Forest and Wilderness: Animals in Central Indian Folk myths

The co-existence of tribal societies is not a new phenomenon, they are being together for hundreds of centuries and this can be understood through their folk myths and folk stories where they have legends in animal forms who teach them social co-existence, morality, polity, devotion, and sometimes philosophy. If we take a particular case study among the Gond tribes of Central India then there are hundreds of these kinds of stories that tell us about the respect for animals from human beings in different ways particularly the practice of humanitarian behavior towards animals. Even in their religious mythological stories, they have special characters of animals that are being treated as important for human society and existence.
The aim of this paper is to I- describe and discuss the various kinds of animals among the tribal myths of central India, II- to analyze and explore the level of co-existence and interdependence between tribes and animals through these tribal myths, III- bring out an Idea for the modern society from the forest tribes and their myths that how we can make space for animals and how we can live together with perpetual respect and dignity.