Blood, Birth,
and Belief: Female Hygiene, Family Planning, and Ecocultural Ethics among the
Indigenous Communities of Northeast India
Dr. Subhashis Banerjee,
Assistant
Professor,
Department of English,
Nagaland University (A Central
University),
Kohima Campus, Nagaland,
India.
Abstract: Female hygiene and family
planning have long been entwined with the ecological and cultural ethics of
indigenous societies in Northeast India. The eco-cultural framework of tribes
such as the Nyishi, Ao, and Apatani reveals that bodily processes are not
divorced from nature but are embedded within cosmological orders, ritual
purity, and environmental interdependence. This paper examines indigenous
perceptions of menstruation, childbirth, and reproductive health through an
ecocritical perspective, arguing that women’s bodies are integral to the
ecological continuum. Modern interventions in hygiene and contraception often
overlook these cultural logics, creating friction between biomedical
rationality and community-based ecological ethics. Through ethnographic
evidence and theoretical insights from ecofeminism and cultural ecology, the
study explores how indigenous women negotiate the sacred, the sanitary, and the
sustainable within patriarchal yet eco-sensitive societies.
Keywords: Female Hygiene; Family Planning; Indigenous
Culture; Ecocriticism; Northeast India
1. Introduction:
Ecology and Embodiment
The intertwining of ecology, culture, and gender
defines the indigenous worldview of Northeast India. For the Naga, Nyishi, or
Adi communities, the human body is not a separate biological entity but an
extension of the earth, and reproductive processes —menstruation, childbirth,
and lactation — are considered organic reflections of ecological cycles of
fertility and regeneration (Dutta 45). The idea of mother-earth (Ani-Mithun
among the Nyishi or Terok Aane among the Adi) finds tangible resonance
in indigenous metaphors of soil as womb, river as lifeblood, and menstruation
as seasonal renewal. These metaphors articulate a profound symbiosis between
human reproduction and environmental fertility.
The indigenous imagination, therefore, refuses to
draw a Cartesian divide between nature and culture. Instead, it envisions a
cyclical continuum in which every bodily process symbolises the rhythm of
nature. To bleed, conceive, and lactate are seen not as private, individual
events but as manifestations of cosmic regeneration. Such perspectives
challenge the Western biomedical framework that classifies menstruation and
childbirth as physiological “functions” devoid of spiritual and ecological
context. The folk cosmologies of Northeast India embody what might be
termed biological ecology—a living awareness that the sustainability of
life depends upon balance within natural systems.
However, colonial and postcolonial interventions
re-coded these bodily practices through Western biomedical discourse. During
the British colonial administration, missionary influence and government health
campaigns often redefined traditional practices as unhygienic or superstitious.
The introduction of sanitary products, institutional healthcare, and
family-planning programmes, though aimed at improving public health, often
clashed with customary ethics, which viewed reproduction as communal rather
than individual responsibility (Das and Sarma 112). In many communities,
reproductive decisions were guided by clan elders and traditional healers, not
by clinical authorities. Thus, the body was regulated not through state policy
but through moral ecology—rules ensuring balance among fertility, food, and the
environment.
The intrusion of modernity disrupted these
indigenous epistemologies. Sanitary napkins and contraceptives, when introduced
without cultural sensitivity, were received as alien artefacts that threatened
traditional wisdom systems. The ecological economy of indigenous life—dependent
upon biodegradability and ritual reciprocity—was replaced by a market-driven
sanitation industry. Moreover, colonial education and missionary
teachings-imposed shame upon female bodily processes, categorising menstruation
as “impure.” This reinterpretation of purity shifted the focus from ecological
balance to moralistic exclusion.
This study, therefore, analyses how indigenous
women mediate between ecological belief systems and contemporary hygienic
imperatives within an evolving socio-cultural environment. It adopts an ecocritical perspective to explore the
philosophical, environmental, and cultural implications of female hygiene and
reproductive practices. The aim is to understand how women in the indigenous
societies of Northeast India—particularly among the Naga, Nyishi, Adi, and
Apatani tribes—continue to preserve ecological ethics while adapting to
biomedical modernity. By locating hygiene within the continuum of ecology and
embodiment, this study reveals that female bodies are sites of both biological
renewal and ecological consciousness.
