ECHOES OF THE INNER SELF: A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE ADI, ANGAMI, AO AND KHASI NARRATIVES

Abstract [English]

This paper explores the psychological fiction of the Adi, Angami, Ao, and Khasi tribes of Northeast India, analysing how tribal narratives depict mental and emotional life through culturally rooted frameworks. Unlike Western psychological fiction, which emphasizes individual introspection and clinical models, these tribal literatures embed the psyche within myth, ecology, ritual, and ancestral memory. The Adi narratives reflect a psycho-spiritual self-aligned with nature and dreams; Angami fiction foregrounds trauma, war memory, and moral ambivalence; Ao stories reveal spiritual conflict induced by religious conversion; while Khasi literature portrays a matrilineal, myth-infused multiplicity of selfhood. Through comparative analysis, the paper demonstrates how these fictions reimagine psychological experience as a communal, ecological, and spiritual process, thus expanding the scope of literary psychology beyond Western paradigms. By engaging literary texts alongside anthropological insights, the study uncovers indigenous models of emotional life and cognitive dissonance, offering new ways to understand the intersection of culture and mind in tribal storytelling traditions.