THESlS
‘3

LIIEBRAR IES

Il'illlllllxml ll ljlllllll

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is to certify that the

dissertation entitled

Healing Through the Spirits: Embodiment, Experience
and Narratives of Spirit Possession among the
Jaunsaris of Uttrakhand, India.

presented by

Krishnakali Majumdar

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

Ph.D Anthropology

degree in

 

 

out 4. 0%

0 Ma Lt professor

Date August 18, 1996

 

MSU is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution 0-12771

 

 

FUBRARY

MIChlgan State
University

 

 

 

PLACE IN RETURN BOX to remove We checkout from your record.
TO AVOID FINES return on or bdore date due.

DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE

If ,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MSU le An Affirmative Mon/Equal Opportunlty Inetltulon
Wm:

 

HEALING THROUGH THE SPIRITS: EMBODIMENT, EXPERIENCE AND
NARRATIVES OF SPIRIT POSSESSION AMONG THE JAUNSARIS
OF UTTRAKHAND, INDIA

BY

Krishnakali Majumdar

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Anthropology

1996

ABSTRACT

HEALING THROUGH THE SPIRIT: EMBODIMENT, EXPERIENCE AND
NARRATIVES OF SPIRIT POSSESSION AMONG THE JAUNSARIS
OF UTTRAKHAND, INDIA

BY

Krishnakali Majumdar

My research focuses on how Jaunsari people make meaning in
their daily life, how they seek to predict and control
events and how they deal with existential issues of the
human condition. By calling attention to the specific
experiences of spirit possession, I am calling attention to
a social phenomenon which helps shape, define and change the
lifeworld of the people concerned. My main argument is that
spirit possession has healing powers since it provides an
articulation of suffering as well as an interpretation of
contradictions and tensions in the social order. The healing
process involves a continuous and persistent attempt to make
this experience meaningful. By providing a new meaning for
the experience of possession, Jaunsaris are able to
transform their sense of self and recontextualize their
experience.

In my analysis of Jaunsari understanding of spirit
possession, I have focused on "narratives" of spirit

ii

possession; the way they are organized and have a particular
syntax and meaning order. Narrative is approached here from
a "critical phenomenological perspective" as espoused by
Good (1994), who attends to the imaginative linking of
experiences and events into a meaningful story or a plot.

In choosing to explore spirit possession, its
production of meaning and its structuring of experiences in
narrative form, I situate my work in the line developed by
Boddy (1988), Good (1994), Kapferer (1991) and Scheper—
Hughes (1994) stemming from the traditions of
existentialism, phenomenology and social interactionism. For
guiding my analysis, I will begin by considering the
embodiment of spirit possession from the perspective of
practice theory; I will identify the process of
symbolization accomplished first by diagnosis of spirit
possession and later, by the whole process of initiation and
healing. Turning then to the discursive level, I will sort
out the various themes that structure the experience, the
subjunctivising elements that give creative potency to the
story, and the pragmatic of spirit possession that reveals

the structure of social relations and power.

iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENT S

Without the generous support of a number of people this
dissertation would not have been completed. My dissertation
committee of Dr. L. Snow, Dr. J. Hinnant, Dr. P. Muller—
Ortega provided valuable comments and support. Special
gratitude to my advisor Dr. J. Pugh for her unrelenting
critiques, encouragement, and confidence in this project. I
would like to acknowlege the participation and support of
several families in Jaunsar-Bawar without whom this project
would not have been possible. Lastly, I want to thank my
family, friends and fellow gradute students for their

concern and co—operation during my entire gradute studies.

iv

LIST OF

LIST OF

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

TABLES

FIGURES

1 METHODOLOGY AND ITS LIMITATIONS

2 THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS

3

5
6
7

APPENDIX

JAUNSAR:

THE AREA AND ITS SOCIAL STRUCTURE

GENDER,

JAUNSAR-BAWAR

TABLE OF CONTENTS

AN ETHNOGRAPHIC INTRODUCTION TO

KINSHIP AND MARRIAGE IN

JAWS“: COSMOWY OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO0.0.0.0....

THE LIVES AND RITUALS OP HEALERS ..

NARRATIVES OP SPIRIT POSSESSION .............

CLOSURE

TABLES 00......OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO00......

BIBLIOGRAPHY 0.00.0000...OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO00....

vi

v11

15

52

73

101
122
157
197
207

210

TABLE 1.1

TABLE 1.2

TABLE 1.3

TABLE 1.4

LIST OF TABLES

POPULATION OF RAJPUT DOMINATED VILLAGE

BY CASTE AND HOUSEHOLDS
(VILLAGE BISOE IN 1993)

HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITION BY GENERATIONS

(VILLAGE BISOE IN 1993)

DISTRIBUTION OF MARITAL ARRANGEMENTS

IN 1993 (VILLAGE BISOE)

MEN'S AND WOMEN’S EXPERIENCE OF

MARRIAGE (VILLAGE BISOE)

