A Terrible Matriarchy

Book excerpt: “I was the youngest in a family of five children. I sometimes felt I was an afterthought, and maybe Father and Mother didn’t quite know what to do with me. Also, because I was a girl after four boys they never seemed to be sure whether to buy me girls’ clothing or let me wear leftover boys’ clothing.” Young Dielieno is five years old when she is sent off to live with her disciplinarian grandmother who wants her to grow up to be a good Naga wife and mother. According to Grandmother, girls didn’t need an education, they didn’t need love and affection or time to play or even a good piece of meat with their gravy! Naturally Dielieno hates her with a vengeance. This is the evocative tale of a young girl growing up in a traditional society in India’s Northeast, which is in the midst of tremendous change. Easterine Kire writes about a place and a people that she knows well and is a part of and brings to the storytelling a lyrical beauty which can on occasion chill the reader with its realistic portrayals of the spirits of the dead that inhabit the quiet hills and valleys of Nagaland.