Towards ‘Ethnophytoliterature’: Indigenous Plant Memory and the Phytohumanistic Imagination in Mamang Dai's River Poems

Abstract

The growing convergence of Environmental Humanities, Plant Studies, and Indigenous literary criticism has significantly transformed contemporary ecological discourse by foregrounding the relationship between human communities and the more-than-human world. Despite these theoretical developments, relatively little attention has been devoted to the literary representation of culturally embedded plant knowledge within Indigenous traditions. While ecocriticism has examined environmental consciousness and Plant Studies has explored vegetal ontology, the specific role of plants as repositories of ethnocultural memory, ritual practice, ecological knowledge, and Indigenous identity remains insufficiently theorised. Addressing this conceptual gap, the present study proposes ‘Ethnophytoliterature’ as a new interpretative framework within Phytohumanities. The term is introduced to designate a mode of literary inquiry that examines how plants function as culturally situated agents preserving and transmitting Indigenous ecological epistemologies through literary representation.

The paper undertakes a qualitative textual analysis of Mamang Dai's River Poems (Writers Workshop, 2004), employing close reading alongside insights from ecocriticism, Plant Studies, ethnobotany, Environmental Humanities, and Indigenous literary studies. Restricting the analysis to this collection enables a sustained examination of Dai's early poetic imagination and its intimate relationship with the ecological and cultural landscapes of Arunachal Pradesh. The study argues that vegetation in River Poems extends far beyond descriptive landscape or poetic ornamentation. Bamboo, forests, flowering plants, leaves, riverine vegetation, and other vegetal presences emerge as active participants in the construction of place, collective memory, ecological ethics, cultural continuity, and Indigenous systems of knowledge. Rather than functioning merely as symbols of nature, plants become epistemic and cultural agents through which the Adi worldview is imagined, preserved, and transmitted.

The article further demonstrates that existing critical approaches, although invaluable in illuminating Dai's environmental consciousness, generally subsume vegetal life within the broader category of "nature." Such readings overlook the culturally specific meanings attached to plants within Indigenous communities. By foregrounding these meanings, Ethnophytoliterature offers a more nuanced analytical vocabulary for understanding plant-centred literary traditions. The framework complements rather than replaces ecocriticism, ethnobotany, and Plant Studies by directing critical attention to the literary lives of plants as archives of ethnocultural memory and ecological knowledge.

Ultimately, the paper argues that River Poems should be read not only as an ecological text but also as a literary archive of Indigenous plant consciousness in which cultural identity and vegetal life remain inseparably intertwined. By proposing Ethnophytoliterature as a new critical framework, the study contributes to the continuing development of Phytohumanities and opens new avenues for interdisciplinary research on Indigenous literatures, environmental aesthetics, and the cultural agency of plants