2. Ecocritical
Framework and Indigenous Cosmologies
Ecocriticism—as theorised by Cheryll
Glotfelty—emphasises the study of “the relationship between literature and the
physical environment” (Glotfelty xviii). Yet in indigenous contexts, literature
transcends the written word: it manifests in oral traditions, rituals, and
embodied performances. When extended to cultural practices, ecocriticism
becomes a framework to interrogate how ecological consciousness shapes social,
moral, and reproductive orders. Indigenous cosmologies of Northeast India
embody what Val Plumwood terms “ecological rationality,” where human and
non-human agents coexist within reciprocal networks (Plumwood 4).
This ecological rationality stands in sharp
contrast to the anthropocentrism of modern science, which isolates the body as
an object of control. Among the Nagas, for instance, the act of childbirth is
considered an offering to the earth deity, Tekhü-Rhozho, and the
placenta is buried near the household granary to ensure agricultural fertility.
Such customs signify a worldview in which female reproduction contributes
directly to environmental regeneration. In many Nyishi villages, the first
menstrual blood of a girl is dedicated to the forest spirits to seek balance
between personal fertility and ecological abundance.
Tribal folklore from Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh
frequently locates menstruation within a cosmological drama. In Ao oral lore,
the first menstruating woman is believed to have synchronised with the moon’s
cycles, indicating a cosmic rhythm (Kire 67). Similarly, Apatani myths perceive
menstrual blood as a life-giving essence rather than a pollutant. These
narratives reveal an early ecological epistemology in which the female body
symbolises the earth’s fecundity. In the Apatani belief system, a woman’s
menstrual cycle mirrors the lunar and agricultural calendars—each cycle
symbolising sowing, growth, and harvest. Thus, indigenous metaphors bind
reproductive processes to natural and agricultural cycles.
Ecofeminist theory, particularly Vandana Shiva’s Staying
Alive, resonates strongly with such indigenous ontologies. Shiva argues
that “the violation of women and nature has the same roots in a mechanistic,
patriarchal worldview” (Shiva 38). This worldview reduces both nature and the
female body to objects of exploitation. The indigenous cosmologies of Northeast
India, on the contrary, preserve the idea of Shakti—a life force that
sustains existence through balance rather than domination. For indigenous
women, ecological and reproductive labour are intertwined forms of nurturing.
When read through the ecocritical lens,
menstruation and childbirth become metaphors for ecological renewal. Both
represent cyclical processes of creation, decay, and regeneration—the same
principles that govern soil fertility, monsoon cycles, and forest ecosystems.
Val Plumwood’s notion of “mutualism” finds resonance here: the idea that human
survival depends on recognising reciprocity rather than hierarchy (Plumwood 4).
Indigenous women internalise this mutualism through their relationship with the
land, viewing hygiene not as sterilisation but as sanctified balance.
Furthermore, ecofeminism provides a theoretical
bridge between cultural practice and global environmental ethics. It challenges
the binaries—nature/culture, male/female, human/non-human—that underpin Western
thought. In Northeast Indian cosmologies, these binaries dissolve. Rivers have
gendered identities, trees are regarded as ancestral beings, and menstrual
rituals echo agricultural rites. By embedding female hygiene within this
continuum, indigenous societies articulate a holistic environmental philosophy
that refuses anthropocentric domination.
Ecofeminist theorists like Greta Gaard and Carolyn
Merchant have further expanded this idea, arguing that women’s embodied
experience allows for a deeper ecological empathy. Merchant’s The Death of
Nature identifies how industrial modernity desacralised the earth by
treating it as a machine rather than a living organism. Indigenous societies of
Northeast India never experienced such desacralisation. Their moral ecology
ensures that every act—washing, bleeding, birthing—is performed with
environmental mindfulness. Thus, indigenous cosmologies anticipate what modern
ecocriticism strives to theorise: that the body and the biosphere are not
distinct but co-evolving entities.
3. Menstruation
and the Ecology of Purity
In many tribal societies, menstruation is managed
within a moral ecology of ritual seclusion rather than stigma. Among the
Adis of Arunachal Pradesh, women retire to a separate hut (pini bari)
during menstruation, not as exclusion but as a phase of rejuvenation and rest
(Takam 91). The hut, built near a water source, ensures ecological hygiene through
natural disposal and cleansing. Far from being oppressive, this practice grants
women autonomy over their bodily rhythms and provides respite from daily
labour. The menstrual hut operates as both sanctuary and symbol—a reminder that
female fertility is sacred and cyclical, aligned with the regenerative rhythms
of the earth.
