Oral Stories and Culture Areas: From Northeast India to Southwest China

Abstract

This essay explores the possibility of defining a culture area by the comparative study of oral stories. Although neither the culture area concept nor the comparative study of oral traditions is currently fashionable in anthropology or folklore studies, both were once at the centre of theoretical debates in these disciplines. At the least, the hypothesis in this paper is intended to draw attention to the explanatory potential of both this concept and this methodology. The data presented in the essay comes both from the author's fieldwork on oral stories and rituals in Arunachal Pradesh, India, and from similar collections made in neighbouring regions. Based on this evidence (primarily three separate oral stories and one ritual event), the essay suggests that we can consider the ‘extended eastern Himalayas’ as a culture area. This proposed culture area consists of three regions: central Arunachal Pradesh, the Myanmar (Burma)/India/Bangladesh border, and upland Southeast Asia/Southwest China. Adapting the model of vertical descent from historical linguistics, the argument is that the shared stories derive from a common oral tradition among Tibeto-Burman speakers. Horizontal borrowing across populations is not ruled out, but this model is usually best suited to explain commonalities in material culture. For similarities in verbal culture, such as the common oral stories in the extended eastern Himalayas, vertical borrowing down generations is a more convincing explanation.