s mother Piano died during a juncture in the narrative when villagers were evacuated. Here the figure of Levi’s mother stands for the relationship of land with its people. The novel can be read within the masculine principle of protection, and to accommodate piano in this discourse the author writes about how Levi was mesmerised at her masculinity, therefore her death can be read as the end of the relationship of land and its people. The erasure of the native and indigenous epistems is witnessed when Sato is caught in the dilemma of the old and the new. He is anxious with the ritual of initiation, but it brings him the peace he needed because he understood both religions talked about love and forgiveness. The binary created among the dominant religion and the new one is created through individuals. They fail to recognize that rituals, traditions, stories are ever-changing and ever-evolving in character. Everytime a story is passed on, it comes with the addition of another perspective. In the end, when Sato was talking to his mother, she expressed how relieved she felt at her father’s death, because she was afraid of her husband transitioning into a man she never wanted to live with. While Sato listened to her feelings, the conversation written by the author between the mother and son seemed as if a preacher of christian faith was talking to an ignorant person . In the end, when Sato’s mother dies, it again symbolises the end of the relationship of a familiar ‘place’ which was created by the nurturing of a mother, which her son is unable to recognize , as his angst was to attain ‘space’ which has been denoted as ‘freedom’.  

The primary research objective regarding Dai’s Black Hill has been previously mentioned. The novel begins with the heart-wrenching story of a valiant man, vigorous woman and a virtuous priest. The author writes, as if ‘their story’ is in the process of being told by another person from the past, to understand the narrative as something from the past, I shall try to borrow the notion of ‘people-stories’ by Easterine Kire which means stories are indeed ‘communicative act’ transmitted across generations. In the ‘Prologue’ of the novel the line ‘a closed book is opening’ adheres to the concept of ‘threshold’ meaning the stage at which the transition happens echoing the concept of Liminality by Arnold Van Genep. Dai’s words such as ‘an unwritten past written beyond the mountain wall’ echoes with the concept of ‘interstitial  passage’ which is understood as the mixture of past and present, giving rise to a cultural hybrid zone of ‘third space’ the narration of the novel seeks itself in the liminal passage of Bhaba as it is written in the very beginning ‘memory gives life and life never ends’. The Black Hill deciphers the pre-independent society where the struggles of Mishmi and Abor tribes are seen against British expansion. The novella deals with the story of Mishmee chief Kajinsha, who is sentenced to death for killing the French priest Father Kirk and Augustine Bourry. To further enunciate the in-betweenness, Dai in her acknowledgement section says she undertook a complex exercise while writing this novel, she already grasped the middle and the end of the novel before the act of writing, but during the process of writing this story, she realised all she could write was filled with incompleteness and was in-between.  The novel which takes on the time period between 1847 and 1855, the storyline depicts the feud between the tribes and the British, the tribes which reside in-between Assam and Tibet. The struggle of Kajinsha and Gimur’s journey in-between ‘lama villages and their destination to the house’. 

The theory of liminality, as conceptualized by Arnold van Gennep and later expanded by Victor Turner, explores the transformative "in-between" spaces where cultural and social transitions occur. This theory is inscribed within the natural phenomenon of season changing, Van Gennep specifically examines New Year ceremonies which consist of right of expulsion of the winter season and rightful incorporation of spring season, in which one dies and other is reborn. These seasonal changes are universal, affecting every society's work and lifestyle patterns. In tribal communities, seasonal shifts create a unique form of "schedule-oriented liminality" - a transitional period where economic activities, social structures, and individual routines are reshaped by nature's rhythmic transformation. Field work became impossible from March to September. As the rainy season drew to a close, the urgency to complete planting activities intensified. People worked with increased pressure, with some even working through the night. Dai writes that the rain "swept the land and brought fertility and life," ultimately allowing Gimur and her community to find respite and relief from their anxiety of lack of food. When winter arrived, festivals and rituals brought the entire village together. In February, Dai describes a busy time filled with various activities: planting seeds, watching tagat trees bloom, constructing new houses, and repairing old thatched roofs. Dai has explored seasonal changes, as one of her prominent narrative strategies, contributing to the fact that these ‘shifts’ are not limited to physicality , rather it is linked with deeper physiological and social experiences. Here I shall not delve into the topic of reinhabitation, as I have managed to do in the previous analysis, but I shall say that this ‘seasonal changes’ and the work which comes along with it, gives rise to rituals, which held individuals native to a place and would map the ‘lived experiences.’ I have managed to express the liminality present in the narrative strategy of the novella, there is another aspect to encounter the liminality, is analysing it within the protagonists of the narrative. 