This indigenous ethic contrasts starkly with
patriarchal interpretations of purity imposed through colonial and missionary
moralities. The Western biomedical model equated menstrual blood with waste,
necessitating its concealment. Yet, in indigenous epistemology, menstrual blood
is a metaphor for renewal. It signifies the continuity of life and the
fertility of soil, echoing the cyclical movement of rivers and monsoon rains.
Women, through menstruation, embody the ecological truth that decay and renewal
are inseparable.
Modern sanitary campaigns—often designed for urban
contexts—fail to grasp this ecological wisdom. A 2019 study by the Ministry of
Tribal Affairs observed that over 70 percent of rural tribal women still use
organic absorbents such as banana fibre, bark, or locally woven cotton, all of
which are biodegradable (MoTA Report 2020 54). From an ecocritical standpoint,
these practices demonstrate a sustainable model of menstrual management aligned
with environmental ethics. The use of biodegradable materials ensures that
waste reintegrates into the ecosystem without contamination, maintaining the
balance between hygiene and ecology.
However, the introduction of industrial sanitary
products has transformed menstrual management into a consumerist practice.
Packaged hygiene, promoted under the guise of progress, conceals environmental
degradation. Discarded pads, composed of plastic and synthetic gel, remain
non-biodegradable for centuries, polluting rivers and soils. Environmental
scholars warn that such disposables compromise the “closed-loop ecological
economy” traditionally maintained by indigenous households (Singh and Goswami
122). The disposal problem has become acute in remote villages where waste
collection systems are absent. Piles of non-decomposing pads accumulate near
streams, symbolising the ecological cost of imported modernity.
Ecofeminism reads this shift as symptomatic of
capitalist patriarchy—where profit-driven industries commodify both female
bodies and natural resources. As Vandana Shiva reminds, “The logic of
domination that subjugates nature also subjugates women” (Shiva 43). Indigenous
women, who once managed their bodies in harmony with nature, are now subjected
to products and discourses that alienate them from ecological consciousness.
The ecological wisdom embedded in menstrual rituals
is slowly being erased under the narrative of hygiene modernisation. Yet,
resistance movements led by community women’s groups are reviving eco-friendly
alternatives such as reusable cloth pads and bamboo fibre napkins. These
initiatives, inspired by indigenous sustainability, advocate “green
menstruation”—a model that combines modern comfort with ecological
mindfulness. Local organisations in Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh have begun
integrating traditional knowledge into menstrual education, teaching girls not
to view menstruation as a source of shame but as a natural connection to the
earth.
Furthermore, menstruation carries symbolic weight
in ritual life. Among the Apatanis, a menstruating woman is temporarily
relieved from agricultural and domestic tasks not because she is impure but
because her energy is considered spiritually potent. Such symbolic
interpretations invert patriarchal taboos by recognising menstruation as a
sacred form of ecological energy. Anthropologists like Mary Douglas, in Purity
and Danger, have argued that the notion of pollution often signifies a
society’s method of maintaining boundaries, not an assertion of inferiority. In
this light, menstrual seclusion represents ecological containment rather than
moral degradation.
If viewed through a holistic eco-philosophical
framework, menstruation becomes a pedagogical act—a monthly rehearsal of environmental
ethics. The act of retreating to the pini bari reinforces awareness of
cycles, limits, and renewal. It reminds the community of the necessity of rest
in both human and ecological systems. In an era of relentless productivity,
this indigenous rhythm offers an alternative ethic of slowness and
sustainability.
Hence, eco-feminine hygiene must be re-envisioned
as part of a broader discourse on sustainability, not merely sanitation.
Hygienic modernity cannot succeed unless it learns from the ecological literacy
of indigenous women. Their practices, rooted in centuries of observation, are
not vestiges of a primitive past but sophisticated adaptations to environment
and climate. As the ecological crises of the twenty-first century
intensify—plastic pollution, soil infertility, and water scarcity—the
indigenous moral ecology of menstruation emerges as a model for sustainable
living.
The dialogue between traditional wisdom and
contemporary science must therefore be reciprocal. Instead of imposing external
notions of cleanliness, policymakers and educators should engage with
indigenous women’s ecological rationality. Their menstrual and reproductive
practices exemplify what Val Plumwood calls “cooperative evolution,”
where human survival depends upon mutual adaptation with natural systems
(Plumwood 7).
By embracing such ecological ethics, we move closer
to reimagining hygiene as harmony rather than domination, and cleanliness as
coexistence rather than control. In this sense, the indigenous management of
menstruation transcends biology; it becomes a profound act of ecological
philosophy—an embodied affirmation that the cycles of woman and earth are,
indeed, one and the same.
