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Eloquent bodies: conflict and ritual innorthern Sri LankaJane Derges aa Anthropology Department , University College London , UKPublished online: 02 Dec 2008.
To cite this article: Jane Derges (2009) Eloquent bodies: conflict and ritual in northern Sri Lanka ,Anthropology & Medicine, 16:1, 27-36
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13648470802425930
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Anthropology & MedicineVol. 16, No. 1, April 2009, 27–36
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Eloquent bodies: conflict and ritual in northern Sri Lanka1
Jane Derges*
Anthropology Department, University College London, UK
(Received April 2007; final version received April 2008)
It is increasingly apparent that hostilities continue in the aftermath of war andconflict, where presuppositions of peace and safety are rarely reflected on theground. In Sri Lanka, the 2002 ceasefire agreement between the Sri Lankangovernment and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has recentlycollapsed. This collapse developed slowly over a period of several years, beginningwith cautious optimism before descending into deep pessimism with increasinglyhigh levels of violence brought about by the absence of any real progress. Effortsto rebuild and reintegrate both rural and urban communities in the north of thecountry have had to take place within an atmosphere of silence, suspicion and amarked escalation towards the renewed outbreak of war. This article, followingsixteen months of fieldwork in the northern Jaffna peninsula, examines howTamil youths – many of whom were imprisoned and tortured during the war –have transformed a well-known ritual that has seen a dramatic increase sinceoccupation of the far north by government troops in 1996. The ritual, previouslyan act of devotion to a popular Tamil god, Murugan, has transformed into ademonstration of strength and youthful challenge. This article examines howtoleration of ritual pain can be contrasted with the pain and suffering of war, andarticulated not only for the self, but also for the entire community.
Keywords: northern Sri Lanka; conflict; ritual transformation
In northern Sri Lanka, optimistic frameworks of peace-building, retribution and justiceare no longer applicable. Instead they have become replaced with a renewed outbreak ofhostilities that have been gradually escalating over a period of four years. It is the civilianpopulation who must survive alongside the daily reality of fear and continuing violencethat shapes and mutates day-to-day existence. This escalation into open conflict comes inthe wake of three previous ceasefires and provides little in the way of optimism, as thedaily bombing raids and abductions grow.
This research was carried out over a period of sixteen months between July 2003 andNovember 2004, one year after the ceasefire agreement came into operation. After twentyyears of war, it was again possible for Tamils to travel around the Jaffna peninsula(despite the restrictions of the high security zones), to revisit Colombo or Trincomalee, seefriends and, most importantly, welcome back relatives from abroad, most of whom werevisiting after many years in exile. After the initial relief, there was a breakdown in talksbetween the government and the LTTE in April 2003, which heralded a gradualdeterioration in the political and social landscape of the north and east. The atmospherewas one of considerable exhaustion after so long a period of war – many stated that this
*Email: [email protected]
ISSN 1364–8470 print/ISSN 1469–2910 online
� 2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/13648470802425930
http://www.informaworld.com
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was the last and final opportunity for peace, and indeed this period of relative calmproved to be all too brief.
Within this setting, questions arose as to how Tamil civilians could articulate theirsuffering in an atmosphere where trust had been severely compromised and undermined.Also, how could research be carried out in such a setting, when the people of Jaffna wereweary and exhausted and it was clearly inappropriate to ask directly about ‘trauma’ orpersonal experiences of the conflict. Obtaining data through recorded and structuredinterviews was also unsuccessful because of the fears of surveillance from all factions, soinstead other ways of obtaining useful information were developed. This meant takingopportunities that were offered and following leads rather than actively pursuing aparticular course; this often took me on interesting journeys and provided many usefulinsights. The research questions, although having some form in my own mind, usuallyarose from informal interviews/conversations and in response to information that wasgiven. Observing different aspects of social interaction, especially body language and socialbehaviour, gave a more contextualised view and historical data provided details of life inthe north from before the conflict, for comparison. However, undertaking research insocieties that are in conflict entails an acceptance of a degree of ignorance in certainaspects of the enquiry, usually in exchange for the safety of all concerned.