207

208

208

209

LIST OF FIGURES

FIMI snTcn-MAP OPUTTWD OOCOOOOOCOOOOOOOCO 56
FIGURE 2 SKETCH-MAP OF JAUNSARI-COMMUNITY STUDIED... 66

FIGURE 3 KINSHIP DIAGRAM ...... ........ ............. 81

Chapter 1

Methodology and its Limitations

One of the major epistemological debates in
postmodernist sociocultural anthropology concerns what
Marcus and Fischer (1987) have called "crisis of
representation." The postmodernist trend in anthropology
has been towards resolving the spurious binary opposition1
between self and other, subject and object, and researcher
and researched, to name a few, and "deconstructing"
theoretical and methodological tools used in the portrayal
of the "other." Some postmodernists have called for
Anthropologists to "decolonize" our minds (hooks 1995,
Harrison 1995), which can involve the simultaneous processes
of familiarization and defamiliarization (Marcus and Fischer
1987; Rosaldo 1989). Others like Jones (1970/1988) bid for
a "native anthropology" as a part of the "essential

decolonization of anthropological knowledge."

 

1. The artificial separation of Psychological and Medical
Anthropology reflects the fallacious binary
contradiction between mind and body that afflicts much
of anthropological discourse.

1

2

Native anthropology reminds me of the cautionary words
of my professors at the University of Delhi (who are natives
practicing anthropology). They alerted me to the fact that
I was being recruited to conduct fieldwork in my native
country to collect otherwise inaccessible data. In a sense,
then, I would become a glorified informant of a culture at a
distance. However, I must add here that my national,
ethnic, and gender identities have definitely sharpened my
sensitivity and made me aware of certain aspects of the
culture that I had set out to investigate and of the
literature and theory that has accumulated on South Asia.
Jones (1970:472) has pointed to the double standard of
anthropological training:

the rule that the student should not work in his

culture seems to be reversed when it comes to the

foreign students, the "native" who is studying for

a Ph.D in U.S. . . . The Philosophy concerning the

field training of the foreign students, therefore,

is opposite to that which pertains to training

American students.
Interestingly enough, the "natives" who were studying for a
Ph.D in the U.S. often times did not study their own culture
but the "exotic other" (the "tribal" or the "peasant" or the
"mdnority") in their country. Is this then truly a native
anthropology? At what level would an ethnographer become a
true native--belonging to the same culture area or to the
same community or to the same village? At what level would

the power differential between the researcher and the

researched become most equitable?

3

Jones (1970/1988) also observes that even though the
"native" has been trained in western anthropological theory
and methods, the "native" as an "insider" involved in field
research in his or her native culture formulated little
theory. That is, there have been native anthropologists but
little native anthropology. He urges that if native
anthropologists want to decolonize anthropology, the
"natives" must begin to formulate theory.

While I agree that the recent rise in subaltern studies
has further challenged the discipline's colonial legacy,
Jones overlooked the fact that the "natives" were involved
in theory building in the past. However, their voices have
been muted and their knowledge "buried" (Harrison 1992,
1995). In fact, the inattention to feminist works and
”Third World" anthropologists (Talal Asad being the
exception) by postmodernist scholars like Clifford, Marcus
and Fischer is a case in point.

Feminist scholars have been highly critical of the
mainstream theory-building but their critiques have never
been taken seriously and have been charged with not being
"critical enough." What is interesting is that when the
same feminist critiques were appropriated by postmodernists
and translated into postmodern terminology, they became
fashionable and were taken very seriously (Mascia-Lees,
Sharpe & Cohen 1989; Wolf 1992). For example, the study of

the "other/native" as a subject was made trendy by

4
postmodernists, but it was as early as 1952 when Simone de
Beauvoir initiated the study of woman as the "other," as a
subject and an engaged being. Anthropologists who critique
objective, detached, scholarly studies have long been
suspicious of feminist works that have "written against the
grain" while at the same time they have appropriated the
critiques those feminist scholars have leveled against
mainstream theory and translated those theories into the
postmodern genre.

Coming back to the point made by Jones about native_
anthropology, a number of scholars have pointed to the
vantage point of "natives" in theory building, an idea that
has come to be known as standpoint theory (Harding 1987,
Harstock 1983, Harraway 1985, Rosaldo 1989). Feminist
standpoint theorists claim that objectivity in field
research is impossible and that the position of the
researcher in relation to the researched shapes the social
reality that an ethnographer documents and interprets.

The crucial point made here is that those who have a
subordinate position have a less distorted and more complete
knowledge of the society in which they live. Rosaldo claims
”the dominated usually understand the dominant better than
the reverse. In coping with their lives, they simply must"
(1989:189). According to standpoint theory, in order to
acquire a more complete picture of the social reality the

researcher wishes to study, she needs to identify the margin

5
and its members and, in their struggle against the center,
she will find a less distorted picture of the reality.