4. Family
Planning, Fertility, and the Ethics of Balance
Indigenous communities of Northeast India have
historically perceived fertility not as a demographic concern but as a
spiritual equilibrium between people, food, and the environment. For them,
reproduction is not merely a biological act but a renewal of the cosmic order.
The Apatanis, for example, maintain that every birth involves ritual
obligations to the river goddess and agricultural deities, reinforcing population
harmony with food production cycles (Tayeng 214). The arrival of a child is
therefore not celebrated solely as the expansion of a family but as a
reaffirmation of ecological abundance. The idea of “family planning” in the
Western sense—centred on choice, autonomy, and numerical control—was foreign
until the mid-twentieth century.
In these traditional frameworks, procreation is
bound by the moral economy of nature. The notion of excess is frowned
upon, as over-population would imply greed and imbalance. Many tribal proverbs
associate fertility with moderation, suggesting that the birth of too many
children could “anger the soil” or “dry the mother-river.” These idioms encode
ecological restraint. Hence, the indigenous concept of family planning emerges
as a natural ethic of balance rather than state-imposed regulation.
However, with the advent of modern nation-building
and the population-control campaigns of independent India, this organic ethic
was re-defined through bureaucratic lenses. Government programmes under the
National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) introduced contraceptives, sterilisation
drives, and maternal health initiatives during the 2000s, often meeting
cultural resistance. Women perceived these interventions as threats to
traditional kinship structures and ecological reciprocity (Baruah 89). For
instance, tubectomy and vasectomy were viewed as acts that disrupted the
life-cycle of nyama, the ancestral spirit believed to reside in the
human body.
Nevertheless, adaptation did occur. Over time,
indigenous women incorporated selected practices into their existing cosmology,
integrating herbal contraceptives derived from plants like Vitex negundo,
Adhatoda vasica, and Papaya latex—plants locally available and
environmentally sustainable. Such use of botanical contraception reflects
bio-cultural knowledge systems, where the control of fertility remains
consistent with ecological ethics.
This adaptive negotiation demonstrates what Gayatri
Spivak calls “the strategic essentialism of subaltern agency” (Spivak 206).
Rather than accepting state directives passively, indigenous women
re-interpreted them within their own epistemological frameworks. In doing so,
they retained reproductive autonomy while aligning it with the ecological balance
of their habitats. The resistance to coercive sterilisation was not mere
ignorance but a sophisticated assertion of sovereignty over body and land.
From an ecocritical perspective, these women
re-situate reproductive rights within the discourse of environmental justice.
Fertility management becomes an act of sustainable moderation rather than
demographic suppression. Population control, in their worldview, is inseparable
from the ethics of soil fertility and community health. By maintaining
proportionality between human and environmental reproduction, indigenous
communities enact what could be called reproductive ecology—a system
where the right to life includes the right of the earth to regenerate.
5. Indigenous
Midwifery and Ecological Knowledge
Traditional midwifery in Northeast India functions
as an ecological institution rather than a mere obstetric practice. The aaphi
among the Nyishi and the oyan among the Adi are not just birth
attendants; they are curators of ancestral medical wisdom and ritual guardians
of fertility. Their work integrates the body, the home, and the landscape in a
seamless continuum.
Their methods are strikingly sustainable. Labour
rooms are cleaned with ash and turmeric water; bamboo blades are sterilised
over flame; the placenta is buried under fruit trees to symbolise nourishment
and continuity. Postpartum rituals include turmeric smoke fumigation, herbal
baths with Zingiber cassumunar, and the serving of millet porridge to
strengthen the mother’s body and replenish the community’s sense of shared
vitality (Lollen 143). These acts are not only hygienic but also ecologically
coherent, ensuring minimal waste and maximum reciprocity with nature.
Eco-medical anthropologist Margaret Lock observes
that local health ecologies “situate the body within webs of natural and social
relationships” (Lock 68). The practice of midwifery in Northeastern tribes
embodies this philosophy. Birth is not a clinical event but a social-ecological
ceremony. The community assists, the earth receives, and the woman becomes the
axis of regeneration. In the absence of hospitals, these indigenous systems
maintained low maternal mortality and high communal solidarity for centuries.
However, the rise of biomedical
institutionalisation and hospital-centred maternity care has marginalised these
eco-epistemes. Government policies often dismiss indigenous practices as
unscientific or unsafe, favouring sterile environments detached from local
ecology. Yet the irony remains: what is labelled traditional frequently aligns
with the principles of environmental sustainability now advocated in global
health discourses.
