How Mainstream India Perceives Assamese Women
Anidrita Saikia
THE BLACK MAGIC WOMEN by By Moushumi Kandali Translated from the original Assamese by Parbina Rashid Penguin/Vintage Books,, 2022, 183 pp., 299
October 2023, volume 47, No 10

In 1837, when British medical officer John M’Cosh first visited Assam, which then comprised much of what is today Northeast India, he was struck by the strange and inhospitable geography of the region. The inhabitants with their strange ways who looked ‘Chinese’ lived among tumultuous rivers, dense jungles, and distant hills; the women were skilled in magic and were famous as ‘enchanters’. Almost two hundred years later, M’Cosh’s report lies buried in dusty archives, but the reinforcement of stereotype of the Assamese woman as the ‘Exotic Other’ of the East has only continued to become stronger.

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