Indigeneity, Orality and Tribal Agency A Critical Reading of K. J. Babys Mavelimantram

Name of Author : Parvathy P

Abstract:  The paper analyses the ways in which the novel attempts to give a tribal perspective to the history of struggles and exploitations that the Adiya tribes of Wayanad, North- East Kerala have endured at the hands of native landlords. The Adiyas are traditionally an agricultural tribal community of Wayanad. However, most of the works of history and literature that have come out on the tribes of Wayanad have categorised the Adiyas as a community of tribes carrying the stigma of ex- slaves. The Adiyas are either depicted as slaves or bonded labourers under the „jenmis?2 or landlords of Wayanad, and were often denied legitimate history and cultural agency. The paper thus critiques the dominant narratives of history. It also analyzes and reflects on the power of tribal orality, myths and folk songs in regaining the lost agency to the Adiyas of Wayanad. The paper discusses the identity of the Adiyas as agriculturalists and critiques the idea that the tribes were always and already slaves to the power structures that ruled Wayand during different points in history. There is thus an attempt to delineate in the paper, the „Adiya? movement towards claiming an indigenous status. The Adiyas would call these indigenous utopian spaces mavelimantram.

Keywords : Indigeneity, Orality, Tribal,

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