The postmodern turn in anthropology has been more
concerned with "representations," and hence anthropologists
have particularly focused on only one part of the
ethnography research process--ethnography as a written
product of fieldwork--rather than on the fieldwork itself.
The "reflexivity" they talk about is less with "doing
fieldwork." The audience of our ethnography is not our
informants (unable to read a foreign language) but other
anthropologists. Ethnographies have little impact on the
people who were our "informants;" we do however change their
lives in many profound ways. As anthropologists, we do not
remain detached scholars (although some may claim otherwise)
but sometimes unwittingly become intimately involved with
household, intervillage, and regional politics.

Nonetheless, this postmodern reflexivity of how to
describe, write about and relate to the "other" has made us
aware of "anthropology for what and for whom" (Blakey 1995).

While the postmodernists have been sensitive to the
form and style of "writing culture" and "authority,"
feminists have been attentive to the power differential
between the researcher and researched. Femdnists’
consideration of and sensitivity to power as an integral
part of research has intensified from their understanding of

and having been hurt by gender injustice and the masculanist

6

social science redefinitions proposed by postmodernists
(Wolf 1992:135).

Harrison (1993:407) is wary that:

the concern with the dispersing authority and

engaging in dialogue is often reduced to the

polyphonic style whereby a form of narrative

ventriloquism is performed, creating a magical

illusion of the other’s coming to voice.
She elects for "empowering informants by creating new forms
of ethnographic relationships. . .coauthorship and
coeditorship. . .imparting research and writing skills"
(1993:407) and a space for "talking back." In this way we
become ethnographically responsible to our audience as well
as to our informants. This sort of engaged research
involves nonexploitative methodology and takes into account
the ethnographer as a field worker and as an author as well.

These issues of power, privilege and representation
have plagued me since the time I started preparing for my
field research. I was uncomfortable about doing fieldwork
among strangers whose lives I would invade, whose knowledge
I would appropriate, and to whom I would give nothing in
exchange. I would at the end of the fieldwork, return home,
get a degree and make a career for myself. This power
differential could, I realized, change. I realized that my
informants would know how dependent I was on their
cooperation in my field research and, being a single woman,

there was a potential for the power balance to be reversed.

The ensuing question is, then, must we relinquish

 

7
field-based research? It was anthropology that had provided
me with an understanding of different colorful textures of
cultural lives around the world, and furnished me with an
"anthropological lens" to see the commonalities of patterns
that underlie the textured fabric that we call culture. In
order to "defamiliarize" ourselves and "others" we have to
do field research. It involves observing, hearing and
experiencing to learn about the way of life in another
culture. The legacy of the tradition of fieldwork in
anthropology defines and distinguishes the anthropological
perspective from other social science perspectives. The
experience of fieldwork is said to transform us through a
kind of rite of passage, the liminal phase being the period
when we are in the field. Without it, the discipline's
founding fathers claim, we cannot vividly evoke the rich
texture of the culture we study.

Even though this chapter sets out and situates my
research methodology, this was written at the tail end.
After I finished my research in "the field," I attempted to
think "reflexively" (the trend in the neocolonial era) about
my research project. I realized that the end product would
be very different from what I had stated in my research
proposal. The research methodology I had proposed was
"scientific," starting with several hypotheses and the kinds
of data that I would require to test those hypotheses. This

was not my first ethnographic research experience, so I knew

8
how problematic scientific methods are in field situations.

My choice of community had been influenced by a variety
of factors. Unlike many anthropologists, my study was not
oriented to study a community, rather it was issue-based.
The issue that I wished to study was spirit possession and
its various implications in healing and in the development
of self-identity.

Originally, I had planned to work in the Tehri Garhwal
district of Uttar Pradesh, India. However, I was persuaded
by a research scholar (who had just completed her fieldwork
in that area and was familiar with my research interest) to
work among Jaunsaris (District Jaunsar-Bawar, west of Tehri
Garhwal) who according to her were quite "traditional" in
their lifestyle and who continue to practice traditional
medicine. I planned accordingly and solicited the help of
local bureaucrats to choose a village and to introduce me to
the villagers. I was introduced as an "anthropologist"
studying at a university in America, who was interested in
learning about their traditional healing system.

The task of explaining why you are there is always a
contending factor when the field site is a remote village
and the researcher speaks and looks different. The village
that became my base camp had been exposed to anthropological
invasion before (Berreman 1972 and Majumdar 1962 had
conducted fieldwork in the neighboring villages), but some

people made it very clear that I was being tolerated. I did

9
face the wrath of a number of politicians who suspected that
I had connections with the CIA and, as no foreigners can
enter that area, that the institution had hired a "desi"
(from the plains) to spy on the army base not too far from
the village. They did eventually leave me alone, but not
before I showed them the permission letter from the Indian
Ministry of Education and my research proposal.

Once in the field, it took me several months to build
networks and alliances to enable me to start researching the
issue that was central to my doctoral research. I had been
maintaining my "objective distance;" I was the
anthropologist. So the villagers treated me as an
anthropologist. I was the participant observer, religiously
observing and taking notes on their oral texts and daily
activities.

