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Volume 1 Issue 10 |
March 2015 |
| Reading the Lushais (Mizos) through their Folktales from the Point of View of an Outsider | |
| Ms. Laldinpuii, Researcher, Department of English, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, , |
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| Abstract | |
| There have been a number of articles and books that deal specifically with the Lushais or the Mizos but two articles and a book that had been published in the twentieth century which deal with the people of the Lushai Hills may be considered for further study. Lushai Chrysalis (1949), “The Kuki-Lushai Clans” (1909) and “Folk-Tales of the Lushais and Their Neighbours” (1909) have been chosen specifically because they consist of folktales that had been collected by the British administrators and they could be seen as anthropological and ethnographical efforts. When one reads these works of the British administrators, there appears to be the presence of the “noble savage”. In the narratives of the book and the articles, the writers appear to be sympathetic to the Lushais and their ways of life. In collecting and documenting the folktales, the writers often share their view that the people they were writing about had their own belief system and practices which might have seemed “backward” to a European; but these might not mean that they are “uncivilised”. However, the writers, who were also administrators in the region, did not hesitate to add that the people needed the presence of the administrators in order for them to make progress in the future. This may be seen as an ambivalent attitude on the part of the administrators. The present paper analyses the Lushais’ folktales from the point of view of an outsider. | |
| Keywords | |
| Lushais; Mizos; Folklore; Folk Tale; Outsider’s Point of View. | |
| Article | |
 Creative Commons |
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