Abstract:Ecocriticism can be defined as, in the language of Cheryll Glotfelty, the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment. One of the newest branches of literary criticism, started formally only in mid 1990s, Ecocriticism aims at looking at a piece of literary text from a perspective of ecological awareness. It resists anthropocentric world-view and rather advocates an ecocentric perspective.
Tribal people live amidst the natural world and they earn their livelihood from various natural and forest resources. Hence, they are connected to and concerned for nature in all possible ways: economically, historically, geographically, culturally, socially and in the present day context of deforestation and dispossession of forest land by the tribal people, politically. North-East India is the home for many a tribal groups and each tribe has its own distinct culture and literature. Again, North-East India is, or rather, was under lush green natural vegetation and this forest land is dwelled by the tribal people. In this context, the present paper will reread some of the tribal folklores of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura and Mizoram emphasizing on their ecological concerns.
Keywords:  Anthropocentric, Ecocentric, Ecocriticism, Folk tales, Nature, North-East India, Tribal.
Title:Folk Tales of North-East India: A Tryst with Nature
Author:Dr. Debopam Raha
ISSN 2394-9716
International Journal of Novel Research in Interdisciplinary Studies
Novelty Journals