Volume-XII, Issue-V, September 2026 |
Landscape, Folklore and Cosmology: A Reading of Select Lepcha Oral Narratives Manashi Bhattacharya, Research Scholar, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India |
Received: 19.09.2026 | Accepted: 29.09.2026 | Published Online: 30.09.2026 | Page No: 314-319 | ||||
DOI: 10.29032/ijhsss.vol.12.issue.05W.396 | |||||||
ABSTRACT | ||
This paper examines how landscape, folklore, and cosmology are intertwined in Lepcha oral tradition through an ecocritical reading of two Lepcha folktales, “Children of the Snowy Peaks” and “The Race between Teesta and Rangeet” from Yishey Doma’s volume Legends of the Lepchas: Folk Tales from Sikkim. The paper argues that landscape in these narratives is not a separate thematic element but an integral part of Lepcha cosmology. The tales connect human beginnings to the snowy peaks of Khangchendzonga, while the rivers Teesta and Rangeet carry stories of relationship, catastrophe, survival, and ritual memory. Read together, they reveal a relational understanding of existence in which human life remains closely connected to non-human and more-than-human beings. The paper therefore approaches folklore as a means through which relationships with landscape continue through generations. Its ecological significance lies in recognising the ways their cosmology already holds together the landscape, the sacred and the more-than-human world. | ||
Keywords: Cosmology, Landscape, Folklore, Ecocriticism, Relationality |