In a tiny hamlet called Poli in the Kumaon Himalayas of Uttarakhand, interspecies relationships are quite unlike those in many parts of the world. Beyond the rabbit hole of human-leopard conflict, there are different dimensions to a leopard becoming a man-eater. Locals believe that leopards are just another devotee of their beloved god Golu and have always visited the village. And now their god is angry at humankind’s disobedience and has sent the leopard to attack them. So, it’s not the leopard who needs to be punished; instead, humans need to appease their god through their deeds.
Community-based beliefs
Across the country, there are several examples of how traditional knowledge, cultural significance, and religious sentiments shape the perception of the shared spaces between humans and wildlife outside protected areas. In the heart of India’s economic capital Mumbai, a sacred tie binds humans and leopards. The Warli community, living in and around Sanjay Gandhi National Park, revere the leopard as their god Waghoba. According to the Warlis, the wagh is the king of the jungle. They believe that if people pray to the deity properly, he will protect and save them from harm.
Cover: An elephant around human habitation in the Rajaji Haridwar division in Uttarakhand. As they come in increasing conflict with humans across the country, elephants are losing some of the tolerance and reverence they once enjoyed. Photo: Dhritiman Mukherjee
Termites, hills, boulders and weeds
A thousand kilometres south, in the Biligiriranga Hills, the native Solega community has its own particular way of sharing space with animals. This historically forest-dwelling community holds no animosity towards “dangerous” wild animals living alongside them. Following Solega cultural and religious values, they accept and revere these animals as part of nature. For them, the tiger is the animal of the god Madeswara, elephants are god Pandeswara, gaurs belong to the god Karajyya, and sambars embody the god Kadodeya Muttaraya. The Solegas believe that all animals are shy, following the order of gods and transforming themselves into different things to avoid encounters with humans. An elephant becomes a hill, a sloth bear turns into a boulder, snakes become weeds, and a tiger becomes a termite hill. The Solegas believe that causing trouble to any of these living animals will bring immense bad luck to the whole community.
Teachers, gods, and friends
Further south in Kerala, members of the Kattunayakan community were displaced from their native lands when the area was declared Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary in 1973. But Kattunayakans, to this date, consider animals their teachers, gods, or even friends, and bow and pray to them when they encounter animals on their way through the forest. They believe that without animals, a forest loses its productivity. Even though they know that sharing space with a large herbivore like an elephant is difficult, they don’t think it is impossible. According to Kattunayakans, an elephant inside a forest is much more reliable than a human being.
Voices from the east
In Northeast India, the Idus living in the Dibang Valley of Arunachal Pradesh consider hunting an integral part of life and living. Even though hunting is often considered a major driver of defaunation, the Idus have been writing their own conservation stories for ages, where protecting animals is an integral part of the hunting practice. For example, the Idus have three categories for forest animals. The first category, “misũ”, comprises felines, eagles, owls, and hoolock gibbons. Hunting of these animals is strictly forbidden, and their meat is not consumed. The second category is ungulates and bears, consumption and hunting of which is allowed during certain times of the year following rituals before a hunt. The total number of animals that can be hunted is decided by the whole community. The third category is rodents, squirrels, birds, fishes, and insects, for which there are no traditional restrictions for hunting.
Mahakal and the crop
In West Bengal, the Rajbangshis revere elephants as their god “Mahakal”. They have a unique relationship with elephants which has promoted human-elephant coexistence in their shared landscape. Rajbangshis believe that if Mahakal is worshipped properly, elephants will not do much harm to people and property. Crops taken by elephants are considered an offering to the god, and people believe that losing some crops to elephants in one year will result in an increased yield in the following years.
Trans-Himalayan Tales
In Ladakh, traditional ideologies surrounding carnivores are slowly being replaced with negative values due to economic losses. Yet, unlike most places on Earth, in Ladakhi culture, wolves are not seen with a pessimistic lens. Encountering a wolf while going for a hunt is auspicious. Some consider killing wolves a sin as they are living forms of protective deities. Snow leopards, too, are considered loyal and trustworthy agents of god.
