A Community in Kaleidoscope

On the VoW Longlist for Young Adults, Myth, Memory & Folktale of the Wancho Tribe of Arunachal Pradesh by Tara Douglas and Jatwang Wangsa offers a vibrant journey into the vanishing world of the Wancho tribe—documenting their songs, culture and ancestral tales that continue to defy time, though timidly

- SANJEEV CHOPRA

Niyogi Books has done a commendable job of publishing a fine, illustrated book, replete with QR codes featuring videos of Wancho songs to give the reader an actual feel of being in one of the remote Wancho villages. These include Kamhua Noknu, Nysia, Longchan, Nyinu, Jagan, and Kaimoi, with the storytellers Jatwang Wangsa, Wangjay Losu, Ganchai Wangsa, Paman Pansa, Hokai Wangsa, Ngamchai Wangsa, Wangchan Losu, Phawang Wangham, Tangkaam Phe-am, Chailai Pansa, Panmai Pansa, Gampang Pansa, Tochai Wangham, and Nyaiwang Wangsa.

The book under review this week, Myth, Memory & Folktale of the Wancho Tribe of Arunachal Pradesh: The Stories of Our Ancestors by Tara Douglas and Jatwang Wangsa, is on the VoW Longlist for Young Adults.

What gives VoW and this reviewer even greater pleasure is the fact that both endorsements on the back cover are also by distinguished authors who had been on the VoW's select list in 2022 and 2023, respectively. Anvita Abbi's book Voices from the Lost Horizon on the near-extinct languages of the Greater Andaman Islands is now widely regarded as a classic. She writes, "This book happens to be the first ever documenting the oral wonders of the Wancho community. Amazing fluidity flows between the myths, fables, folktales, and oral history that inform us of their beliefs, values, migration, history, sustenance, and vitality, as narrated by the members to Tara Douglas and Jatwang Wangsa."

Peggy Mohan, the well-known linguist and the author of Wanderers, Kings, Merchants: The Story of India Through its Languages (VoW shortlist) and Father Tongue, Motherland: The Birth of Languages in South Asia, says, "One gets a sense of field notes, which includes asides by storytellers, and pictures of the way things were not so very long ago in the Wancho tribe. One goes along, hearing about ghosts, with no disclaimers, and in the sense is drawn into the way these old storytellers saw the world."