Maithil Women Research Articles

Tantric Nuances Arguing Gender Order in Mithila Paintings

This article reviews the Tantric influence in the traditional Mithila paintings and argues how Tantra’s emphasis on femininity can challenge the traditional patriarchal notion toward women in general. In doing so, firstly, the article examines the studies in Tantra and its views toward women in general. Secondly, it analyzes the studies in Mithila paintings and their connection with Tantra and the actual women context in the Maithil community. Lastly, it reviews some of the examples of Mithila paintings to study the presence of tantric symbols, as claimed by the studies in Mithila paintings, followed by a conclusion. The findings suggest that being a highly patriarchal culture, with limited authority to women even in their personal life decisions, Mithila culture yet contains seeds of resistance within itself. On the one hand, Maithil women lack the liberty of sexual expressions, decision makings, and involvement in outdoor activities as the veil in their head symbolically separates them from the rest of the society, except the traditional feminine chores. On the other hand, traditional Mithila paintings mocks the patriarchy through the feminine images and symbols as eminent cosmic power, a source of creation, and destruction. The Tantric images and signs in Mithila paintings shout out the power of femininity, challenging patriarchal beliefs of men as a center and women as a margin. This article stresses that Tantric dualism and its equal emphasis on femininity reflected in Mithila paintings can be used as a powerful religious, cultural, and artistic tool to empower women and subvert the general binary of men and women. Mithila paintings that have become a source of economic empowerment, emotional expressions, and means of awareness of women in the present-day, can also be used to harmonize the male-female tensions and as an effective religious, cultural, and artistic device to tear-off shackles of patriarchy.

Book Review: Maithil Women’s Tales: Storytelling on the Nepal-India Border by Coralynn V. Davis

Book Review: <i>Maithil Women’s Tales: Storytelling on the Nepal-India Border</i> by Coralynn V. Davis

Talking Tools, Suffering Servants, and Defecating Men: The Power of Storytelling in Maithil Women’s Tales

Abstract What can we learn about the way that folk storytelling operates for tellers and audience members by examining the telling of stories by characters within such narratives? I examine Maithil women’s folktales in which stories of women’s suffering at the hands of other women are first suppressed and later overheard by men who have the power to alleviate such suffering. Maithil women are pitted against one another in their pursuit of security and resources in the context ofpatrilineal formations. The solidarities such women nonetheless form—in part through sharing stories and keeping each other’s secrets—serve to mitigate their suffering and maintain a counter-system of ideational patterns and practices.

Talking Tools, Suffering Servants, and Defecating Men: The Power of Storytelling in Maithil Women's Tales

What can we learn about the way that folk storytelling operates for tellers and audience members by examining the telling of stories by characters within such narratives? I examine Maithil women's folktales in which stories of women's suffering at the hands of other women are first suppressed and later overheard by men who have the power to alleviate such suffering. Maithil women are pitted against one another in their pursuit of security and resources in the context of patrilineal formations. The solidarities such women nonetheless form—in part through sharing stories and keeping each other's secrets—serve to mitigate their suffering and maintain a counter-system of ideational patterns and practices.

Pond-Women Revelations: The Subaltern Registers in Maithil Women’s Expressive Forms

Abstract Ponds are ubiquitous in the Maithil region of Nepal, and they figure prominently in folk narratives and ceremonial paintings produced by women there. I argue that in Maithil women’s folktales, as in their paintings, the trope of ponds shifts the imaginative register toward women’s perspectives and the importance of women’s knowledge and influence in shaping Maithil society, even as this register shift occurs within plots featuring male protagonists. I argue further that in the absence of a habit of exegesis in their expressive arts, and given the cross-referential, dialogic nature of expressive practices, a methodology that draws into interpretive conversation the multitude of expressive forms exercised by Maithil women enhances analytical access to Maithil women’s collective perspectives on their social and cosmological worlds.

Pond-Women Revelations: The Subaltern Registers in Maithil Women’s Expressive Forms

Ponds are ubiquitous in the Maithil region of Nepal, and they figure prominently in folk narratives and ceremonial paintings produced by women there. I argue that in Maithil women’s folktales, as in their paintings, the trope of ponds shifts the imaginative register toward women’s perspectives and the importance of women’s knowledge and influence in shaping Maithil society, even as this register shift occurs within plots featuring male protagonists. I argue further that in the absence of a habit of exegesis in their expressive arts, and given the cross-referential, dialogic nature of expressive practices, a methodology that draws into interpretive conversation the multitude of expressive forms exercised by Maithil women enhances analytical access to Maithil women’s collective perspectives on their social and cosmological worlds.

Can developing women produce primitive art?

In this article, I examine the values and meanings that adhere to objects made by Maithil women at a development project in Janakpur, Nepal — objects collectors have called `Janakpur Art'. I seek to explain how and why changes in pictorial content in Janakpur Art — shifts that took place over a period of five or six years in the 1990s — occurred, and what such a change might indicate about the link between Maithil women's lives, development, and tourism. As I will demonstrate, part of the appeal for consumers of Janakpur Art has been that it is produced at a `women's development project' seeking to empower its participants. And yet, the project's very successes threaten to displace the producers (and what they produce) from their perceived qualities/identities as `traditional' and `primitive,' thereby bringing into question the authenticity of the `art' they produce. The conundrum begs this question: can developing women produce primitive art?

Maithil Women's Song: Distinctive and Endangered Species

Les femmes de Mithila (Nord-Est de l'Inde) ont un repertoire etendu de chants pour les occasions rituelles, chants, qui a premiere vue s'approchent de ceux de l'Uttar Pradesh ou du Rajasthan : chant monodique, rythmes libres ; inscription de la pratique musicale dans le cycle de vie et le calendrier rituel, notamment pour les noces ; differenciation sexuelle des repertoires ; evocation de Ram et de Krishna puis d'autres divinites celebrees dans la vie quotidienne. Cet article souligne les specificites locales du chant feminin de Mithila a travers une analyse musicologique des modes, de la poesie chantee et des contextes rituels. L'A. explique, entre autres, les elements historiques de la formation de cette tradition puis propose une reflexion sur la deterioriation culturelle de la condition feminine observee actuellement dans l'Inde du Nord.

The quality of a mother's milk and the health of her child: Beliefs and practices of the women of Mithila

Among Maithil women there is an understanding of the relation between a mother's milk and the health of her child. Their understanding is supported by the Ayurvedic tradition. Characteristic is the way in which breast-feeding condenses so many meanings—nutritional, medical and moral—into one act. The mother not only nurses her child but also forms his character, fulfills her own personhood and perpetuates her husband's family.