A Folkloristic Study of Son of the Thundercloud

Easterine Kire, a distinguished author and folklorist from Nagaland in Northeast India, is renowned for her sustained engagement with Naga folklore, oral traditions, and indigenous epistemologies. Her literary works consciously employ storytelling as a cultural strategy for preserving collective memory, cosmological beliefs, and mythic consciousness within Naga society. Son of the Thundercloud draws extensively from Naga mythological traditions to construct a narrative universe in which natural phenomena such as thunder, rain, landscapes, and seasonal rhythms are inseparable from spiritual forces and ancestral presence. Nature in the novel is not a passive backdrop but an active, sacred agent shaping human destiny and cosmological order.
This paper undertakes a folkloristic reading of Son of the Thundercloud through the intersecting frameworks of myth-ritual theory, reverential ecology, and magic realism. By examining mythic structures, ritual performances, and supernatural motifs embedded in the narrative, the study highlights how Kire recuperates indigenous worldviews that challenge linear, rationalist literary modes. The paper further analyses reverential ecology as articulated through ritualised interactions with the natural world, foregrounding ethical relations of reciprocity, respect, and moral responsibility. Additionally, the use of magic realism enables the seamless integration of mythic and material realities, normalising the presence of spirits and supernatural forces within everyday life. The study argues that Son of the Thundercloud functions as a contemporary re-articulation of Naga oral tradition, reaffirming indigenous knowledge systems while negotiating modern literary forms.

Naga Folklore, Collective Memory, Thunder, Myth-Ritual Theory, Reverential Ecology

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