Seventh International Conference on Communication & Media Studies

Abstract

Easterine Kire is a writer from Northeast India, whose writings primarily focus on the lived experiences of the Naga community. This paper looks at the spiritual dimension of the indigenous Naga community as represented in Kire’s three short novels When the River Sleeps (2014), Son of the Thundercloud (2016) and Don’t Run My Love (2017). The representation of the spiritual is explored through the relationship portrayed between the human and the non-human, as well as in the way death occurs to the nonhuman characters. There is an unseen force in the character of kirhufiimia, roughly translated as “witch” or a person who has the power to harm others, as drawn from Angami Naga mythology. It is also seen in the weretiger, an ambiguous symbol of awe and worship, and the outcasted spirit sisters who do not rely on natural resources for sustenance. Each of these characters is in turn connected to death. One way of looking at the death of these non-human characters could be that they bring an end to traditional spirituality and a way into Rigby’s notion of “materialist spirituality”, where the spirit is only that which is closely connected with the physical environment. However, my paper questions this interpretation by reflecting on the nature of Kire’s storytelling where death becomes a means of warning and a call for circumventing the split between the ecological and the spiritual.