WHISPERS OF THE WOODS
Welcome to the
World of
Folk Stories from Uttarakhand
Abstract
The project deals with the documentation and analysis of eight folk stories from the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand. The stories have been classified into four broad categories: flowers, birds, festivals, and pastoral deities. The analysis has been undertaken using frameworks from the field of folk studies and landscape studies. The aim of the project is to analyse the representation of the natural landscape of the hills through the folktales. In addition, the attempt is to identify how the folktales offer a glimpse of the culture in the region through its oral tradition.
Acknowledgement
I am indebted to my supervisor, Professor Arnapurna Rath, who suggested the possibility of undertaking a project on my home state, Uttarakhand. Her passion for narratives and her interest in disseminating these to a wider audience inspired me to work on folk narratives from the Kumaon religion of Uttarakhand.
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I am grateful to Laxman Singh Manola (Former Lecturer, Government Inter College Narayannagar at Didihat, Pithoragarh). His knowledge of the folk stories helped me understand the nuanced meaning of these stories. In addition, his interest in music has greatly contributed to the nature of this project. The musical rendition of a few stories is an outcome of his dedicated efforts. In the audio outputs of the project, he has played the harmonium and the hudka. I am also grateful to Yashpal Manola (Saato-Aatho Song) and Ashish Manola (Masi ko Phool) for playing the dholak. I am also thankful Pooja Manola for rendering the female voice.
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I also express my gratitude to Suraj Tamta, Radesh Singh and Vijay Jethi for sending me relevant textual and visual materials whenever I requested.
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Finally, I am thankful to my family especially my mother, who has been my go-to person whenever I needed clarification on some aspects of these stories. She helped me understand typical words used in Kumaoni language, which are no longer in common use. I would like to thank my brother (Neeraj Singh) who visited the website and offered his critical comments.
Methodology
The project is an attempt to explore the folk stories of the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand. The site of the study is based in Pithoragarh district of Uttarakhand. The selection of the region comes from the positionality of the author as a Kumaoni. The project creates a digital repository of these stories by creating a blog space in the online publishing platform “Wix” (I am thankful to Dr. Jaison Manjaly, Professor, IIT Gandhinagar for recommending the platform to me while I was working on the website of the HSS Department at IIT Gandhinagar). The current project is an ongoing and the researcher plans to build this project on a larger scale at a later stage.
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The folk stories have been categorised by Kusum Budhwar in her book Where Gods Dwell: Central Himalayan Folktales and Legends (2010) into Nanda Devi stories, local deities, romantic sagas, Ramola gathas, tales of valour, legendary places, capital tales, and fantasy and humour. The current project, however, explores the trope of nature and landscape through eight stories, which have been categorised as stories of flowers, birds, pastoral gods, and festivals.
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Flowers: Masi and Pyoli or Fyoli
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Birds: Ghughut and Nyoli
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Pastoral Gods: Ari or Aedi and Bhumiya
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Festivals: Saato-Aatho and Ghughuti
The project functions at two levels: first it undertakes the curation and documentation of folk stories in English at a common blog hosting platform on “Wix”. Second, the analysis of the stories has also been undertaken using scholarly interventions from the field of folk studies and landscape studies.
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Works Cited:
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Budhwar, Kusum. Where Gods Dwell: Central Himalayan Folktales and Legends. Penguin, 2010.