Despite these difficulties, I had the good fortune to meet and eventually live with aHindu Tamil family, and became immersed in all aspects of daily life. I also met a numberof other Tamils who were willing to recount many of their experiences and engage indiscussions about their lives, after so many years spent living in isolation. I attendednumerous festivals, weddings, family events and ceremonies, and temple pujas, andtraveled around and outside the peninsula by various means. All of this helped inidentifying local issues of importance, but I was never less than acutely aware of the effectmy presence had on those around me. I had regular contact with two local Non-governmental organisation (NGOs), who were generally well respected throughout thepeninsula, and provided reassurance when my identity was invariably questioned. Also myinterest in Tamil culture and society was usually met with enthusiasm and a desire todescribe the changes and concerns regarding this. It was helpful being able to speak someTamil, to be in the company of other Tamils and to maintain a high level of visibilitytraveling everywhere by bicycle/bus/motorbike (as opposed to the few foreign aid workers,who maintained a more remote presence). On bus journeys to Colombo, I was questionedalong with everyone else at the checkpoints, presenting my visa and later the obligatorypass from the LTTE, but had no problems – maybe because I was female. At other times,either friends or myself had to answer questions about who I was and what I was doingthere – and ‘how-did-they-know-that-I-was-who-I-said-I-was’. I was often told that mypresence and movements would have been noted, but I moved about with relative freedomand have since been able to make return visits to Sri Lanka unhindered.
‘No war, no peace’
The Jaffna peninsula in the far northern tip of Sri Lanka was often likened to an ‘openprison’; captivity and confinement having become central and defining experiences forTamils living in the geographically isolated and marginalised north. The continuationof low-level violence after the declaration of peace was enabled within an atmosphereof impunity that became chronic. A half state of ‘no war and no peace’ seemed tobe indefinite and was largely unacknowledged by those outside its immediate realm
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and effect. Due to this assumption of peace, safety and reconciliation, acts of violencebecame increasingly easy to perpetrate. The focus of attention was also shifted elsewhereonce the ceasefire came into operation with the arrival of multitudinous developmentagencies competing for opportunities in the rebuilding process. The conditions for thisongoing violence appeared to be embedded in part in the declaration of peace itself,whereby the original grievances remained unresolved.
The peninsula is almost an island in itself, joined to the rest of the country by a thinstrip of land called Elephant Pass. Currently, it is inhabited by Tamil-speaking SriLankans; fifteen per cent Catholic or Protestant and the remaining seventy-five per centHindus. The peninsula is under government control, with a heavily militarised presenceincluding operational and non-operational checkpoints, situated at most crossroads.Segments of land are cordoned off into what are called high security zones and includemuch of the coastal region and some farming areas. This has forced many Tamils fromtheir land and homes into urban camps and temporary settlements, or into the emptyhouses of absent Tamils who fled the fighting some years previously. Accessto employment in both agriculture and fishing – the two main sources of income inJaffna – is severely restricted.
Despite its reputation as a centre of affluence, learning and culture, this has changedover the last twenty or more years, with thousands of Tamils having died or fled abroad;most major buildings and civic structures have been destroyed. This gives Jaffna the feel ofa large village where both derelict and a few newly renovated homes exist side by side, andwhere large expanses of open overgrown ground are cordoned off and waiting to bede-mined. The tsunami of 2004 made many people in the coastal regions homeless againand dislodged landmines that had been carefully mapped during the ceasefire period.
Among those Tamils born into conflict after the 1980s, thousands were arrested,imprisoned, and tortured, and many disappeared (Hoole et al. 1990). The few who werereleased returned to their villages and families, and attempted the complex process ofreintegration (Somasundaram 1998). They were, and continue to be, targeted by allfactions: either under suspicion of collaboration with the LTTE, other paramilitaries orthe army, or targeted for recruitment into the insurgent ranks. For those without financialmeans of escape, they are trapped in both a confined geographical and discriminatoryimpasse, which has led to an accompanying sense of futility, frustration and anger.Concerns were expressed regarding the behaviour of some Tamil youths who had joinedlocal gangs and were the reason most people remained indoors after dark under a kind ofself-imposed curfew. A marked distrust between people was frequently identified as aproblem, made easily accessible to a Sri Lankan collective consciousness of four hundredyears of colonial domination. Internal divisions were also fed by rumour and accusationsof questioned loyalties; village was often pitted against village and the extensive infiltrationand observation of the populace made anonymity rare, even within crowds – real orimagined, the fear of surveillance had the power to silence.
