Storytelling is a universal human activity. Every known society on earth, at every period of recorded history, has told stories. We create stories around us to imitate our surrounding or to express the mysteries around us. I grew up listening to the stories of my mother, sitting by the fire side, especially after the supper or before I go to sleep. There were times I forced my mother to tell stories, even if she said she has no more stories left to tell. I won’t allow her to sleep until she tells me a story. I know my mother create stories at times, just to please me. But as I grew up I slowly moved away from my mother’s stories and find myself in the company of friends listening to the stories narrated by some of the elders, who are known for their skill of telling stories in the village. The stories are of different themes, some on the myth of the origin of mankind, some as part of religious rituals, some for instruction, and some for pure entertainment.
Today, the stories that we grew with seems to be little relevant, and we tend to ask certain questions like, arethey still relevant today? Why should they be shared, retold, recreated or even put into written form? Are they not just remnants of out-dated or culturally quaint stories, of little relevance today? To answer these questions we need to look into the stories more deeply and understand what it is made up of. The fact is that, these stories are not just a story with or without plot, but within its oration it constantly evolves a certain way of life, typical rituals, important mythological allusions, a collective memory and shared experiences. It enumerates the cultural nuances and tries to capture the popular themes of different times. The most typical characteristic of any story is that, it is not static; it keeps moving, and changes its form with every story teller, in all the generations. Therefore, they are important and not just relics of the past, stories are the gateways to the constant realm of dreaming, through which archetypes are embodied, and the life paths are explored. Stories remain asan important tool of cultural communication not only in the past but even today. The stories narrated by our forefathers kept the history of our people alive. They reflect the hopes, fears and beliefs system of the people in the past. It perpetuates the cultural identity of the people. And its values and ideas are brought into practical world.
Let’s look into one classic love story of the Poumai community, called “Ro and Ronai”. And see how it reflects the hope and fears of the people and their belief system in the past. This story is about two young lovers called Ro and Ronai who were madly in love with each other. It begins with a typical romantic note, wherein Ro and Ronai emerged as childhood friends, who later turned as lovers in their lives. The love lady Ronai challenges Ro in many ways to test his love, but Ro like any other hero wins all of them. The climax of the story lies in their irrevocable vows, of living and dying together. They took a vow to live and die together, by placing some of their hair together, and also had shared a slice of ginger from the same branch, which is considered to be a taboo. As a result they fell ill and died,and brought untold miseries to their parents. Their parents tried every possible ways to save their lives, performed all the penance and rituals, sacrifice animals to propitiate the evil spirit, but it was all in vain for it was believe that their vows were too strong.
As evident from the above story, how in a very laconic way story mirrors the belief system of people and the typical rituals like, sacrificing animals to appease the evil spirit. The story also comes to serve as a warning to all the young lovers not to go against the moral codes of the society. The consequence of disobedience is nothing but death, as depicted in the story. The story also reflects men’s effort to shun the suffering caused by death though it remains unsuccessful. Such story comes to serve as social maxim and becomes a yardstick to judge the morality and integrity of individuals. And at large such maxim becomes an instrument to control the society, providing ideals to be inculcated amongst its members for individual’s well-being and for the welfare of the community.
The above inference clearly indicates that story comes to play a very important role inportraying certain social realities but to faithfully locate the cultural grain or the cultural nuances of any story we need to locate the context where a story is produce and consumed.
Wungnaongam Pou
