Articles

The Realm of the Raconteur: Khasi Women and Storytelling

Opinion | Articles | Desmond L. Kharmawphlang | 15-Oct-2021

The connection between memory and culture cannot be overemphasized. In oral cultures memory functions as an instrument that does not only connect the present with the past but that which makes sense of the world and its myriad dimensions. Humans require memory in order to rationalize the essence of their everyday lives and as such it has a set of profoundly significant functions ranging from the psychosocial to biological, religious to economic, ideological to cultural, in turn, constantly inflecting our existence.

In oral cultures, memory is both collective and individual and both these constituencies sustain culture through tradition. Allow me to explicate this notion by illustrating from the Khasi language. In Khasi, the word for memory is maw or stone which demonstrates that the community computes its history through the megalithic or stone culture. The Khasi word for tradition (in its broad sense) is nongkynti which, literally, means wages of the hands. Maw or stone is not inanimate; it is organic because it actively participates in the production and reproduction of meanings and metaphors of life. It is connected to the tangible actions of the human materiality through hands. Work and action are implied, the reward of which is wage and here, wage represents the faculty of and ability to recall. Memory is clearly embodied in culture and the hermeneutics of recall in words or actions are critical to know not only what happened in the past but also to determine how the past is known and interpreted.

Gender plays a critical role in tale-telling where every utterance is determined by a culturally influenced context and the import of that utterance is the totality of its contribution to the sustenance of the pattern of life in that society in which the speaker lives and to the speaker’s affirmation of personality, identity and membership within that society. It is imperative that tale telling performances are viewed contextually so that the individual, social and cultural factors that shape them up and make them meaningful are unfolded and unraveled. Storytelling, a supranational human experience can be approached and has been approached from a number of routes. The study of folk narratives from gender standpoints which started in the 1980s have opened fresh possibilities in the search for meanings and metaphors. It was realized that ignoring gender as a functional category in the study of narratives can no longer be accepted as gender informs every aspect of societies which we are part of.

It has been consistently stated and maintained through history by authors of many persuasions that storytelling is a preeminently feminine occupation. Without specifying the kinds of stories, authors claimed that women by nature and by vocation, as mothers, nurses, homemakers, and domestic workers, narrate to children, adolescent girls, and their own female associates. Although women may learn stories from their fath­ers, uncles and brothers, and may also invite men to their  work circles in the weaving huts, field-clearing expeditions and  firewood collection trips for story entertainment, it historically has been their fam­ily role to narrate. Women use their diverse kinds of narratives for diverse purposes when addressing their household audiences. In addi­tion to pure entertainment, stimulating laughter and excitement, women’s stories discipline and socialize children and teach girls proper behavior in preparation for future life role as well as comfort adult women in the occasional misfortune or relieves the daily domestic drudgery.

On the other hand, research conducted by folklorists in many parts of Europe indicates an equal number of male storytellers who perform for mixed audiences or exclusively for work and leisure gatherings of men. One thing which is agreed upon is the observation that women are more creative in lyric genres such as ballads and the lullaby, whereas men excel in elaborate narratives such as the epic and to be more specific in the Khasi context, the phawar, a poetic trope which requires spontaneous composition usually associated with archery. Again, in the Khasi context, it is men who marry and settle in villages other than their own, migrant workers who exchange stories at distant working places and temporary residences who infuse itinerant elements in the plasma of verbal communication enriching the oral discourses. The existence and co-habitation of different communities who share a composite (and common) corpus of natural resources has also largely been responsible for the generation of stories.  

Patterns of behavior and social organization differ according to sex/gender and these patterns differ radically between societies and even between generations social classes and ethnic or religious groups within the same society. Societies maintain a notion of sex/gender and tend to use these categories as organizing principles. Majority of societies elevate men and the activities and attributes associated with men in that society. Patterns of behavior and social organization differ according to sex/gender and these patterns differ radically between societies and even between generations social classes and ethnic or religious groups within the same society. Societies maintain a notion of sex/gender and tend to use these categories as organizing principles. Majority of societies elevate men and the activities and attributes associated with men in that society.

Nevertheless, these facts would not suggest male prominence over women in narrating but rather a certain functional division in sex roles, given by family and occupational distinctiveness. Thus, in dis­cussing the concept of female folktales, two main issues may be raised:

1. What is the distinctive role of women as tellers of tales?
2. Do women develop a specifically feminine repertoire and deploy narratological strategies to serve their female audiences?
3. Do women storytellers personalize mythologies?