Ecocriticism urges a re-evaluation of such
knowledge systems as cultural ecology—a term coined by Julian Steward to
describe the adaptive relationship between culture and environment (Steward
44). Indigenous midwives embody precisely this adaptation: they reduce
environmental footprint, ensure community cohesion, and pass down ecological
ethics through generations. Their practice exemplifies what might be termed eco-maternalism—the
care of both the child and the earth.
To restore their place within contemporary
healthcare, policy frameworks must bridge biomedical safety with cultural
continuity. Incorporating midwives into local health missions as ecological
health custodians could revitalise community-based birthing systems. In the
larger ecocritical narrative, the indigenous midwife emerges as both healer and
environmental philosopher, reminding us that to give birth sustainably is to
keep the planet alive.
6. Water,
Sanitation, and Gendered Sustainability
Water occupies a sacred and practical centrality in
the hygienic cosmology of indigenous women. Springs, streams, and rivers are
not passive resources but living entities possessing moral agency. In many hill
villages, women maintain community springs (chü in Tenyidie) through
collective cleaning rituals that involve song, dance, and offerings of millet
beer. These rituals are both utilitarian and symbolic—ensuring potable water
and reaffirming women’s stewardship of nature (Lotha 97).
The ecological equilibrium of these systems,
however, is now under pressure. Modern sanitation projects under state missions
frequently impose cemented toilets, septic tanks, and chlorinated water systems
unsuited to hilly terrains and porous soils. Environmental engineer P. Tsering
rightly observes that “uniform sanitation templates erode micro-ecological
adaptations” (Tsering 35). Cemented infrastructure often blocks natural water
flow, leading to the drying up of springs that women once maintained.
An ecocritical analysis of this phenomenon reveals
how technocratic modernity overlooks gendered ecological wisdom. Sanitation is
re-conceptualised as a mechanical act of disposal rather than an ethical
engagement with natural cycles. For example, menstrual waste-management
facilities introduced under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan seldom consider
biodegradable alternatives indigenous to the region. Commercial pads and
incinerators are imported solutions that neither address ecological
sustainability nor cultural sensibility.
In indigenous worldviews, hygiene is never detached
from emotion and reverence. Washing, bathing, and birthing near rivers
symbolise continuity, not contamination. The act of immersing oneself in water
after childbirth or menstruation represents reintegration into the natural
rhythm of the cosmos. Such gestures collapse the dualism between the clean and
the unclean, redefining cleanliness as relational rather than absolute.
To recentre indigenous ecological ethics within
sanitation policy would require more than technological reform—it demands
cultural humility. Recognising the sanctity of water as a spiritual being could
transform hygiene into a participatory dialogue with nature. Water, in this
worldview, is both purifier and witness; it records the moral and ecological
health of a community.
7. Cultural
Symbolism and Literary Representation
The literary imagination of Northeast India has
powerfully preserved these bodily-ecological connections. Indigenous literature
becomes a site where ecology and femininity intertwine, where land, water, and
woman share mutual agency. Temsula Ao’s These Hills Called Home situates
women’s endurance amid violence alongside the endurance of the land itself,
suggesting that the female body mirrors the wounded ecology of Nagaland (Ao
102). The soil and the womb become homologous spaces of suffering and survival.
Easterine Kire’s When the River Sleeps
deepens this eco-feminine consciousness. The protagonist’s vision of the river
as “a woman who dreams herself into being” (Kire 128) articulates a cosmology
where nature is sentient and morally responsive. Here, water functions not
merely as scenery but as an active participant in ethical transformation.
Through such narratives, indigenous writers reclaim
the sanctity of female corporeality against both colonial modernity and
patriarchal re-interpretation. As Greta Gaard asserts, ecofeminist literature
“translates ecological philosophy into cultural memory” (Gaard 26). By depicting
menstruation, fertility, and domestic rituals as sacred ecologies, these
authors challenge epistemic hierarchies that divorced hygiene from holiness.
Donna Haraway’s concept of “situated
knowledges”—partial, embodied, and deeply ecological (Haraway 583)—is vividly
enacted in these texts. Indigenous literature transforms everyday acts of
hygiene, child-rearing, and farming into allegories of environmental ethics.
The woman who cleans the hearth, tends the rice fields, or bathes at the stream
becomes an ecological subject, not a subjugated one. Literature thus serves as
both testimony and theory, reminding readers that the politics of the body are
inseparable from the politics of the biosphere.