Living with silence: the transformation of a ritual
Frequent references were made to the transformation that had taken place to a familiarritual amongst Tamil youths released from prison. Many made vows that if released, theywould perform one of the harshest and therefore most devout acts of recognition:thuukkukkaavadi. This involves the suspension of the devotee from a large scaffoldattached to a small motorised tractor, by a series of eight hooks inserted into the skin of
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the back and legs, and a silver vel (spear) piercing the mouth and rendering the devotee
silent. He is transported between two temples – one his village temple – by the tractor,which is highly decorated with images of the chosen deity, flowers, plantains, and limes for
protection, and loud devotional music hails from two speakers. Alongside, walk a smallretinue of family, friends and villagers.
There are various styles of suspended kaavadi, some representing a pose of the chosen
deity or their vehicle; for example, the peacock, vehicle of Murugan, is represented by thedevotee suspended horizontally as though in flight. More recent styles are a demonstration
of bravery with the devotee suspended by one hook only from the top of his back. Kaavadirefers to the heavy wooden arched frame decorated with peacock feathers and lime, and
carried on the shoulders of Murugan devotees during temple festivals. This arch is asymbolic representation of two hills, part of well-known story of a battle between the god
Agashthya’s servant, the demon Idumban and a victorious Murugan. Murugan has adominant place in worship among the ancient Veddas of Sri Lanka, as well as many
modern-day Tamils. He carries a vel (spear or lance), which protects against bad spiritsand was used in a dance performed before hunting in order to bring good fortune, safety
and protection. The Veddas were known as iya vamsa – ‘sons of arrows’ – and it is believedthat Murugan was originally a tribal hunter god who became the national god of the
Tamils because of the protective features of the vel. The vel is the mulamurthi(the anthropomorphic representation of the deity) in many Murugan temples in the
north and east of Sri Lanka, known as velayuta shrines/temples. The vel, when insertedthrough the cheeks and mouth, is a symbol of Murugan and vel worship, and by
renouncing speech, promotes concentration towards higher thoughts of the deity (referredto in Tamil as mauna: silence) and ensures protection of the supplicant. The vel was
discovered from an earlier ancient ritual in Tamil Nadu and is referred to as a ‘mouth lock’(Wood 2002).
Murugan, son of Siva and Parvati, is described by Fuller Collins (1997) as both a ‘god-
king, ruler of a divinely ordered society’ and a youthful challenger and teacher to the oldergods. His name is derived from notions of youthfulness, splendour and compassion
(Obeyesekere 1978); he is often invoked as the ‘divine lover’ (19), and from the seventhcentury onwards as the war god, Skanda. Amongst his Tamil devotees, Murugan is also
known as both a protector and a healer of sickness: worship of him is thought to confer‘worldly security and prosperity’ and help resolve difficulties in material, everyday life.
There are many devotional songs to the youthful divine figure of Murugan and thisemphasis on youthfulness is widely envisaged among Jaffna devotees. These qualities of
youthfulness, protection and healing are forceful incentives in the lives of younger Tamils,but notably other gods and Amman (Mother Goddess) are also now evoked – Amman
in the form of Kali, and Mariamman, for example, who is noted for her quick temper,and to bestow disease and suffering on neglectful devotees. She is also known for her
easily forgiving nature if placated, which may account for the rise in devotions to her inrecent years.
How the gods come to be understood changes according to the setting in which their
devotees are living and worshipping, according to Krishnapillai (1998, 16), who writes:‘. . . the way in which the people apprehend the divine is a statement about the way in
which they see themselves and their content in a given moment’. This contributes to anunderstanding of how vel worship and thuukkukkaavadi may have developed within the
current state of violence, self-censure and fear. The vel has become a representationof silence, not only for greater devotion, but within the present context of oppression.