To an ethnographer, successfully establishing oneself
on the "inside" of a culture is a goal achieved through
participant observation. It is an art to be mastered. It
is not, however, to "go native" and collapse the objective
distance which is so essential a feature of scientific
inquiry (Bourdieu 1990). This is a fundamental
methodological consideration for an anthropologist in the
"field."

However, is it possible to maintain the fragile balance
between the subjective distance and the objective distance

while conducting anthropological fieldwork? Rosaldo

10
criticizes this preoccupation with objectivity as the valid
scientific method and argues that "social analysis can be
done--differently but quite validly--either from up close or
from a distance" (1988:188).

The issue of "participant observation" brings to the
forefront both the authenticity and the limits of knowledge
gained from such a practice. We get a feel for what it
means to be a "native" of the culture through participant
observation. A few ethnographers have pointed out, and
rightly so, that one has to be born into it to truly sense
it. For it is through the process of enculturation and
socialization that the practical sense (local knowledge)
flows from the body inscribed by the habitus (structure).
But what about being able to maintain "the objective
distance from the object to play the game as a game while
waiting to leave it in order to tell it" (Bourdieu 1990:34).
This consideration, I feel, is more an issue of our
political awareness as anthropologists and how we collect
and analyze our data.

I had two basic concerns: my location in Indian society
and in the U.S. academia; and my own non-experience with
spirit possession. As a socio-cultural anthropologist and
as a feminist, I characterize my location within the
academic discipline of the first world at the margin. I
have sense of belonging to the "first world" but not being

in it. In the "first world," I am characterized as a

 

ll
gradute student from the "third world" and often called upon
to give the "native's point of view." As a graduate student
conducting research in the Indian Himalayas, I was in the
eyes of Jaunsari people, an outsider, not a "typical Indian
women" (bharatiya nari). My status as a researcher from a
foreign land with acquired foreign ways, and my position as
a woman still unmarried at the age of 30 definitely
characterized in their minds my location outside the Indian
soil. Nontheless, my location was much envied by the women -
I was independent, authoritative, free to make my own
decisions, and without any responsibility of familial
burdens. These qualifications make my space seamless,
belonging to neither qualification, and yet contained by the
bifurcated images. It is from this location I seek to
understand Jaunsari culture.

I certainly never, at any point during my fieldwork,
experienced possession by spirits, an experience central to
my analysis. Neither did I attempt to participate in
rituals which would enable the spirits to inhabit my body.
Did I then not fail in my anthropological endeavor? I argue
that had I experienced spirit possession, my experience
would not be in any way similar to that of a Jaunsari woman.
My experience of spirit possession would depend much on my
habitus and my appreciation of shared human conditions.

I feel that despite my non-participation in possession

rituals, the description and analysis that follows is as

12
meaningful and authentic as it would have been had I
participated, although I am aware of the limitation that
this position has in terms of the primary data.

In the field I was involved in a number of events and
rituals and in everyday routine life. Because I had made an
effort to learn their language, they felt I was serious in
doing research in their community and tolerated all my
incessant questions and patiently answered me.
Affectionately they would call me the ”daughter of the
village" (dianthuri) and took pride in escorting me to
distant villages to document spirit possession rituals.

My research interest in spirit possession focused on
the experience of possession and the role it plays in the
contestation of resistance to cultural attitudes and rules.
This called for focused interviews with individuals who have
experienced possession. By amplifying the individual's
experience within a given cultural context, I have attempted
to link agency with structure. I focused on the sequence of
possession events and my interviews involved extended
dialogues centered around the individual's perception and
interpretation of those events. To acquire additional
information about past events, I collected the life
histories and memories of these women.

I also interviewed women who had never experienced
possession. The interviews focused on their perceptions of

spirit possession, the "possessed" and the types of persons

13
who are most vulnerable to possession by spirits. I
elicited their responses to certain private possession
episodes and their interpretation of what was going on.
This has enriched my data and helped me to see/interpret the
events from different social positions. I also questioned
them on their life problems (dukh) and life-stresses (pira)
and the logic behind the strategies they came up with to
cope with them.

The knowledge of indigenous cosmology is essential to
understanding the underlying structure and logic of the
praxis. I documented in detail the symbols, patterns,
hymns, and spirits associated with each possession ritual.

I interviewed individuals at length on the categories and
methods of classification of spirits that are known to
possess people and the myths and legends associated with
those spirits in order to understand the hierarchical
structure of the local pantheon and its relation to pan-
Indic patterns.

After my return from the field, I found myself
searching for a coherent story, sifting through the various
ambiguities, multiplicities and contradictions of "facts" in
the fieldnotes and "headnotes." As an ethnographer, I was
faced with not only the incongruity in the fieldnotes but
the task of ferreting out the logic and structure that
underlie the contradictions and inconsistencies in the data.