The first instance of Gimur’s liminality is seen when the whole village is alerted about the men of Mebo meeting some strangers at the break of dawn; she felt uneasy at the thought that some people might want to capture their peaceful territory. But on the other side, Gimur is seen accommodating herself in the daily routine and chores such as ‘drying paddy’, ‘talking to the moon’ which liberates her and gives her a sense of freedom. Here the classic distinction between ‘space’ and ‘place’ can be seen, but neither of the categories is fully attained by the protagonist. ‘Place’ gives the sense of belonging, but it is crucial to notice that the marginalised psyche normalises the fear and it often becomes the essence through which one can feel the ‘belonging’ towards their ‘place’. The constant urge to attain ‘space’ freedom though realised by the individual goes downhill, because there is altogether a new kind of fear attached to it, which the individual might not want to explore, because the previous kind of fear has a sense of familiarity involved within it. Homi K. Bhaba theories that the negotiation between past and present can be seen, when the individual’s psyche is neither able to stay or come out of past traumas, and often past trauma seem to give a ‘space’ to the protagonist, so they can save themselves from the recent heart-wrenching situation. This idea can be seen when Gimur hears about Kajinsha’s father being killed in Suddhya attack, she creates a spatial interrogation in her mind, by lingering over the death of Moi's husband, Dai writes ‘the past was not so distant from the present afterall’.While narration suggests movement and change, it ultimately falls short of achieving a complete transition, remaining perpetually on the threshold of transformation such as Gimur’s whole narration is visualised through continuous opening and closing of doors. When Father Kirk leaves Gimur says, ‘A door is closing at last the man is gone now, we can attend to other things’, as if she does not need to divert her attention, to sustain her loosely hanging world.  When she struggled in her marriage, she decided to leave Kajinsha and as she was going away, she takes a loom and spits into two pieces and handles one piece to Kajinsha, ‘I am going away, you live like this’, this act of separation is followed by her will to reconcile her life in Mebo, which can be analysed as an act of incorporation. Her re-turn to the village is witnessed in the lines ‘she crosses the threshold and walks swiftly finding her way like a cat in familiar space’. She is delighted about starting her life all over again, but she falls apart at the news of her mother’s demise. At the end of the story, when she returns to her home after meeting Kajinsha from Debroogurh jail, she finally realises her final separation from her love life, her state of mind is narrated with these lines, ‘if one door had ended, another one was opening, what is life if not a dream of doorways?’. This novella, with its narrativizing of rituals against change of seasons, taboos and stories-of people passing across generations, does emphasise the need for geography. The realisation of geography as ‘space’ which consists of all the moorings, mundane, thoughts makes it unique. If history is about grasping ‘people-stories’ across time we often forget how these ‘people-stories’ are written and observed by the readers from several geographical boundaries. Edward Soja, claims about how ‘space’ has been ‘depoliticised’ in the discourse of humanities. His concept of ‘third-space’ defined as in-between the perceived and the conceived layers, reflects the psychological state of Gimur. When Gimur becomes hopeful about her future with Kajinsha she sits closer to the fire and closes her eyes, ‘ a storm was blowing’ and a few moments later when she hears Nago chanting in her ears about Kajinsha death and crying ‘Water, Water sorrow and death!’. Gimur’s dream about Kajinsha becomes true, as he gives up his life in Debroogurh jail. In contemplating her future with her husband, her perception and the resulting interpretation were starkly different. She was left with two profound psychological choices: either acknowledging her husband's death as the end of life or denying the reality of his passing. This internal conflict presented a complex emotional landscape where acceptance and denial existed in painful proximity, which I would call it ‘third-space’. The significance of ‘third-space’ lies in its ability to capture the fullness of human spatial experience. It acknowledges that our relationship with ‘place’ is never simply about physical presence, nor is it purely about how we perceive that ‘space’.  Instead, it recognizes that we live in a world where the real and the imagined constantly inform and transform each other, creating the rich, complex spatial experiences that characterize human life. Through this understanding, Soja offers us a framework for comprehending how ‘space’ shapes into ‘place’ and it is shaped by human experience, providing a more nuanced and complete picture of spatial reality.

Conclusion

This academic exercise reveals the intersection among literature, geography, and cultural memory through a nuanced analysis of Easterine Kire's "Sky is My Father" and Mamang Dai's "The Black Hill". The research shows how North-Eastern Indian writers navigate complex narrative landscapes, revealing the intricate ways literary representations capture intimate experiences of indigenous communities.

