Real life is often magical for the Lotha tribe of Nagaland, as this collection of folk tales reveals

A review of Nzanmongi Jasmine Patton’s A Girl Swallowed By A Tree written by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar…

Nzanmongi Jasmine Patton’s book, A Girl Swallowed By A Tree: Lotha Naga Tales Retold, is a collection of thirty folk tales from the Lotha tribe (or indigenous community) of Nagaland. In her introduction to the book, Patton writes: “Nagaland is one place in North East India where orality is still very relevant as well as significant. Like their counterparts among the African and Native Americans, Nagas also made sense of the vast universe around them through storytelling, as a way of keeping their culture and ipseity alive…Nagaland is among the most heterogeneous [states] in the North East, housing more than sixteen tribes…Every tribe has its unique collection of stories, concurring at many points, yet somehow different in complex ways as becomes evident with each retelling.”