ABSTRACT
This chapter is an interpretation of seven Limbu folktales. Beginning with Yumanism, the traditional faith of the Limbus, which features the agency of women, the invasion of the patriarchal ‘mainstream’ imposed various taboos on the Limbu liberal codes of feminine conduct, one of which is a woman’s right to opt for a consensual incestuous relationship. Addressing the issue of adult incest from a woman’s perspective of empowerment, the Limbu folktales evidently bring out the essential androcentrism of the taboo, imposed on consensual incest at the cost of denying the scope to address the woman question. This further exposes the ‘mainstream’ politics of treating any alternative Indigenous culture as abject, similar to the ‘mainstream’ agenda of proscribing nonconformist queers. This chapter aims to include incest in queer sexualities to expand the scope of queer studies.
