Paper short abstract:

This paper asks how might forest enchantment, emotions of fear and awe and their accompanying ritual practices, mythologies and imaginations offer a far richer and varied set of moral responses to the natural world than what exists in 'modern' ecological consciousness.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores what it means to 'be ecological' (Morton 2018) by drawing on, on the one hand, romantic poets and their relationship to an ecological consciousness, and on the other hand exploring the 'romantic' ideals within Sundarbans residents' mythology, specifically a set of chants (mantras) used to tame tigers by those who enter into a mangrove forest to fish, collect honey, and crabs. The Sundarbans are both dangerous and awe-inspiring forests located in the Bay of Bengal delta. On the basis of long-term fieldwork with fishermen, crab collectors and honey collectors in the region, my interest is in making connections between resident's cosmological views to the ideas and worldviews expressed in the poetry of English and American romantic poets from Coleridge, Wordsworth, William Blake, Mary Shelley to Emerson and Thoreau which reveal a holistic way of perceiving, depicting, dwelling and animating the natural world and its interconnections. While anthropology and anthropologists have often caricaturised the Romantic legacy, with the word 'romantic' oddly thought of as a derogatory way of perceiving the world, with more 'modern' ways of understanding the concept of 'nature' and the complex interrelations between people and the places where they live, work and play. This paper analyses Sundarbans residents' 'tiger chants' used to gain protection in a dangerous forest by embedding the ethos of these chants within a romantic tradition which offers a far more rich and varied set of responses to the natural world than is dreamed of in the conventional history of ideas.