Silence as Testimony: Trauma,
Ethical Witnessing, and Indigenous Counter-Histories in
Easterine Kire’s Bitter Wormwood
K.S. Swathipriya¹, Dr. S. Geetha
Lakshmi²
ABSTRACT
The paper Bitter Wormwood by Easterine Kire plays
a central role in the modern literature of the Indian English world
because of its delicate and ethically based portrayal of the Indo-
Naga war. The novel tells the story of the everyday life of common
villagers whose life is disrupted by militarization, fear and loss
rather than predicting armed opposition or political ideology. This
paper discusses Bitter Wormwood as a story of trauma that expresses
indigenous memory and ethical witnessing in silence, domestic spaces
and sharing of stories. It is based on the theory of trauma,
postcolonial indigenous studies, and narrative ethics to argue that
Kire novel can be seen as a counter-historical archive, disputing
state-centric historiography, and the restoration of unheard voices.
Focusing on women and non-combatants as the keepers of memory,
Bitter Wormwood refutes the concept of heroism and resistance as the
mode of survival, nursing, and memory. The paper has a contribution
to the scholarship of the Northeast Indian literature; it places the
work of Kire within a context of ethical intervention to conserve
the indigenous epistemologies and to make literature a place of
cultural survival.
Keywords: Easteriane kire, Bitter Wormwood, Naga literature, trauma
narrative, aboriginal memory, militarization, Ethical witnessing
