Wild Forests & Folktales
Exploring Cultural Narratives of Nature
Myths, folktales, and legends illuminate the world around us. They answer the questions that plague us. They share fables of strength; stories of heroes that overcame struggles so that we can too. We turn to such stories to bring meaning into our lives. These stories then translate to the actions we take.
The long-held story of nature in the Western world was one of domination. Humans have transformed between one-third and one-half of the land surface. We trample on the Earth. Yet after centuries of pillaging, the Western world began to write a new story of nature, though the domination and pillaging have only gotten worse. In this new story, nature is kind, benevolent, and loving. The new story claims there is no need for domination. In fact, nature is best left alone. Within this narrative, true “wilderness” only exists without people, much to the dismay of Indigenous Peoples who have long inhabited the so-called wilderness for millennia.
The 1960’s counterculture movement, inspired by their ‘direct experience’ with nature, continued to write new chapters. Nature transformed into a ‘loving mother’. It was a welcome revision in the West. The narrative of nature as ‘benevolent’, however, is just one story. One way of seeing nature. Throughout history, cultures across the world have understood nature and wrote stories that are far more complex and puzzling. Nature can be both loving and terrifying. Sometimes nature is indifferent, beyond human anthropomorphization. These multifaceted depictions mirror the complexity of nature itself.
The Romantics Fall in Love with Nature
The 18th and 19th century were times of dramatic transformation. Industrialization reshaped the fabric of life, shifting patterns of human settlement, labour, political systems, family life, and more. Many across Europe left their ‘agrarian’ lifestyles and moved to the growing cities. The cities then became centres of ‘pollution, poverty and deprivation’. The romantics, belonging to the artistic and intellectual movement in Europe at the end of the 18th century, watched a world tethering itself to mass production and environmental destruction. They watched the rationalists file the natural world into subcategories upon subcategories. Enraged, the romantics wielded their pens, played their notes, and painted their way into an artistic revolution.
The romantics stressed that the people had become spiritually alienated, mere cogs in the machine. That people had lost themselves. So the romantics placed the ‘individual’ at the centre of the revolution. The city is impure and nature is pure, the romantics claimed. Writers such as Henry David Thoreau and John Muir ‘escaped’ the deprivation of cities into pristine forests, penning words and poems praising nature’s purity and authenticity that would later form the foundations of modern conservation efforts and environmentalism. Romantic painters valued landscapes ‘untouched’ by human beings. Landscape paintings, such as the magnificent work of the Hudson River School, were widely popular as these paintings served agendas that glorified expansionist policies. The Romantic’s rejection of industrialisation and urbanisation strongly influenced the early conservation movement which focused on preserving nature for the elite.
With the early Western environmental movement, a new story of Indigenous communities also emerged. This was later called the myth of the ‘ecological’ Indian. The ‘ecological Indian’ is similar to the ‘noble savage’ trope which predates romanticism. Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus described the “Germanic tribes to the North of the empire as living in harmony with their forest environments''. Likewise, the myth of the ecological Indian depicted Indigenous communities as living peacefully with their natural environment. Although the myth is well-intentioned in some cases, the myth oversimplifies the complex relationships Indigenous communities have with the natural world. Even now, the modern environmental movement tends to paint Indigenous cultures as ‘the model environmental stewards’ which often dehumanizes and places impossible standards on Indigenous communities across the world. Paradoxically, although the early modern environmental movement praised native communities for their strong relationship with nature, the native right to land was at odds with the ‘pristineness’ of nature and conservation.
