Women's Sung Mythologies from the Himalayan Foothills

FAIN: FA-52656-06

Kirin Narayan
University of Wisconsin, Madison (Madison, WI 53715-1218)

I seek NEH support to complete "Divine Troubles," an ethnography that follows how traditional poetic texts intertwine with performers' lives amid shifting cultural horizons. I address a genre of songs that retell Hindu mythological episodes from Kangra women's points of view. In such songs, mythic women and goddesses take charge of their lives, facing and resolving troubles. I supplement poetic texts with women singers' commentaries, life histories, and perceptions of changing social contexts; views of men and local women who distance themselves from such traditional practices; and my own narrative of encounters with Kangra since 1975.