Another task that troubled me was trying to be authentic in

l4
representing peOple’s lives, while not running the risk of
disclosing information that would hurt my informants. In
order to maintain the confidentiality of people’s lives, I
have taken the authorial license to create composite
characters. I am aware that, in a sense, I manipulated the
data. However, I have been careful to maintain their
authority by documenting stories about them and trying not

to be a ventriloquist by speaking for them.

Chapter 2

Theoretical Considerations

Historically, since the emergence of medical
anthropology in the 19708, medical anthropologists have
appropriated a number of key terms and concepts from
biomedical discourse. However, in recent years the field of
medical anthropology has had to face a barrage of criticism
for its rampant medical bias in its treatment of biomedicine
as a "natural system." It has been accused of being a
handmaiden to biomedicine and hence to capitalism.

The regular appearance in medical anthropological texts
of such terms as health, illness, disease, clinical reality‘
and cure indicates the inheritance by medical
anthropologists of the assumptions that underlie the
biomedical model, the most important assumption being the
mind-body dichotomy. This inheritance has been a serious
handicap in cross-cultural research, as a growing body of
evidence suggests that the biomechanistic model is anything
but universal (Kleinman 1988, Scheper-Hughes and Lock 1990,

Taussig 1980).

15

16

Drawing most heavily from the poststructuralist genre
of Foucault and the feminist philosopher Susan Sontag,
Scheper-Hughes (1990), in a vigorous critique of the
reification of medical anthropology, has raised some
epistemological issues and confronted the limits and
cultural assumptions of scientific thought. She argues
(along with Taussig 1980, Comaroff 1982, 1985 and Young
1982) that the objectification of illness and healing into
isolable entities has lead to the medicalization of every
complaint and disorder, even of social problems, and to the
conceptualization of the body as a machine and of illness as
purely a biological phenomenon. Further, Comaroff (1982)
points out that the same existential questions are raised
when exploring both the explanations of disease and the
explanations of the divine. Hence, this leads to the
creation of artificial categories in analysis and to the
conclusion that there may well be a religious dimension in
all forms of healing.

Taussig (1980) has shown how, in modern society, by
denying the human elements embodied in symptoms, signs and
therapy, we "mystify" them and "reproduce a political
ideology" in the guise of science. He delineates two'
themes: (1) the reification of symptoms, signs and
treatment, and (2) the medicalization of social problems.
This reification shifts attention away from the

contradictions of social structure to focus instead on the

17
problems of the individual. This leads to treating symptoms
and signs as "things" instead of focusing on institutions,
which are the root cause of the symptoms. Taussig also
points out that illness and healing, far from being
biological phenomena, are "ideological practices" that
reproduce social relationships and that are products of
particular historical and social processes.

Echoing Taussig's sentiments, Scheper-Hughes calls for
the "demedicalization of life in modern society," and
suggests that we look at social realities like "affliction,"
for "ours must be an anthropology of affliction and not
simply an anthropology of medicine" (1990:197). This point
has been amplified by several others who advocate that we
look beyond illness and disease experiences to other life
experiences such as suffering (Hahn 1984), misfortune
(Worsley 1982) or sickness (Young 1982).

The medicalization of research on spirit possession is
one such example (cf. Csordas 1987). The fundamental
tension between the reductive and mechanistic model derived
from biomedical research and context-related
phenomenological studies is magnified in the case of spirit
possession research. The emphasis on the somatization of
spirit possession reduces the whole analysis to the
biological body.

I find Scheper-Hughes' invitation to an "anthropology

of affliction" very appealing. She resists

18
compartmentalizing and reducing human experience to one
domain of human experience--the medical domain--and proposes
that we take into consideration other aspects of culture
such as social, political, personal and aesthetic aspects.
This suggestion resonates with the model proposed by Good
and Good, who are antagonistic to the mechanistic and
reductionistic model of biomedicine, and who propose to
view culture "as configurations of meaning and discourse in
terms of which human reality is constituted" (1981:174).
They recognize that for an effective analysis of human
action we need to explore the dialectics between the
individual (who shapes and is shaped by the structural
forces) and the structure.. The biomedical model, by
focusing on the individual, reduces the experience to
individual biology. Those who focus on the individual
emphasizing the psychological aspects are equally
problematic for they reduce complex reality to constructions
of individual psychology. This is to say that the trend
suggested by Scheper-Hughes (1990), Young (1982) and Hahn
(1984) is of great import not only in medical anthropology
but in anthropology in general.