The woman appears as the natural storyteller through her tradi­tional position in the family dating back from classical antiquity, arching over subsequent historic epochs, social systems, and religious ideologies, and cutting across folk and elite groups of complex civiliza­tions. The image of the woman-narrator seems both ambiguous and mutable in different situations. There used to be a mistaken view that women's tales are plain, naive, unremarkable, and unpretentious, tied to everyday private occasions in which hired domestic servants and wet nurses entertain, put to sleep, discipline by rewarding or, in turn, scare young children. Now, it has been established that this view holds no ground when, increasingly, authors demonstrate their deep gratitude to impressions formed by their childhood memories and enthusiastically reported their first exposure to charms and songs learned in the lap of grandmothers, mothers and nurses.  Among the known raconteurs were the mothers of Alexander Pushkin and Maxim Gorky, the grandmothers of Leo Tolstoy and Charles Dickens were, by reputation, formidable storytellers. Goethe's mother was particularly noted as a narrator using the effective mode of the epistle.

I would like to concern myself with trying to characterize and decode a tale I collected from the lips of Prit Makri, a musician and storyteller of Pahambir village on 31^st July, 1999.  Belonging to the Khasi community of the state of Meghalaya, Prit Makri inherited her surname from her mother due to the matrilineal system which is followed by the Khasis. She is 72 years of age. Prit Makri is one of the most outstanding storytellers, one among many women storytellers of the area, who combines her skill with music. She is also, like many women of her village, a fine basket maker. 

She developed her storytelling skills during breaks from work in the swidden and the periodic long trips on fishing expeditions.  But the times she sharpened her skills were during the thih khyllud which is a practice of girls and young women to take turns in sleeping in friends’ houses, a kind of a village sleep-over. Left to themselves, the young women prepare meals together, plan events and visits, talk about boys and men, and most importantly, share stories.

She likes the occasional drink and is a regular user of the traditional tobacco which she herself rolls. I have collected a body of stories from her and have learned that most of the interesting stories are   associated with the tunes she plays on the muin. The muin is made from a sliver of fine bamboo with a slender protrusion free from the main body of the instrument. One end of the muin is attached to a string and the string is tugged after the instrument is placed over the open mouth of the player. This action produces a twanging sound which is accordingly harmonized by the player using hands and mouth. These tunes are like musical anecdotes. A particular narrative, a myth of origin actually, is one which I will use an example to demonstrate the symbiotic relationship a storyteller has with her/his story. In fact, recent work on folk narrative reveals that there are strong indication of authorship in folktales because (1) tellers often reframe narratives on their experiences and (2) people have their own significant stories which make or have made deep impression upon them, resulting in the identification with characters in the story as well as with her/his actions and (3) psycho-social registers which take shape during the early life history of an individual may continue to imbricate even adolescent and adult life. These factors contribute to the construction of personal mythologies.

The Tale

A pregnant woman went to dig wild tuber. While working she felt very thirsty. She searched everywhere but could not find any water. She detected, however, that her dog's fur was wet. She went searching again and found a stream guarded by a snake. The snake demanded that she should give her unborn baby girl to him. Being desperate for water, she agreed and eagerly drank from the stream. With the passage of time, the baby grew into a beautiful girl.

The mother never allowed her daughter to go anywhere as she still remembered her promise to the snake. But one day, while she was busy, the snake bore his way through the bamboo floor of the hut and made off with the girl. He took her to his place and married her. Five years after marriage she gave birth to five children. She then sent her children to visit her mother and when they reached the woman’s house, they were beaten with a stick. The woman saw her grandchildren as snakes and chased them away. The girl who had become a woman,  now decided to pay a visit herself

She walked the long trail to visit her mother's house and upon reaching the place called out to her mother to open the door but the woman refused saying that she had no daughter now because her daughter had been taken away by a snake, a long time ago. The woman’s daughter, however, pleaded to her mother to at least open the door so she can see for herself who was standing outside. After a long time, the old woman opened the door and was astonished to see her own daughter and a man standing outside. There was much rejoicing at this reunion of mother and daughter. The old woman was also happy to meet her son-in-law. The next morning before returning home, the daughter asked her mother to visit them. The old woman pointed out that she did not know the way and for an answer, her daughter asked the woman for mustard seeds which she will throw on the way. The daughter advised her mother that when the seeds begin to grow and flower, she is to follow the vegetables till she reaches her place. The woman followed this instruction and finally reached her daughter's house. She enquired about her son-in-law whom she saw was not present in the house. She was told that he was out for hunting. Just then, there was a commotion and the daughter then asked her mother to hide herself in the storage place near the ceiling.

The old woman looked from her hiding place and saw a huge snake bearing a dead stag entering the house. The daughter pleaded with the snake, who was, in reality her husband, to shed his snakeskin because it frightened her mother. Her husband, then took off the snake skin and putting it aside, greeted his mother-in-law. The next morning before she returned home, her son-in-law gave her a box warning her not to open it till she reaches the bank of a river on the way home. The old woman left their place and carried the box with her. As she walked, the box became heavier and heavier till she could not carry it anymore. She was very curious to see what was there inside the box, and finally she opened the lid of the box. From within the box something came flying out. These were the elephant, the stag, the bear, the bull, the buffalo, the mithun and other animals. The old woman hurriedly closed the box with some of the animals still trapped inside and went home. When she got home, she opened the box and out came the pig, cow, duck, chicken and the goat. These became domestic animals while those she let out on the way became wild.