Changing the lens
Despite all these community-based beliefs, colonial conservation research practices (which continue to this day) have looked at human-animal relationships through the lens of ecology and economics. They have undermined the varied complexities and dimensions of these interactions. While giving importance to creating human-free areas to secure the future of endangered animals, this approach has often mercilessly toppled the lives and livelihoods of many indigenous communities in India. These policies have not only taken away their rights to their land and resources but also relocated them to places totally foreign to them. This practice has extensively failed to integrate traditional ecological knowledge into the study of conservation and coexistence.
Complex interactions in a complicated world
However, conservation practitioners have now started to acknowledge that human-wildlife interactions in shared spaces go beyond the idea of conflict and can be represented as a spectrum of interactions that can vary from very positive to very negative. To achieve conservation goals in such landscapes, it becomes essential to understand the complexities of human-human and human-wildlife interactions from a human-centric approach because humans are the ones determining the future of wildlife.
History, fables, anecdotes, folklore, paintings, inscriptions etc., provide a window through which one can try to understand the complex ways in which people perceive nature around them. They enable us to make sense of the social structure, belief system, moral codes, hierarchy, power asymmetry etc., which can allow conservationists to engage in the political discourses related to nature. Acknowledging and incorporating their knowledge into conservation practice can give locals a voice in managing their land and make them care about the issues more. A value-laden and culturally sensitive conservation intervention can be implemented in places where people foster positive attitudes towards animals. We can use positive stories to get people on board for conservation initiatives, and negative ones as conservation starters with local communities.
In Western cosmology, humans are considered superior to all living beings. On the other hand, the animistic way of living considers all living beings similar and gives agency to the animals to have their own self and moral values, make decisions, and sometimes, even make mistakes. Such understanding and acceptance might help in coexistence, since an animal here, rather than being a creature that wreaks havoc, becomes just another being trying to live in an ever-changing landscape.
According to a paper by White (1967) quoted in Bhatia et al. (Frontiers in Environmental Science 9), “What people do about their ecology depends on what they think about themselves in relation to things around them”. In many parts of India, nature and culture create people’s identities and shape their way of life. With the increasing loss of “pristine” habitats, animals and people come in closer contact to share spaces. Understanding the nuanced ways in which animals and humans cohabit will help conservationists facilitate long-term human-animal coexistence in “a sustainable though dynamic state, where humans and wildlife co-adapt to sharing landscapes”.
Photo sources: Waghoba in Himachal Pradesh, leopard, Wayanad, Pulikali
References
• Agnihotri, Samira, C. Madegowda, and Aung Si. 2021. “Tiger Becomes Termite Hill: Soliga/Solega Perceptions of Wildlife Interactions and Ecological Change.” Frontiers in Conservation Science 2.
• Bhatia, Saloni, Kulbhushansingh Suryawanshi, Stephen Mark Redpath, Stanzin Namgail, and Charudutt Mishra. 2021. “Understanding People’s Relationship With Wildlife in Trans-Himalayan Folklore.” Frontiers in Environmental Science 9.
• Govindrajan, Radhika. 2015. The man‐eater sent by god: Unruly interspecies intimacies in India’s Central Himalayas. Unruly Environments 3:33–8.
• Jolly, Helina, Terre Satterfield, Milind Kandlikar, and Suma Tr. 2022. “Indigenous Insights on Human–Wildlife Coexistence in Southern India.” Conservation Biology 36(6):e13981.
• Kshettry, Aritra, Nupur Bhave, Priyanka Das, and Vidya Athreya. 2021. “Mahakal Blessed My Crop: Community Dynamics and Religious Beliefs Influence Efficacy of a Wildlife Compensation Program.” Frontiers in Conservation Science 2.
• Nair, Ramya, Dhee, Omkar Patil, Nikit Surve, Anish Andheria, John D. C. Linnell, and Vidya Athreya. 2021. “Sharing Spaces and Entanglements With Big Cats: The Warli and Their Waghoba in Maharashtra, India.” Frontiers in Conservation Science 2.
• Nijhawan, Sahil, and Achili Mihu. 2020. “Relations of Blood: Hunting Taboos and Wildlife Conservation in the Idu Mishmi of Northeast India.” Journal of Ethnobiology 40(2):149– 66.
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