Recently, anthropology as a whole has seen a
theoretical reformulation, a reconfiguration of theories in
which the dialectic between the individual and structure has
become the central concern. This theoretical shift gained

its momentum from the poststructuralist emphasis on actor-

19
oriented anthropology and from feminist scholarship, which
centralizes the subjects and their actual experience. By
understanding the logic embedded in the dialectical
relationship between the individual and the structure, we
hope to get a picture of how structure defines the social
reality and how the people within that structure define
themselves. This helps to deconstruct our own concepts and
biases to present how the cultural context of the society
influences the definition of Individual and provides us with
tools to effectively portray the Other. So, it is no
surprise that psychological anthropology has resurfaced with
its emphasis on the study of how the self needs to be
defined within a cultural context known as the behavioral
environment.’ ‘Within the culture and personality school of
thought, Individual was seen as culture writ large, as an
automaton, a puppet working under the direction of culture.
The new theoretical insights from postmodernism,
poststructuralism and feminist works have pointed out that
the individual is an active agent interacting with others to
contest, negotiate and construct a meaningful and viable
world. Another critical insight has been in the revision of
the meaning of everyday life to uncover the "subversive"
meaning and intent that lie behind the most ordinary and

mundane activities (Bakhtin 1984, Comaroff 1985, de Certeau

 

2 This has been pointed out by Ortner (1984), Marsella,
DeVos & Hsu (1985), Jackson and Karp (1990).

20
1984, Taussig 1987).

These shifts in the focus of contemporary cultural
anthropology have resulted in bracketing the researcher’s
concepts and categories and in attending to the local
constructions of logic and concepts in order to interpret
and convey the experience of the Other (Clifford and Marcus
1986; Marcus and Fischer 1987). The anthropological
discussions of the experience of the Other have been
informed by Husserl's concept of lebenswelt--life world--
which is central to the analysis of the relationship between
the individual and his/her taken-for-granted world. This
perspective enables us to discern the relationship between
the individual's experience of human suffering and the
context in which the individual's experience is embedded.
This accentuation on experience in the study of the
dialectics of self and culture brings under examination
certain key concepts proposed by psychological
anthropologists--namely self, personhood and the body. In
fact, Scheper-Hughes (1994) characterizes the decade of the
19808 as "theoretically driven by a concern with the
overlapping domains of body, self, emotion, reflexivity and
resistance" (229).

Several studies have suggested embodiment as a central
paradigm in medical anthropology (Scheper-Hughes 1994,
Csordas 1990). Csordas implicates "embodiment" as a

"methodological paradigm" in the study of culture and self,

21

with the "body" as the productive starting point. The body
possessed by spirit, according to Csordas, becomes the space
for interaction with the spirit. Hence it is not surprising,
Csordas argues, that possession is often restricted to
somatic changes or illness. But Csordas points out that the
"body" is the "existential ground of culture" (l990:5) where
social, political and moral issues are dealt with.

Body has always been a topic of interest among
structuralists and symbolists, who see an exchange in the
meaning between the social and natural worlds.
Traditionally, concern for the body meant recognizing the
extent to which bodily considerations mirror the concerns of
the group, emphasizing coherence and continuity. The body,
thus, emerged as the microcosm of the social world,
embodying and naturalizing the social structure in this
process.

In her classic study of cosmologies, Mary Douglas
(1966, 1970:11-18) draws our attention to the symbolic
equations between the natural human body and the associated
social systems and points out that the control of the
natural body reflects the axis of control of the social
body--the social structure. Highlighting the theme of the
human body as a "natural symbol," Douglas (1970293) states
that:

The social body constrains the way the physical

body is perceived. The physical experience of the

body, always modified by the social categories
through which it is known, sustains a particular

22

view of the society. There is a continual exchange

of meanings between the two kinds of bodily

experience so that each reinforces the other. As a

result of this interaction the body itself is a

highly restricted medium of expression.

There have been numerous monographs that stress this
homologous association between the human body and social
structure, showing how body is used as a cognitive map to
represent native cosmology, village structure, social
categories and identities. For example, T. Turner (1980 in
Scheper-Hughes 1994), writing about how societies reproduce
the kind of bodies they need, developed the concept of
"social skin" to express how the social categories are
"inscribed” on the body-self. He describes the body as a
"symbolic stage upon which the drama of socialization is
enacted" (1980:112 in Scheper—Hughes 1994).

Body symbolism works on several levels. Foucault
(1979, 1980) goes beyond the "social skin," with its
emphasis on coherence and consensus, to reveal the violated,
defeated, and fragmented bodies in order to show the effect
of political struggle operating on the body. In her essay
"Embodied Knowledge” (1994), Scheper-Hughes notes the
importance of the "Foucaultian body" in stimulating critical
thinking in contemporary medical anthropology. The
interpretive medical anthropologists eagerly appropriated

this third level of body symbolismr-body politic-~with their

concern for the alienated, afflicted, and suffering body.

23

Scheper-Hughes and Lock (1987), following Mary Douglas
(1966, 1970), regard the human body as a "natural symbol."
They prescribe a view of the body as a site for a power
struggle for personal, social and political ends. Borrowing
the concept of "embodied personhood" from B. Turner (1982).
"social skin" from T. Turner (1980) and "biopower" of
Foucault’s body politic, they try to relate the sentient
body to its social and political aspects.

Deconstructing the biological view of body, Scheper-
Hughes and Lock (1990) suggest viewing the body as a
"symbolic artifact," naturally and culturally constructed; a
jproduct of historical process. They focus and analyze
medical anthropology’s body along three axes which correlate
to the three epistemologies in anthropology:

(1) Body-self, which relates to the phenomenology of body
or lived-experience

(2) Social-body, or the image of the body as reflected in
social relationships and social structure and in
epistemological issues raised by structural-
functionalism and structuralism

(3) Body-politic, refering to social and political control
as emphasized by poststructuralism as a domain of
inquiry

These three levels of analysis are separate but overlapping.