The paper demonstrates that literary narratives are not mere descriptive accounts but dynamic narratives of cultural memory. By examining the concepts of 'space', 'place', and 'liminality', the analysis exposes how writers map lived experiences through storytelling, particularly in regions undergoing significant social and political transitions. The key theoretical frameworks - including Yi-Fu Tuan's spatial theory, Arnold Van Gennep's concept of liminality, and Edward Soja’s concept of 'third space' - provide critical lenses to understand how literary texts are representation of the geographical spaces. These novels become repositories of collective memory, preserving indigenous knowledge through the device of ‘story-telling’ which is present within our native epistem. ‘Story-telling’ is manifested in the novel ‘Sky is My Father’ through the detailed documentation of genna practices and rituals such as field-day traditions and Sekrenyi feast celebrations, which serve as repositories of ecological knowledge. The novel demonstrates how these stories embedded within daily practices teach the younger generation about sustainable land use and community responsibilities. Similarly, in ‘The Black Hill’, ‘story-telling’ operates through the seasonal narrative framework within which the description of the village Mebo is showcased in a natural cycle of every-day and night. There is another instance of Kajinsha asking his story to be shared thereby giving an individual’s story the privilege of collective consciousness of the clan. These storytelling methods transmit crucial bioregional knowledge about agricultural practices and the relationship of humans with land. This paper highlights the significance of seasonal changes and rituals in tribal communities. Through textual analysis, the paper reveals how these cyclical transitions are not merely environmental phenomena but complex social and psychological experiences that shape community identities. The concept of 'schedule-oriented liminality' emerges as a critical framework for understanding how economic activities, social structures, and individual routines are continuously reshaped by nature's rhythmic transformations. Bioregionalism and reinhabitation emerge as crucial themes, demonstrating how indigenous communities maintain connections with their land and traditions. The novels expose the negotiations between preserving cultural heritage and adapting to changing socio-political landscapes, particularly in the context of British colonial expansion and post-colonial transformations. 

The protagonists' journeys - Levi in Kire's novel and Gimur in Dai's narrative - symbolize broader collective experiences of displacement, resistance, and reconnection. Their personal narratives become microcosms of larger historical and cultural shifts, illustrating how individual experiences are intricately woven into broader social fabric. Ultimately, the paper argues that literature serves as a critical medium for understanding complex cultural landscapes. These narratives do more than record history; they create spaces of remembrance, resistance, and reimagination. By exploring the intersections of geography, memory, and storytelling, the research provides insights into how communities make sense of the changing world around them. While this study does explore the complex interplay between storytelling, bioregionalism, and cultural memory in Northeast Indian literature, it acknowledges a significant limitation in its scope, which can become a prospect of research in the future: the unexplored dimension of gender in bioregional storytelling and land relationships. Both the  novels feature important female characters - particularly Gimur in "The Black Hill" and Piano in "Sky is My Father" -- the paper does not intend to investigate how gender shapes the experience of land attachment, ‘storytelling’ traditions, and bioregional identity. The roles of women in maintaining and transmitting ecological knowledge, their specific relationships with the land through agricultural practices, domestic rituals, and ceremonial responsibilities remain largely unexamined. Furthermore, this paper can lead the scope to research into how gender influences the narrative voice and perspective in bioregional storytelling, especially considering how women's experiences of displacement, reinhabitation, and liminality might differ from their male counterparts. However the findings of this research have direct implications for policy making and cultural preservation efforts in Northeast India. These literary works demonstrate how indigenous knowledge, passed down through storytelling, can inform land management policies that better respect local traditions and environmental practices. There is an urgent need to develop frameworks that protect and preserve these oral traditions before they are lost to urbanization and cultural shifts. Policy makers should consider creating platforms where tribal elders can share their stories and traditional ecological knowledge with younger generations, ensuring these valuable cultural practices continue. Additionally, there should be legal protections for indigenous intellectual property rights, recognizing that these stories and traditions belong to their communities. This approach would help bridge the gap between traditional knowledge systems and modern governance while ensuring cultural preservation.

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By Santoshi Chakraborty

Santoshi Chakraborty is a postgraduate specializing in Comparative Literature with a Master's degree from Jadavpur University, Kolkata. Her research interests include Children's Literature, Partition Literature, Gender Studies, and Post-Colonial Literature. Santoshi has presented papers at several academic conferences on topics ranging from queer literature and alternative education narratives to hip-hop's cultural fusion and translation in Bengali adventure narratives. She has served as a Citizen Historian with The 1947 Partition Archive, conducting and documenting oral histories, and volunteered with Teach For India, developing innovative teaching strategies for primary education.

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