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This ritual therefore seems to convey in symbolic and mimetic form personal experiencesrelated to various aspects that include both devotion and more recent concerns difficult toarticulate.
Eloquent bodies
In reaching beyond the purely phenomenological aspects of embodiment, it was Goffman(1971) who sought to understand how the body was connected and engaged with socialaction. His emphasis on the ‘bodily production of social hierarchy, dominance and control’re-contextualised the body within society (Williams and Bendelow 1998, 56, emphasis inoriginal). Social order, according to his theory, is maintained through publicly ascribedtechniques of the body involving complex and conventionalised social rituals aimed at thesuccessful negotiation of social space. Therefore, it can be assumed that when these socialrituals are disrupted, negotiating social space also becomes disrupted, thereby under-mining confidence in the presumption of a natural order. Subverting the purpose andfunction of everyday objects serves to undermine this natural order and creates fear anduncertainty in its place. Public spaces and everyday objects are no longer what they seem;otherwise benign spaces and objects become threatening or take on malevolent form. Forexample, during the conflict, the spiked tail of a sea ray was used as an instrument oftorture; bodies were dumped in communal wells; gun boats and helicopters fired at peopleworking or playing on the beaches; domestic spaces were made permeable to bulletscausing injury. The bodies of Tamils were regularly humiliated at the checkpoints, byhaving to connect with other hostile bodies during these rigorous border searches (Hooleet al. 1990; Somasundaram 1998). In these highly contentious and closely observedsettings, the voice must demonstrate conformity in order to avoid unwanted attention, butthere are other times and places when, despite the voice being silent, the body is not.
There are several studies of kaavadi from Sri Lanka and Malaysia that have soughtexplanations for the changes in its popularity and practice. Most have concentrated oneither psychological or sociological explanations. Fuller Collins (1997) identifies the lowercaste status of Tamil kaavadi devotees in Malaysia, who are in conflict with the Hindu elite.She suggests that the elephant’s trunk of popular deity Pillaiyar (or Ganesh) is a phallicsymbol and the tongue piercing a symbol of impotence related to social oppression.Likewise, Wilford (2000) stresses both the caste/class differences as significant and Ward(1984) the bio-psychological aspects related to pain and motivation, asserting that vanityplays a part in its increasing popularity in Malaysia, evidenced by the ever more elaboratestyles seen among young devotees. Obeyesekere (1978) identifies the ecstatic dancing ofaathumkaavadi as an expression of the repressed sexual desires of unmarried males, manyforced through social patterns of change to seek employment away from their villages andmove into urban slum areas in Sri Lanka, where marriage prospects are bleak. Theseexplanations have parallels with social changes that have taken place among young JaffnaTamils, but do not sufficiently explain the current dramatic increases in devotees of such anextreme form of kaavadi, within the context of the political conflict of the last two decades.
Despite being a well-known ritual in south Asia and beyond, it was previously seldompracticed in Jaffna itself. Thuukkukkaavadi became widespread in the aftermath of thearmy occupation of the peninsula in 1996 – increasing from a dozen or so in one year to atotal of seventy, as I counted at a single temple, in the course of one day. All the devoteescame from a broad spectrum of both caste and social class that included many elite high-caste Tamils, as well as agricultural workers and more recently many Tamils returning
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from abroad. I subsequently came to know the kaavadi organiser (himself a high-casteVellala) and accompanied him regularly in his work assisting devotees in the ceremony.This would be followed up with interviews and conversations with devotees, their friendsand families about the practice and their experiences – often over several meetings. Onebecame a key informant who makes an important contribution to theories identified anddeveloped in this study. In terms of its motivation, many young Tamils reported lessinterest in religiosity and instead talked of the personal challenge (chavaal), fun(musuppaaththi) and the release of aggression. Unlike those who do the ritual purely asan act of devotion, members of this group undertake fewer preparations and mostly denyany entrancement. Although the explicit reasons for the vow are rarely articulated, it isstated by many – including the kaavadi organiser – that now the majority are those whohave been imprisoned – and it is presumed, tortured. This raised the question as to whetherthis could be seen as a re-enactment of torture, such was its apparent similarity. But thepain was identified by devotees as greater for the observer, than for themselves: a wearysmile often greeted questions related to pain tolerance, as though I had somehow missedthe point. Most acknowledge first the experience of challenge or daring, as well as fun(musupaaththi) and the release of energy (aarral or valimai) that this brings. One devoteespoke of his overwhelming sense of power that would enable him to ‘beat one hundredmen down’ and that he possessed a ‘warrior power’ which could be ‘used for destructivepurposes’. He had ‘suffered, but got three times the happiness afterwards’. There is,undoubtedly, an element of ‘show’ and youthful bravado; it was said that some did it toimpress girls as well as their friends and there was much joking beforehand, for example,as students egged each other on in a dare. However, this changed once the ritualcommenced and other elements contributed in focusing the mind, such as the devotionalmusic, which was seen as essential in helping concentration and giving a sense of a ‘fullheart’.