 The story illuminates a range of socio-cultural dimensions. The roles and functions assumed by the women and men in the story is an assertion of the social position framework sanctioned by traditional practice for the female as domestic caretaker and the male as hunter. The hunter role is provided by the story itself when we find the girl's husband coming back from a hunting expedition dressed in his snake-skin. First of all, we find the encounter of the woman and the man with the unusual character in the tale as the snake. This encounter leads to the demand by the snake for the unborn baby girls' hand in marriage, and the promise is made by the parent in the tale. When the girl has grown up, the snake comes to make good the claim attached to the promise it had with the mother and the girl is forcibly taken away to his place where marriage is consummated. While staying with her husband, the girl remembers their mother’s house, and pays her mother a visit.

The mother returns the visit by going to visit her daughter's place and by following the signs set out by the girl. On reaching the place, the parent gets a gift from her son-in-law. Lastly, we find that the gift i.e. the box contained animals. Those animals that were let out on the way and took to the wilderness, became wild, while those that were let out at the respective designated place – in this case the homestead of the old woman - became domesticated. Significantly, the tale ends with the categorization of wild and domestic animals.   

The tale could be interpreted as a commentary on the imbrications of the matrilineal system on a society, which, probably, was going through a testing period, as it were, about its acceptability, application and efficacy. The old woman's daughter is borne away by the snake to his dwelling and she bears him five children who are apprehended by the old woman as little snakes. The snake's wife tells her children to go and visit their grandmother and they go only to be rewarded by thrashing of some kind. Viewed in the Khasi socio-cultural context, visiting the grandmother is a very significant and auspicious event but it carries with it also certain requirements and implications.

One detects a certain tension when the old woman refuses to open the door of her house to let the couple in. The matter of the girl being taken away is brought up again and the door acts as a metaphor of denial. Finally, through pleas, the crisis is resolved and we discern a small degree of acceptability coming into the scenario. In the second half of the tale, this acceptability is once again tested. The old woman is frightened out of her wits when she sees her snake-son-in-law in his snake-skin. So much was her fright that she hides herself and involuntarily urinates. We find that the relationship the old woman had with her son-­in-law is tension-ridden although the son-in-law is seen as donor in at least two critical periods, by letting her drink water from the stream and at the end when he presents her with the box.

In the Bhoi area of the Khasi Hills, there are proliferations of tales about snake-humans or humans using snake-skin making the process of metamorphosis reasonably physically credible. The tales, obviously, are spun by generations of people living and working in close contact with nature. Moulting is a phenomenon they are acquainted with and very easily understood by them. The physical shedding of an outer garb by a beast in order to be succeeded by a new growth is both fascinating and inspiring. It probably provided the appropriate folk metaphor for rebirth, attainment of maturity, sexual prowess and a host of other attributes apprehended by the folk as being special and even totemic.

Universally, snakes are considered as symbols of fertility and in many cultures, the phallic association with the snake is common. The tale begins with a pregnant woman who encounters a snake (fertility) and the two negotiate over water, another fertility symbol. The beginning prepares us for a recurrence of fertility acts and metaphors that run through the entire tale. This includes, by the way, the casual dispersing of mustard seeds and their flowering, which marks the way to the abode of the snake-man and his wife. Mustard oil is a necessary component of a ritual ofwe1come to the new bridegroom upon his arrival at his wife's house, and its role finds a place in the tale although it functions as a symbolic device of conflict resolution between two seemingly opposites.

 Another interesting feature is that the tale contains references to accepted economic activity landmarks of the march of civilization. These are food gathering, hunting and animal husbandry.  We may assume that agriculture was known during that period. People had certain knowledge about cultivation. Lastly, animal husbandry which marked a very important period in human civilization finds a very ostensible place in the tale. Its transference from male to female stewardship is also relevant, reflecting the type of activity and division of labour which is still practiced. Poultry, piggery, duckery and goatery are the exclusive domains of women while herding of buffaloes and cows (in semi-wilderness state), among the Bhoi Khasis, is a male occupation.

In conclusion, I would like to state that the story was documented very thoroughly using tapes and field notes but the full force of the performance cannot be elicited for obvious reasons. Storytelling in the Khasi community is considered to be a significant cultural activity and my experience as a folklorist has shown that many women are great storytellers, dexterous in using the cultural and aesthetic artifacts of their environment, wielding, in broad strokes the colours of imagination and capable of moulding attitudes and opinions.

 (The Author teaches folkloristic at the North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong. A poet and folklorist, he writes intensively and published several poetry and books on the subject. He is a visiting Professor in number of national and international universities. He is Principal Investigator of the project Protecting Endangered Heritage in the Abode of Clouds, a project undertaken in collaboration with Melbourne University and sponsored by the British Library. He is also supervising a North Eastern Council, Government of India Project on Folklore, Wildlife and Nature)

 

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