(Re)visiting postcolonial ethno-spirituality in Mamang Dai’s the Black Hill and Easterine Kire’s Sky is My Father: a Naga Village Remembered

Abstract

ABSTRACT Ethno-spirituality refers to the discourse associated with spiritual evolution found in ethnic groups or communities. Contemporary North-east Indian literature relentlessly delineates a unique portrayal of the customary set of traditions, beliefs, customs, behaviors, responses or reactions to different situations and ways of life of the concerned tribal groups in their usual socio-cultural milieu. This article explicates the aspects of ethno-spirituality manifested in the select works of Mamang Dai and Easterine Kire as the postcolonial resistance. The purpose of this article is also to reinterpret Mamang Dai’s The Black Hill (2014) and Easterine Kire’s Sky is My Father: A Naga Village Remembered (2018) within the broad postcolonial framework of ‘ethno-spirituality’ to trace and reconstruct their ethnic identity as their cultural heritage, spiritual values, and cultural richness as a frame of reference to indigeneity and belief system.