Founder of the Sierra Club, John Muir did not believe that native communities had a place in the environment. The racist underpinnings of the early environmental movement and its narrative of ‘nature’ caused conflicts between conservationists and native populations. In 1864, Congress passed a bill that set aside Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove, that stated the lands be held “…for public use, resort, and recreation…inalienable for all time.”. The ‘Yosemite model’ has since been replicated across Australia, South America, and Africa. Yosemite was not a land devoid of people. The Ahwahnechee band of Miwok people had inhabited Yosemite for millennia. The Park Service designed a small area where they could live as labourers for the park. Upon retirement, they were forced to leave. Park officials have been successful in pushing them out early. Thus maintaining the ‘pristineness’ of the park. Yosemite’s story was repeated many times over, often more violently. The Baka of East Cameroon, Karen people in Thailand, Adivasis in India, Maasai in Kenya, and the San in Botswana are just a few of the native communities that have faced the dire consequences of a narrative depicting nature as ‘pure’ and ‘pristine’.
These stories, though they may seem sincere and earnest, can sometimes have dangerous consequences. The romantic’s view of nature as ‘escape’ from the urban centres discredits the many millions of people who already coexist with nature. The romantic view imbues a sense of spirituality in nature; but only from the dominant perspective of those who live outside of it with harsh boundaries between nature and people. Depictions of Indigenous cultures as mere monoliths are a consequence of the early environment movement’s creation of a straightforward narrative of nature.
When one does not believe in the right of another to live on their ancestral land, one will disrupt and demolish these stories to break down communities and ways of being. We are losing the many thousands of stories of how people relate to nature. Thus the remaining stories that conflict and challenge the dominant narrative are significant. They are the antidote to the trap of overly simplified and unified perspectives and tropes. They are windows into different ways of being with nature.
Lessons From The Maldivian Spirit World
“Throughout the Maldive Islands, according to the local inhabitants, spirits used to dwell in the graveyard, in a forest, in a particular tree, in the ocean or in the coral reefs. Some of the major spirits are benevolent and their role is that of guardians against evil. Yet, unless duly propitiated, those same spirits may change their role and bring about the evil themselves, in the form of deaths, bad fishing, failure of crops and diseases.”
Xavier Romero-Frias, The Maldive Islanders
Maldivian folktales and mythology revolve around the endless ocean and the chaotic island forests. The spirit world is as real as the physical world to many Maldivians. Spirits inhabit the ocean, forests, and even homes. Traditionally, mosques kept a lamp burning all night to ward off evil spirits. To this day, my mom keeps a bedlight on in the living room to keep the spirits at bay. Maldivian villages are often kept clean and ‘ordered’, replicating ‘life and order’ against the ‘chaos and death’ of the wilderness. The jungle isn’t seen as merely a beautiful or pristine environment. In fact, it is quite the opposite. The jungle is the realm of spirits, ghosts, and chaos. It is where one is most vulnerable to their grasp. Where one can fall under their spell.
Traditionally, people took precautions before venturing into the forest. Time in the forest was mostly spent out of necessity, not recreation. People would often wear a ‘talisman of protection’ against evil spirits. The Maldivian worldview does not ‘personify’ nature in the way many assume all indigenous cultures do. There is no personification of plants, sea animals, and so on. There is no such thing as ‘Mother Earth’. Instead, spirits of Maldivian lore inhabit the world in the same way we do. They have their favourite spots, such as a particular banyan tree or a room in a home. The spirits can be kind, vicious, evil, beautiful, needy, selfish, or selfless — however they are feeling on a particular day. The spirits of the forest are as complex as the people in the village.
Our folktales depict a strange and vivid world beyond the perimeter of the village. These folktales contain lessons. They serve as a guide for the rules, boundaries, and principles in nature. My mother would warn me to not litter on the beach or the forest in case I accidentally hurt a lurking spirit, and if I were to do so, I should at least say the infamous words ‘gaikolhu gaigaa dhuru’ (a saying children are encouraged to say to respectfully warn the spirits before throwing something on the ground). The villains in folklore often display arrogance, greed, ruthlessness, and selfishness. Qualities frowned upon in Maldivian culture. Ultimately, these stories depict a world inhabited by humans, spirits, djinns, and other strange forces. They remind us that we are not alone. As I grew older, I started believing less in the spirits. However, the idea of an animated living breathing world remains with me along with a healthy dose of respect and fear of the natural world.
