Animating The Sacred: Mythic Ecologies And Indigenous Cosmology In Mamang Dai’s The Legends Of Pensam, River Poems, And The Black Hill

Abstract

This paper investigates the sustainable ecological practices of the Adi people of Arunachal Pradesh and examines their nuanced representation in the literary works of Mamang Dai, an acclaimed indigenous poet and novelist. Through an ecocritical lens that integrates indigenous epistemologies and ethnopoetics, this study highlights how Adi environmental ethics are deeply rooted in cultural memory, ritual, and reciprocal relationships with the natural world. Dai’s narratives do more than depict nature–theyanimate landscapes as sentient entities embedded in myth, memory, and community life. Her literary corpus—particularly in works such as The Legends of Pensam and River Poems—functions as both poetic invocation and political intervention, articulating resistance to extractivist development models that threaten indigenous lands and lifeways.Central to this paper is the argument that Dai’s work serves as a repository of endangered ecological knowledge systems while simultaneously proposing alternative visions of sustainability grounded in indigenous cosmology. By foregrounding the lived experiences of Adi women, elders, and storytellers, Dai contests dominant narratives of progress and modernization, offering instead a culturally embedded model of ecological resilience. Her use of mythic temporality, oral traditions, and non-Western narrative forms allows for a reimagining of sustainability not as a technological solution but as an ethical mode of being—rooted in relationality, reverence, and responsibility toward the Earth. This paper explores the texts The Legends of Pensam (2006), River Poems (2004) and The Black Hill (2014) to underscore the inseparability of ecology and culture in Adi lifeways and posits Mamang Dai’s literature as a vital intervention in contemporary discourses on environmental justice and climate resilience, offering invaluable insights into more holistic and sustainable futures.