Decolonial Re-existence through Animist Realism: Water Spirits and Shamanic Mantras in Janice Pariat's Boats on Land

Abstract

Colonialism's deleterious impact on Indigenous epistemologies has engendered an exigent concern in the project of decoloniality, calling for a re-existence of marginalized cosmovisions. To accomplish this, an epistemic delinking from the paradigm of Eurocentric discourses is imperative in the interest of a comprehensive appreciation and recognition of Indigenous knowledge systems. In this vein, the present study employs the literary trope of animist realism to analyze two short stories from the anthology Boats on Land by the Khasi author, Janice Pariat. Her creative writing explores the animist philosophy of the Khasi community who dwell in the humid tropical State of Meghalaya, India. Through an attentive reading of the animist belief in water spirits and shamanic mantra rituals, this paper critiques colonial narratives of Khasi animist worldviews as "satanic", "supernatural", or psycho-pathological aberrations. The paper presents Khasi animist wisdom as a sophisticated and equitable principle of mutual coexistence and respectful relationality between human and more-than-human realms, replete with spiritual, ecological, and cosmological overtones. Indigenous animist epistemologies are indispensable as sustainable alternatives to the knowledge structures of colonial modernity. The present study contributes to the envisioning of a coexistence of Indigenous and Western knowledge systems in the spirit of mutual recognition and constructive engagement within an evolving epistemological landscape in the ongoing decolonial enterprise.