8. Negotiating
Modernity: Challenges and Transformations
Despite this cultural resilience, indigenous women
today confront unprecedented ecological and social disruptions. Consumerism,
deforestation, and plastic infiltration have drastically altered traditional
eco-hygienic systems. Disposable sanitary products—once hailed as symbols of
progress—now litter the fragile ecosystems of Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh.
Garbage pits overflow with non-biodegradable waste, while rivers once used for
ritual bathing become contaminated. The UNDP’s 2021 Report on Tribal Health
warns that “the ecological cost of imported hygiene far outweighs its health
benefits in isolated regions” (UNDP 2021 62).
Moreover, patriarchal reinterpretations of purity
under Christian missionary influence further complicated indigenous gender
relations. Missionary morality, which sought to erase animist cosmologies,
re-coded menstruation as taboo, marginalising women’s ritual agency (Sema 204).
What was once a celebration of fertility became a discourse of shame. The body,
stripped of its sacred ecology, was now governed by moral surveillance.
Yet, within this complex terrain, indigenous women
continue to negotiate modernity creatively. NGOs such as Eco Nari Nagaland
and Apatani Women’s Alliance have launched campaigns to restore balance
by promoting reusable cloth pads, bamboo-fibre napkins, and community-based
waste management systems that respect cultural sensibilities. They organise
workshops combining menstrual education with ecological awareness, reinforcing
the traditional belief that every act of cleanliness is an act of environmental
care.
These transformations mark an ongoing negotiation
between the sacred and the sanitary. Indigenous feminism in the Northeast does
not reject modernity but seeks to reinterpret it through local ethics. It
advocates “sustainable menstruation” as both environmental and cultural
justice—one that honours the body’s natural rhythm while protecting the land
from exploitation.
9. Ecocritical
Reflections: Reproductive Rights and Environmental Justice
At the intersection of reproductive health and
environmental justice stand the indigenous women of Northeast India—custodians
of both life and landscape. Their daily practices of childbirth, hygiene, and
fertility management constitute what Ariel Salleh terms “meta-industrial
labour”—work that sustains the environment and community but remains
undervalued in capitalist economies (Salleh 55). Such labour is neither
industrial nor purely domestic; it is ecological, performed within the ethics
of care and sustainability.
An ecocritical reframing of family planning
recognises that reproduction is not an isolated demographic issue but part of
the global ecosystem. Over-population is less a matter of numbers than of
imbalance in consumption, distribution, and ecological reciprocity. Indigenous
societies, by maintaining population harmony through moral restraint, exemplify
a sustainable model of human ecology.
These insights challenge the top-down approach of
state policy. Incorporating indigenous epistemologies into health and
environmental governance could realise what Bruno Latour calls a “parliament of
things”—a governance model where nature and culture co-deliberate (Latour 142).
In such a paradigm, rivers, forests, and women are not subjects of management but
participants in decision-making.
Indigenous women, as stewards of fertility and
forest, embody this dual agency. Their reproductive choices, shaped by
ecological rationality, assert a politics of interdependence rather than
domination. In this light, family planning becomes environmental stewardship,
and hygiene transforms into an act of ecological citizenship.
10. Conclusion
Female hygiene and family planning among the
indigenous populations of Northeast India cannot be reduced to biomedical or
demographic categories. They belong to a larger ecological cosmology in which
body, land, and community form a living continuum. To separate them is to
fracture the moral ecology that sustains both life and meaning.
Modern interventions often fragment this continuum
through technocratic solutions devoid of cultural empathy. Sanitary pads
replace banana fibre; sterilisation replaces herbal moderation; cement toilets
replace sacred rivers. Each act of substitution, though intended for welfare,
risks erasing centuries of ecological wisdom.
An ecocritical perspective insists that sustainable
health practices must engage with indigenous epistemes—ritual seclusion as
ecological rest, herbal contraception as biocultural science, and water rituals
as environmental stewardship. These traditions are not archaic relics but
dynamic models of environmental balance. Recognising them is not
romanticisation but an act of restorative ecology.
Indigenous women of the Northeast remind us that
hygiene is not merely cleanliness—it is coexistence. It is an ethics of rhythm,
restraint, and reciprocity that binds human life to the life of the earth. In
the resonance of river, blood, and soil lies a profound ecological wisdom that
modernity would do well to rediscover. Their voices, whether in song, ritual,
or narrative, articulate a timeless truth: that sustainability begins where the
human body remembers it is part of nature’s sacred cycle.
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