My essay, titled Morality and Flood Narratives in Indian Mythology, was published in an anthology titled TMYS Review. It is a collection of poems, short-stories and essays, in association with Environmental Humanities Centre, Amsterdam. It is available on Amazon eBooks.
I was a Contributor. Here is an excerpt:
The diverse lore of Andaman islanders also characterizes a lack of morality with natural disasters. Here, it is important to note that the narrative consciously changed according to tribe. The Andaman Islanders records that “the desire on the part of each oko-jumu [authority tribe on Andamanese lore] to be original and so to enhance his own reputation is a fertile source of variation in the legends” (Radcliffe-Brown 187).
Therefore, when it came to purging flood narratives, there were inevitable differences. The Aka-Jeru version states that Mimi Cara was cutting firewood while a cicada was signing. Later, Mimi Cara, along with Mimi Kota, escaped a cataclysmic storm by running up the hill to a cave at Naram. They carried fire under their cooking-pot and kept it alight in the cave, until the storm ended. The Aka-Kede version suggests that the people of Cilpet refused to give honey to the Kopo-tera-wat bird. This angered the bird, who disturbed the cicadae’s evening song by inciting the storm. Here, it was Mima Mite (i.e. Lady Dove) who rescued some fire by keeping it alight under the cooking pot. Perhaps the most elaborate narrative is recovered by Mr Man, and quoted in the same book:
“One day, at the commencement of the rainy season, a tomola named Berebi came to visit Kolwot’s mother, Cana Erep, with the express intention of seeing her son, of whom he was extremely jealous […] Berebi treacherously bit him in the arm, but his teeth became fixed in the flesh and he was therefore unable to detach himself from his victim, whose friends promptly avenged his murder, and disposed of the corpses by throwing them into the sea […] The bereaved mother, in her rage, grief and despair, committed various acts, against which Tomo had been warned by Puluga, and while so doing incited others to follow her example […] Thereupon Puluga was exceeding wroth, and sent the flood, that which destroyed all living things with the exception of two men and two women.” (Radcliffe-Brown 210)
As apparent, most of these lore stories involves cicadae, floods as vengeance against immoral actions, and fire as a symbolic source of hope. It also includes, on a philosophical level, the ontological degeneration of order and harmony among all humans, who became self-serving, vain and therefore worthy of transcendental punishment. Of course, in the real world, there is no evidence to conclude that this is the actual cause or purpose of floods. Performing a certain kind of austerity, enacting a certain order of rituals, living with a particular moral code, etc. has simply no guarantee that one’s land will be safe from the next cloudburst or tsunami. It would be illogical to correlate 21st century floods with half-reliable episodes of events at least two millennia ago. Nor should one. As Will McAvoy in The Newsroom quips, modern society has the tools to conclude that hurricanes are caused by high barometric pressure, not gay marriage.
Date of publication: 12 September 2021
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