The Meiteis of Manipur were one of the few communities in India’s Northeast who had an oral tradition coexisting with a written one. Their archival texts dating back to 11th and 12th called Puyas and written in their own script, Meitei Mayek, collaborated with oral storytelling practices such as Wari Leeba/Larik Taba and Phunga Wari to narrate the stories of the community; its people and their lives, lifestyles, and living conditions; and its cultural, religious, and communitarian rituals and practices. This chapter compares Wari Leeba/Larik Taba, a formal ‘public’ storytelling practice wherein passages from the Puyas, religious texts, and the Indian epics (Ramayana and Mahabharata) are read during open religious ceremonies by professional men performers, and Phunga Wari, a ‘private’ and intimate storytelling practice wherein children in a closed household sit together around the hearth (phunga) to listen to stories (sometime folktales) often told by their mothers and grandmothers. Their difference does not end here and the chapter thus further examines these practices in their contemporary renditions as it attempts to read Wari Leeba in the Facebook Series “Library of Manipur” by Monica Ingudam (MonicaIngudam’s FindingTheVoices) and Phunga Wari in two Meitei graphic narratives: one by Natasa Thoudam and other by Kshetrimayum Subadani.

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Oral Storytelling Practices of the Meiteis of Manipur in India’s Northeast: Wari Leeba and Phunga Wari

  • Natasa Thoudam

摘要

The Meiteis of Manipur were one of the few communities in India’s Northeast who had an oral tradition coexisting with a written one. Their archival texts dating back to 11th and 12th called Puyas and written in their own script, Meitei Mayek, collaborated with oral storytelling practices such as Wari Leeba/Larik Taba and Phunga Wari to narrate the stories of the community; its people and their lives, lifestyles, and living conditions; and its cultural, religious, and communitarian rituals and practices. This chapter compares Wari Leeba/Larik Taba, a formal ‘public’ storytelling practice wherein passages from the Puyas, religious texts, and the Indian epics (Ramayana and Mahabharata) are read during open religious ceremonies by professional men performers, and Phunga Wari, a ‘private’ and intimate storytelling practice wherein children in a closed household sit together around the hearth (phunga) to listen to stories (sometime folktales) often told by their mothers and grandmothers. Their difference does not end here and the chapter thus further examines these practices in their contemporary renditions as it attempts to read Wari Leeba in the Facebook Series “Library of Manipur” by Monica Ingudam (MonicaIngudam’s FindingTheVoices) and Phunga Wari in two Meitei graphic narratives: one by Natasa Thoudam and other by Kshetrimayum Subadani.