Preserving South Asian Tribal Legacies: Exploring Oral Traditions, Traditional Spoken Narratives and Folk Tales

Abstract

In South Asia, spoken narratives and folktales act as intangible forms of knowledge transfer. However, in recent years, the region’s once-flourishing oral culture has been sidelined by imperialism, modernization, and the dominance of print and tangible archives. Despite this, some tribes have managed to preserve their oral archives and continue to sustain the process of knowledge transfer through the spoken word. This paper delves into examples of such communities and argues that they challenge several Western premises while exercising agency over their own epistemic material. Additionally, the paper highlights the need to decolonize archival efforts in the digital age and suggests ways in which scholars can ensure that a tribe's knowledge systems are appropriately showcased, shared, and represented.