Land and the Indigenous Identity: A Reading of C K Janu’s The Mother Forest and Margaret Tucker’s if Everyone Cared

Abstract

An individual’s identity serves to define their personal and collective consciousness and traits while interacting with a specific social group. For indigenous people, it is allied to the misfortune of being excluded from social hierarchical structures. The contemporary status of indigenous communities is marginal and vulnerable when compared with their traditional ways of life, and indigenous discourse has argued that mainstream society has a pivotal role in relegating them to the position of second citizens in many regions worldwide. As part of identifying and analysing the problematic nature of indigenous identities, the present paper addresses the interplay of factors that enable these people to enhance their multiple roles and powers in their traditional communities and also ascertains the changes that occurred as part of shaping their subjectivities. The concept of land is pivotal as an essential resource and a means of subsistence for indigenous people. Possessing their traditional lands empowers indigenous women to achieve the status of complete women in their communities and boosts their self-assertion. This paper is based on the hypothesis that indigenous women address issues that revolve around their identities, and emphasizes that the place of belonging is an essential and dominant factor in defining their multiple roles. The advent of colonization and the subsequent loss of their traditional lands adversely affected both their communities and their selves. This upheaval is elucidated in the writings of indigenous women, and this study examines two such works—C. K. Janu’s Mother Forest: The Unfinished Story of C. K. Janu (2004), and Margaret Tucker’s If Everyone Cared (1994).