Frequently and spontaneously, devotees claimed that it was a ritual act carried out noton behalf of the individual, but rather for the community as a whole. This makes sensefollowing the widescale suffering of most villagers, subjected to cordon and searchoperations, arrests, disappearances, bombings and other enormous losses. Again, manypeople spoke of feeling trapped, treated as less than human and having no voice. Ward(1984) also acknowledges the importance of kaavadi not only for individual devotees, butfor their community by offering some element of catharsis to resolve conflicts. The casestudy described later is of a man who performs this ritual on behalf of his brother; the ideathat thuukkukkaavadi could be performed not only for oneself but for another, or manyothers, raises the notion of the ritual as a collective – or, in this instance, familial, ratherthan individual act. And as mentioned previously, many devotees say the pain is greateramongst onlookers than for the individual devotee. From observing the ritual, this wasconfirmed by the obvious distress of others present, whereas the suspended devoteeappeared pain free, even relaxed and aware of his surroundings. Many people who hadwitnessed the thuukkukkaavadi devotees, said they found it hard to watch. When askedwhy, many stated that they knew or could imagine what led them to undertake such anextreme and serious act.
The question of pain
Ariel Glucklich (2001) suggests that pain is usually defined as a problem that needs to beovercome and, if possible, removed entirely. In the field of medicine the aim is to identify
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pain, eradicate it or at least subdue it. But through religious texts it is possible to seeanother way of understanding the experience of pain through a model of efficacy. Inaddressing questions concerning the ‘cultural construction of embodiment’ (14) withinpain discourses, Glucklich challenges Foucault on his theory of the ‘technology of self’,suggesting that pain is not always an internalisation of society’s aggression, but that thereis some ambivalence in the experience of self-inflicted pain (as opposed to pain that isexternal, unwanted and beyond the individual’s self-control), and suggests that religiousself-hurting transcends bodily pain. Interestingly, no blood is shed during the ritualprocedure, although it is encouraged after the hooks are removed for cleansing purposes,but even then does not always occur. There are no explanations offered, beyond divineintervention, for this phenomenon – apart from links with acupuncture, mentioned byseveral research participants.
Daniel (1987) writes of the beauty of pain through his personal account of a pilgrimageto Subra Malai in south India. He provides an insight into how pain is transformed intolove – anpu – in this case for Ayyapan. Whilst the torturer seeks to create pain in another,repetitive self-inflicted pain through devotion eventually absents the self from it – it leadsone away from pain and ultimately towards joy. This would explain the sense of elationand dissociation reported amongst all devotees: as Glucklich also states, pain can releasenot only ‘analgesic qualities’ (2001, 30) but also a sense of detachment and euphoria. Oneparticipant remarked on his detachment from what was happening around him during theritual, but also his awareness of the distress of people watching him from below: ‘It wasnot as tough as I thought (it would be), but it seems very hard and painful for the viewer.My neighbours asked my mum why I was doing it; she told them ‘‘I don’t know – askhim’’. I told them ‘‘for fun’’ – they won’t believe me.’
