Of Mountains and Seeds

This session considers the works of Indigenous thinkers and poets. It will reflect on how language and poetry can help us understand relations between humans and non-humans, to be attentive to local markers and traces in ecology, and how the deep histories of elements can also be inferred from seeds. Through a literary reading of a recent translation of late Dongria Kondh poet and elder Dambu Praska’s song (Lament of Niyamraja, a film by Surya Shankar Dash), the talk will discuss how literary metaphors are archives of interpretations of the climate crisis as confronted already by several Indigenous communities.