Oral Tradition and Indigenous Identity in Temsula Ao’s Works: A Literary Resistance from an Indic Perspective | Neptune Barman

Temsula Ao, a pioneering literary voice from Nagaland, offers a compelling lens through which to examine indigenous identity and the enduring significance of oral traditions in contemporary Indian literature. Her work, particularly the collection of ten short stories These Hills Called Home: Stories from a War Zone, challenges dominant narratives of postcolonial India and reclaims cultural memory for the Naga community. With a nuanced portrayal of indigenous life, Ao resurrects stories that lie at the intersection of memory, resistance, and healing—an effort deeply rooted in the oral traditions of the Ao-Naga tribe. Her contribution transcends mere literature; it becomes a living testimony to the resilience of the people and their belief systems.In pre-literate societies like the Nagas, oral tradition was the primary mode of cultural transmission. Folktales, songs, chants, proverbs, and ritual performances carried ancestral knowledge, spiritual beliefs, and socio-political consciousness across generations. Temsula Ao’s writings do not merely reference these traditions but embody them. Her prose mimics the cadence of oral storytelling, replete with repetition, cyclical structure, and ancestral wisdom. This “writing orality” is not a nostalgic exercise but a political one—it asserts the validity of indigenous epistemologies in the face of hegemonic, often colonial, literate paradigms that have historically marginalized them.

Ao’s stories are situated in a region fraught with insurgency, militarization, and cultural dislocation. Through characters who endure systemic violence—from forced relocations to sexual violence due to insurgency—Ao centres the Naga experience as a site of postcolonial trauma. In this context, oral tradition becomes a form of “cultural insurgency,” resisting erasure and asserting memory as truth. This is especially evident in stories like The Last Song, where a woman’s defiant singing in the face of impending death symbolizes an act of resistance more profound than armed struggle. Her voice, metaphorically and literally, becomes an archive of dignity.From an Indic philosophical lens, oral tradition aligns closely with the Indian concept of shruti—that which is heard and transmitted through generations. While modernity equates authority with the written word, Indic traditions historically revered oral wisdom. The Vedas, the foundational texts of Indian civilization, were orally preserved with astonishing precision for millennia. Temsula Ao’s work, although regionally rooted, resonates with this broader Indic ethos. Her storytelling reflects the shruti-parampara, where knowledge is not static but lived, shared, and dynamic. Her fiction becomes smriti—a recollection not only of personal but collective histories shaped by ethical truths.

The gendered dimension of Ao’s narratives is equally profound. Women in her stories are not passive victims; they are knowledge-bearers and resistors. In indigenous societies, especially within the Ao-Naga community, women often held roles as oral historians and cultural custodians. Ao revitalizes this by placing women at the center of historical memory. Moreover, Ao’s fiction critiques the role of religion, particularly Christianity, in shaping and sometimes erasing indigenous identities. While the church brought new moral frameworks, it also alienated younger generations from indigenous traditions, oral knowledge, and communal rituals. Ao does not dismiss Christianity but interrogates its implications with complexity. In doing so, she reflects the Indic value of samanvaya—harmonization without erasure.

Ao’s commitment to preserving oral tradition also has ecological dimensions. Her narratives are suffused with references to the land, rivers, forests, and wildlife—not as scenery but as sentient entities. In tribal cosmology, nature is not “other” but kin. This worldview aligns with Indian indigenous environmental thought, which sees the Earth as Bhûmî Devi, a mother goddess. The intrusion of modern developmentalism—whether through deforestation, mining, or military occupation—is portrayed in Ao’s stories as not only an ecological crime but a spiritual rupture. Oral traditions, which encode ecological ethics, thus become essential tools of environmental resistance.Literature, for Temsula Ao, becomes more than art; it is testimony. In the absence of state recognition and archival representation, her fiction serves as an alternative historiography. The oral histories she draws upon—memories of insurgency, loss, survival—contest official versions of events. Her writing aligns with the testimonial literature of other subaltern traditions, where the margins speak in voices not often deemed credible by dominant institutions. These are not “myths” in the Eurocentric sense but living histories, validated by community consensus and ethical truth.

The act of writing these stories in English, the colonizer’s language, is also a calculated choice. It reflects a subversive strategy of “writing back.” By using English to articulate Naga identity, Ao not only accesses a global readership but repurposes the colonial tool for indigenous affirmation. Temsula Ao’s contribution must also be located within the broader movement of decolonizing Indian literary discourse. Her work joins a chorus of indigenous writers reclaiming narrative sovereignty. Importantly, she refrains from romanticizing tribal life. Instead, she offers a grounded portrayal of complex lives navigating between tradition and modernity, conflict and continuity. Her protagonists are not symbols—they are people: flawed, resilient, and yearning for home.From an Indic perspective, Ao’s work reveals dharma in action—not in the moralistic or religious sense, but as a commitment to truth, community, and balance. Her stories are not merely retrospective; they are aspirational, urging a cultural renewal grounded in memory and solidarity. In a world rapidly forgetting its ancestral voices, Temsula Ao reminds us that oral tradition is not a relic but a radical act of remembering.

(Neptune Barman is pursuing MA in English at Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology, Nalbari, Assam)