The idea of wilderness and nature as merely pristine or benevolent is unusual in Maldivian culture. Stories of spirits in nature are often rooted in the real lived experiences of these communities. One does not need to see something as benevolent for it to be beautiful. Benevolence and purity are not required conditions for a powerful relationship with nature. The complex view of nature taught Maldivians to treat the environment with respect and reverence. It creates a relationship beyond ‘escapism’. Myths and folklore enact traditions and customs that are not necessarily enforced by any authority; but are enforced by the community itself through unwritten rules.
The Maldives has rapidly modernised in the past 50 years, driven by the wealthy world's desire for tropical escapades. Unfortunately, modernisation and the subsequent forced displacement have wiped out the relationship many had with nature. Maldivians are now caught up in between two conflicting stories of nature; a story of healthy fear and a story of its absence. It is uncertain which will prevail.
Neither Benevolent nor Malevolent
There is little to gain from the question of whether nature is benevolent or malevolent. Nature, or more specifically the processes in nature, do not easily fit into either category. A strict dichotomous approach takes out the context and nuance in the stories that cultures across the world have towards nature. Benevolent spirits, malevolent monsters, and those with a bit of both inhabit nature’s spiritual realm in various cultures such as the Trickster Coyotes in Syilx Okanagan and Secwepemc culture, the Kami spirits in Shinto, or the Orishas of the Yoruba in Nigeria. Our stories of nature are simply reflections of the different ways in which we relate to nature. They are based on the challenges unique to the habitat, beliefs, traditions, and even political ideologies.
The stories we tell ourselves about nature are significant and have powerful consequences. The dominant story told in the Western world was that nature must be conquered to maintain its pristineness. The wilderness must be tamed. They have succeeded in this conquest. The story of conquest has shaped the modern world. The conquest story has impacted people across the globe, whether they resonated with this story or not. Faced with the destructive consequences of the conquest narrative, the industrialised world now wishes to replace the story with one in which nature is our benevolent ally. The new story claims we must ‘protect’ and ‘conserve’ the world, even though no one is set on what ‘conservation’ effectively entails and this approach clashes with other cultures’ understanding of nature beyond purity.
There will always be conflicting stories. Perhaps there is no need for a dominant or overarching story of nature. Even on an individual level, we have our own stories of nature. We might base our personal stories of nature on utilitarianism, necessity, spirituality, or even aesthetics. Striving for a unified story feels futile at best, and dangerous at worst. A unified dominant story oversimplifies the relationship people have with nature. It perpetuates a narrow view that boils people down into stereotypes, neglects the nuances of cultural relationships with nature, overlooks cultural and ecological knowledge, and even influences decision-making on global environmental issues in favour of the ‘dominant’ culture.
Diversity in stories about nature accurately represents the rich and complex tapestry of culture, beliefs, and the many ecosystems of the world. Each culture brings a unique perspective into the environment they inhabit. These stories and perspectives are often the product of a millennia of co-existence with nature. They are windows into the relationships people have with the world. In embracing diverse narratives about nature, we also unravel the intricate and mysterious connections people have with the world. These relationships are woven with threads of respect, fear, paranoia, love, and everything in between. A singular narrative of nature is alluring, but it is distorted and false. Only in the multitude of stories can we find the true richness of our relationships with the natural world.
Ijunad Junaid is a Maldivian environmental storyteller and steward for the Earth. Ijunad’s work explores our fragile relationship with the Earth and climate justice. Based on principles of deep ecology, Ijunad brings out the ‘more-than-human’ world in his writings and inspires to spark a sense of love, longing and reverence for the Earth and all the billions of life she carries. As a Political Science graduate with a minor in Biodiversity from Leiden University, Ijunad’s work explores politics, power structures, and the climate crisis as intertwined threads.
Image Source: British Library