Mamang Dai is one of the most celebrated North Eastern poets from Arunachal Pradesh. Her writings explore the issues of the tribal community and she also projects the cultural identity, customs and beliefs of the indigenous people. The poem “The Voice of the Mountain” deals with the post-colonial implications of the voice of the indigenous people.
Many of the post-colonial writers intersect nature and cultural identity. Nature is a medium through which many post-colonial poets and writers address their identities. Mamang Dai is one of them who assert the indigenous identity of tribals residing in North East. The universality of language that the “Mountain” presents reflects the similar experience of the indigenous tribes. The poet has used “Mountain” as a personified “woman” as well as an “old man” who is representing the subaltern indigenous tribes of Northeast Indians.
As a post-colonial poem, the speaker asserts her identity in the nature itself. It gives a post-colonial implication towards cultural identity and a sense of belongingness. The poet possibly states that “I, also, leave my spear leaning by the tree/ and try to make a sign” where the speaker affirms her own identity to the similitude of her ancestors who had the same practices in the past. This aspect of affirmation and an acceptance institute the claim of cultural identity and an acceptance of the poet’s cultural heritage.
The poem sketches the strength of the mountain that characterise its limitless and an eternal embodiment of the indigenous identity it can narrate to the world. The speaker or the Mountain states that “I can outline the chapters of the world” meaning that she can address the tales from the past to the present to the world giving a discourse from the postcolonial era to the post-colonial period. It is her who had witnessed the major events of the world for she is eternal and limitless. The speaker also states that “The past that recreates itself/ and particles of life that clutch and cling/For thousands of years” meaning that the speaker is eternal where the past of her ancestral heritage can be known for the world for it exist in the form of a “memory” for “thousands of years”. The lines “that opens the mouth of the canyon” and the “the place where memory escapes
the myth of time,/ I am the sleep in the mind of the mountain” where the lines showcases the knowledge and a discourse on the indigenous cultural people and their identity observable only through the lens of the speaker. It means that the speaker had observed since the past and it embodied it in the form of a memory defeating the passage of time where the memories of past events are buried slumbering inside the heart of the speaker.
The speaker also addresses the cultural identity of the indigenous tribal community. The speaker saw a young man who brought a fish as an offering from the “land of rivers”. The “land of rivers” is a strong vivid image that represents the essence of North Eastern cultural identity. As the speaker address that the young man comes from the “land of rivers” directly institutes that he belongs to the Northeastern tribal community and a sense of belongingness. The theme of belongingness is a post-colonial element and it is asserted when the young man’s home and belonging is address as the “land of rivers”.
However, the postcolonial implication of inbetweeness is another important element in the poem. It is evident when the speaker is caught inbetween “territories forever ancient and new,/ and as we speak in changing languages” where the speaker is living in from territories that goes from the past to the present and the changing language as it progresses. Critically, the indigenous people are caught inbetween the cultural heritage from the past and the progress of civilization at present.
As a post-colonial poem, it also addresses the indigenous identity. The speaker highlights that “From the east the warrior returns/ with the blood of peonies” where the warrior represents the tribal man who are returning back home with the food, wealth or fortune with them. Indigenous tribes especially tribal man always go out in the forest in a quest for food and shelter to provide for the community. This aspect of identity is well address in the lines. Hence the speaker states that “I am the woman lost in translation/ who survives, with happiness to carry on” meaning that her identity is a woman unable to translate in words trying to reclaim and rewrite her ancestral heritage with endless hope and happiness in this world.
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