Storied Lands and Silenced Voices: Reading Mamang Dai’s The Black Hill through the lens of Terristory

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Indigenous epistemologies, shaped by deep, reciprocal relationships with the land, have historically been marginalised under colonial regimes, a pattern that persists in many post-colonial contexts.In Dibang Valley, Arunachal Pradesh, India, the exclusion of the local Idu Mishmi community from decisions related to wildlife conservation exemplifies the ongoing erasure of Indigenous perspectives and territorial claims by dominant state and scientific discourses, demanding immediate critical interrogation.Situated within this critical imperative, the paper examines Mamang Dai's The Black Hill (2014), a novel set in the nineteenth century in the region now known as Arunachal Pradesh, home to several Indigenous communities, including the Idu Mishmis of the Dibang Valley, through the lens of terristory, a concept rooted in Indigenous relational ontology that understands land and narrative as inherently interconnected.It argues that terristory, disrupted by colonial and post-colonial forces, finds powerful expression in Dai's novel through its privileging of oral traditions, animistic worldviews, and the dissolution of boundaries between myth and history.These narrative strategies resist hegemonic epistemologies, reaffirm Indigenous sovereignty, and articulate alternative ecological ethics.In doing so, the novel emerges as a vital intervention in ongoing struggles over land, identity, and knowledge.