Thomas Scheff (1979) talks of this state of detached curiosity as ‘double vision’ duringwhich one is both the participant and the detached observer of emotion: both one’s ownand those of others present at the scene. A ‘distanced recurrence’ in which trauma is not somuch re-experienced as recalled through a drama in which feelings are evoked in theviewer that are an approximation of their own experience: an experience from the past thatis triggered by an event in the present for both devotee and observers.
Thuukkukkaavadi: a contemporary devotee
I first came across Ramesh as he was starting his thuukkukkaavadi ritual outside a localMurugan temple. The vel (a thin spear) was in the process of being inserted throughRamesh’s cheeks and the nagathalai (snake head) attached so that it protruded from hismouth, making speech thereafter impossible. Four hooks pierced the skin of his back,placed carefully to balance his weight, and to them thick ropes were attached. Before theremaining four hooks were inserted in the lower limbs, he, his relatives and some fellowvillagers and myself went into the temple. He walked in a clockwise direction around theinner courtyard and then began to run, appearing to be entranced: staggering, lurchingand weaving, looking distressed, tearful and unaware of the people around him. A relativeheld tightly on to the two ropes seeming to control and manage his movements, holdinghim back at times and preventing him from careering off. Once outside, he appearedimmediately calm, he lay on the mat face down and had the remaining hooks insertedquickly in his upper thighs and calves. The men watching were serious, impassive andsilent, including several small boys looking on intently; most crowded around closelyand watched the organiser as well as Ramesh, with arms folded and puckered brows.
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The women on the outside of the circle were crying and clearly upset – assuming this was
concerning the physical pain he was enduring, it became apparent that the locus of theirdistress came from somewhere else. Loud devotional music was playing from speakers
attached to the tractor, no one was talking and very few people came to watch from otherhouses at this point.
Finally he was raised from the ground while great care was taken to balance and adjust
the ropes and watch his expression to assess his degree of comfort/discomfort. He was fully
aware of his surroundings, looking about him, calm and with no obvious signs of distress.He was handed a vel and some margosa leaves to hold for protection and he began to sway
his arms as though flapping wings; above him sitting on top of the scaffolding at theforward end was another assistant who bounced the scaffolding so that he was also
moving up and down, all of which gave the impression of a giant bird in flight.He and the rest of the company then left for his village and the Kaliamman temple,
where he later celebrated over a communal meal given for the entire village, after a puja
performed by the temple priest. On the journey back to the village some five miles away,
conversations with some of the family and friends accompanying him en route, offeredpossible explanations for the vow; his cousin thinks it is because he was ill when living in
the Vanni where he and his family had been displaced during the war. It is also stated atone point that his job as a labourer has been going badly and he has made some bad
financial decisions, which have led him to make a vow for assistance.When we met later, he appeared euphoric, was limping slightly but claimed to
experience no discomfort, but instead said he felt energised and strong. At this initial
interview as on other occasions, expectations had to be adjusted as to what information
would be possible given the setting: seabing was arranged formally with four chairs; onefor myself, one for my female translator/assistant, and opposite, a chair for Ramesh and
one for a man introduced as his ‘uncle’ – a silent and rather intimidating observer. Aroundthe room, standing, were other members of the family and village – word having got
around quickly of my arrival. Outside, other villagers peered silently in through theglassless windows, whispering occasionally. In the informal atmosphere earlier everyone
had appeared cheerful, friendly and relaxed; but somehow this changed, becoming
somewhat tense and unduly formal; efforts to ‘lighten’ the interview were unsuccessful.However, the minute I got up to leave, everyone relaxed, photos were taken and I was
asked many questions – despite previously offering to answer questions before theinterview. In subsequent meetings I would ‘drop in’, having been told that this was
acceptable and would encourage a more relaxed and conducive atmosphere. Then,
different members of the family and village would be present and generally it was mucheasier to talk: it was on one of these occasions that Ramesh’s mother spoke of her family’s
experiences.Ramesh’s elder brother was arrested by the army during the war, suspected of helping
the LTTE. He was taken off by the special forces to an army camp and, in accordance with
previous experience following arrests, it was assumed that he would never be seen again.It is said that following an arrest the prisoner will join the vast ranks of those who have
disappeared during the war and will never be seen again: they will disappear and funeral
plans and preparations will be made immediately. Miraculously in this case, he wasreleased, having been tortured and then after many months returned to his family. His
mother made a vow to the goddess Kali that some form of boon would be given in thanksfor her divine intervention, but she did not specify what form this would take. A short
while later, she went with her younger son, Ramesh, to have his charts read and was told
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by the astrologer that he was at great risk of some life-threatening problem; at this it wasindependently decided by Ramesh to perform thuukkukkaavadi to Kaliamman.