According to Scheper—Hughes (1994), the "body" in critical

medical anthropology emerges as a space (she calls it

24
terrain/locus) where social truths and contradictions are
reproduced, and as a space for contestation, negotiation and
creativity.

One caveat, however, comes from the Kleinmans who have
often been criticized for their emphasis on clinical reality
to account for illness. They write (1991:276):

The interpretation of some person’s or group’s

suffering as the reproduction of oppressive

relationships of production or the symbolization

of dynamic conflicts in the interior of the self,

or as resistance to authority, is a transformation

of everyday experience of the same order as those

who pathologize reconstructions within

biomedicine. Nor is it morally superior to

anthropologize distress, rather than medicalize

it. . .illness is reinterpreted as social role,

social strategy, or social symbol. . .anything but

social experience. . .we are suggesting that

anthropological analysis (of pain, passion and

power) are at the risk of delegitimating their

subject matter's human conditions.

Scheper-Hughes (1994) also notes that what is missing from
the body social and body politic is the human agent. What
is being ignored is the existential and lived experience of
the body-self. And I would add here, that before we talk
about the phenomenological aspects of the body--body as
lived experience--we need to define the cultural
construction of the physical body and the sensing body-- the
body inhabited by us every day.

Approaching the notion of the body along the three axes
is an useful heuristic device, but it has neglected the
cultural construction of the physical and sensing body--as

an embodiment of experience. Although Scheper-Hughes and

25
Lock's conceptualization of the body seems to confirm and
reinforce the Hindu self as sociocentric, this is an
incorrect interpretation. As we will see later in this
chapter, Marriott has shown that there is continuity between
a Hindu person and his or her physical and social world, a
view that holds the Hindu personhood as dynamic and always
transforming. This misinterpretation hints at the need for
consideration of cultural conceptualization of self, body
and personhood and resonates the call for emphasis on
"embodied agency."

Scheper-Hughes and Lock locate a number of events where
mind and body, self and other, become one. They point out
that these events are "seething with emotions," an
experience of "mindful body." One such event is spirit
possession, a domain where the experience and perception of
the body, from the conceptualization of the self and
personhood, is integrated, experienced and expressed
(1987:29). Thus exploring spirit possession, my area of
research, was an important point of entry into the
ethnopsychological conceptualization of the Jaunsari peOple.
My research focuses on how people make meaning in their
daily life (the ”production of meaning"), how they seek to
predict and control events and how they deal with
existential issues of human conditions. My line of analysis
is guided by insights from phenomenology and social

interactionism with its focus on subjective experience in

26
human suffering.

Within the broad formulations of structure and
agency, the power of theory lies in connecting everyday life
experiences to the social institutions which shape and
define them. By making these connections concrete, the
social institutions may be seen as real aspects of daily
experience and activity. Since people come to know the
world through their everyday life activities, it becomes
imperative for ethnographers to focus on the daily lives of
the people they write about.

By teasing out the meanings embedded in the links
between daily life and social institutions, we begin to
understand the construction of self as a dynamic social
process, the product of everyday life. By calling attention
to the specific experiences of Jaunsari women who are
possessed by spirits, I am calling attention to a social
phenomenon which brings about changes in the daily lives of
these women. By focusing on everyday life, I will be able
to identify changes in the social relations of individuals
possessed by spirits, and also be able to examine how this
restructuring of social relations affects and brings about
transformations in the self. The self is "altered" when one
is possessed by a spirit. Through spirit possession, one's
”former self" as defined by certain social relations, is
transformed by the spirit and becomes actively engaged. The

"altered self" or the "emergent self" is therefore my

27
central concern, as it brings to light the dynamic concept
of self and more specifically the relationship between
spirit possession and the reconfiguration of the social
relations of the individuals possessed by spirits.

My main argument is that spirit possession has healing
powers since it provides an articulation of suffering and
affliction as well as an interpretation of contradictions
and tensions in the social order. The healing process
involves a continuous and persistent attempt to make this
possession meaningful. By providing a new meaning for the
experience of possession, women are able to transform their

sense of self and recontextualize their experience.

In the Quest of a nggpn Language; Sggagtigg of Spirit
Po 9 n

Though the belief in possession by spirits is found in
many societies3, the experience of possession, as
ethnographic documents reveal, is manifestly different in
each. Notwithstanding the limitations of taxonomy,
classification and typologies, some sort of general language
is necessary, argue those interested in cross-cultural

comparison. Literature on spirit possession is replete with

 

3 Bourgignon (1973) has found that in a sample of 488
societies in.all parts of the world, 437 (90%) are reported to
have one or more institutionalized, culturally patterned forms
of "altered states of consciousness;" 251 (52%) of these
societies associate such experiences with spirit possession.

