ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the methodology and various debates associated with interpretations. It clarifies that this work is by a non-Indigenous ally, with a ‘response-ability’ to correlate the experiences of queer minorities with those of Indigenous communities. Then the politics of belonging, based on which a sexual minority located in the ‘mainstream’ and otherised by it may seek for an intimate bond with the Indigeneity, equally but differently otherised by the neocolonial state, is discussed. The next section deals with the significance of memory in oral traditional praxes and how stories can be treated as histories. Thereafter, the chapter elaborates on the translation of the oral tales from tribal communities. It also discussed transgression and its impact on the formulation of the ‘nonnormative’. It is followed by a discussion on the definition, collection and selection of the folktales. The chapter elaborates on the methodology of interpreting tribal folktales. The chapter ends with the note of a possible way to bring people together—namely the Dalit tribal people and the queer minorities in contemporary India.