His mother was reluctant to allow him to perform such an austere vow but he wasinsistent that he perform this both for his own future safety and following his brother’srelease. She refused to go to the first temple to watch but remained at their village temple;when he returned with the thuukkukkaavadi she went to their house and waited for himthere. His sister was sent with him to the first temple but was overcome with distress andwas sent home by relatives; his elder brother, of course, stayed. Other male and distantfemale relatives and villagers and friends were present to support him. Ramesh and hismother both felt the vow had been successfully fulfilled; his mother hoped it would not berepeated, but Ramesh said he would consider doing so again, should the need arise and thecircumstances be appropriate.
Discussion
According to Scarry (1985), language is rarely able to express adequately the experience oftorture, but Daniel (1996) suggests it can be articulated instead through metaphor. In theinstance of thuukkukkaavadi, the experience of pain is translated symbolically through thebody and appears to re-create the torture experience but at the same time apprehendcontrol and power over pain and instead re-position it within the authority of the sufferer.The sun dance encountered in many Native American tribes also has parallels with theritual of thuukkukkaavadi – not only in its techniques, but more importantly in itsmotivations. The sun dance is carried out as a redemptive ritual aimed at resolving theNative Americans’ conflict with white society and it mourns the loss of dead tribesmenthrough a re-enactment of capture, torture and release (Jorgensen 1972). The experience ofmany devotees of thuukkukkaavadi would seem to correspond with this aspect of ritualmotivation both in its mourning of losses and as an act against forces that would ensnare,constrain and wound. Notably, Jorgensen and Voget (1984) also describe the collectiveaspect of the sun dance ritual, rather than its purely individual motivation.
These complex issues of reintegration following release from prison also resonate withGoffman’s ideas on ‘stigma’ (1968 [1963]). Efforts to realign oneself with the prevailingordinariness of society after such extreme events would be made more arduous by thebody’s duplicity or ‘spoiled identity’ (Williams and Bendelow 1998, 59). Perhapsthe symbolically stigmatised prisoner becomes transformed by another kind of mark –the visible stigmata scars of the kaavadi devotee. During the performance ofthuukkukkaavadi, this transcendence from stigmatised to stigmata-cised also endows thedevotee with the power of healing; they are often given a sick child to hold, for example.The body has a key role in negotiating this spoiled identity and becomes the mediatorbetween social and self-identity (Williams and Bendelow 1998, 60), thereby recapturing afeeling of individual strength as well as reconciliation and reintegration with the collectivebody of the village community.
By re-situating the body as an active agent of intent, it can be seen as a central,productive and in some instances cathartic entity that seeks to redress some of the violenceperpetrated against it. By firmly placing authority within a local context, it has been madeto show this through the transformation of a locally renowned ritual. By re-contextualisingencounters of extreme violence in the form of performances that utilise pain, it is possibleto re-classify ‘traumatic’ experiences and emerge having gained a measure of, albeittemporary, strength for both self and community. Language is often inadequate to fulfil
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this task for reasons related to fear, tyranny and the sheer enormity of the losses. Withinthis beleaguered community, recognised capacities and resources have been used toovercome some of the suffering and loss through familiar but redefined, embodied andritualised performances that are not necessarily or exclusively acts of religious devotion.This new mode of ritual performance has been able to provide a space in which Tamils canfind some potency. These devotees undertaking thuukkukkaavadi in huge numbersarticulate the violence and brutality of the Tamils’ experiences over the last twenty-fiveyears, and are not to be easily silenced.
Note
1. The research was made possible through an award funded by the Economic and Social ResearchCouncil (ESRC) (2003).
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