Pond-Women Revelations: The Subaltern Registers in Maithil Women's Expressive Forms

Ponds are ubiquitous in the Maithil region of Nepal, and they figure prominently in folk narratives and ceremonial paintings produced by women there. I argue that in Maithil women's folktales, as in their paintings, the trope of ponds shifts the imaginative register toward women's perspectives and the importance of women's knowledge and influence in shaping Maithil society, even as this register shift occurs within plots featuring male protagonists. I argue further that in the absence of a habit of exegesis in their expressive arts, and given the cross-referential, dialogic nature of expressive practices, a methodology that draws into interpretive conversation the multitude of expressive forms exercised by Maithil women enhances analytical access to Maithil women's collective perspectives on their social and cosmological worlds.

Talking Tools, Suffering Servants, and Defecating Men: The Power of Storytelling in Maithil Women’s Tales

What can we learn about the way that folk storytelling operates for tellers and audience members by examining the telling of stories by characters within such narratives? I examine Maithil women’s folktales in which stories of women’s suffering at the hands of other women are first suppressed and later overheard by men who have the power to alleviate such suffering. Maithil women are pitted against one another in their pursuit of security and resources in the context of patrilineal formations. The solidarities such women nonetheless form—in part through sharing stories and keeping each other’s secrets—serve to mitigate their suffering and maintain a counter-system of ideational patterns and practices.