28

terms such as possession trance, trance, spirit-mediumship,
shamanism, alternative states of consciousness, altered
states of consciousness, exorcism,and adrocism, to name a
few. A critical glance at the distinction between trance
and possession as propounded by Bourguignon (1976) reveals
artificial clustering of a range of otherwise diverse
cultural phenomena (Lambek 1989:37) and smacks of a
naturalizing paradigm, a powerful mechanism of legitimation
in western discourse. Boddy (1994) cautions that although
these arbitrary terms and typologies provide a heuristic
device for comparative purposes, these are achieved at the
expense of context and reflect analysts’ theoretical
perspective, personal inclinations, and cultural baggage,
and can obstruct the complexities of the phenomenon they
analyze.

The definition of spirit possession I find most useful
is a state or condition, indigenously interpreted,
resulting from.the hold exerted over a human being by
external forces more powerful than the host. These external
forces may be deities, human ancestral spirits, or ghosts of
local and foreign origin. The external force may also be
another living human with special powers, as in the case of
witches (daag). The hold exerted on the host varies and may
take specific forms requiring different treatment-~from
expulsion of an intrusive spirit to the binding of the

spirit to the host.

29

This definition includes those states heuristically
distinguished by Bourguignon as "trance," and "possession
trance" and by Firth as "spirit possession," "spirit
mediumship," and "shamanism." Interestingly, all the
typologies and classifications rest on assumptions that lie
at the heart of the naturalizing paradigm. As pointed out
by Lambek (1989:39), in Lewis’s model "spirits are amoral
creatures in settings in which peripheral and subordinate
members of the society (notably women) are possessed,
whereas spirits uphold morality in societies where it is
those in authority (notably men) who enter into trance."
This results in the reification and polarization of the main
and peripheral cults and the ignoring of intermediate cases.

In a similar way, Bourguignon (1976) indicates the
correlation between the type of social organization and the
presence of trance or possession with simpler societies more
prone to possession than strong hierarchical societies who
are more likely to show trance. Again this distinction
suffers from the naturalization of cultural practices.

The definition that I proposed earlier in this section
derives from the particular belief system prevalent in the
culture I was observing. In my proposal, I had made a
distinction between possession and trance that was
essentially similar to Bourguignon's. However, on my first
visit with a woman healer, this distinction fell apart. My

innocent inquiry, "do you call the spirit (i.e., go into

30
trance voluntarily, hence indicating authority) or does the
spirit come to you (indicating involuntary act)?" was met
with an angry reply. "I may call the spirit all day long
but the spirit will come if it so wishes." Ultimately then,
what is at issue is not the distinctions used to build
typologies for cross-cultural comparison but the idea of
trance and/or possession as a "human social and historical
activity constrained by cultural models“ (Lambek 1989:36).

Among the Paharis of Jaunsar-Bawar, there are a number
of terms that are comparable to the English term "spirit
possession" defined above. The most common expression is
bharna. Until the spirit is identified, that is until the
time a diagnosis is reached, the villagers may simply refer
to the person as being troubled by dhat, or, they may
directly label the symptom: trembling (Rampan), fainting
(phit), paralysis (sun), or grunts or monosyllabic sounds
(matribhasha). These movements, are however, differentially
evaluated. For example, if the movements are graceful, it
is believed to be Khel--movement induced by a deity, while
jerky movements are believed to be induced by nefarious
spirits, referred to as dhat or chaya.

When a person performs khel, the spirit is said to
"come" (ana), "ride" (chardna), or "inhabit” (vaas). When a
person becomes dispossessed, the bharna is said to "come
down" (bhar utarna). The host is said to become the vehicle

(dbli/dori), signifying that the relationship between the

31

host and the deity may be a permanent one. When a deity of
the highest order comes regularly to the same healer, he (as
mostly men are possessed by the "all powerful" gods) is said
to be "descended incarnations" (avatars) and to have a
sthan-a throne of some sort—-implying the power of the king
to dispense justice. Gold (1988) reports that in Rajasthan
the priests, while possessed, may be referred to as cauki--a
square stool. She cites Komal Kothari's (1982:31)
understanding of the meaning of cauki--as a "judicial seat,"
and hence shrines, by extension, become a space where
justice and morality are defined, constituted and dispensed.

When the possession by spirits that enter the human
body is not desirable, the spirits are referred to as
attached (dhat lagna), jerky movement (kampan) or shadow
(chaya). These metaphors refer to a spirit which strikes,
attacks, or invades the possessed person, and hence is
potentially maleficent. Gold (1988) interprets chaya as
connoting benevolence and protection (as in shade from the
sun); however, the narratives I collected always refer to
chaya as frightening and polluting-—in this context the term
shadow connotes darkness (for example, frightened by its own
shadow or a priest getting polluted by a low-caste person's
shadow).

Desirable or positive spirit possession is evidenced by
khel, which calls to mind another term, lila, a word

referred in South Asian literature meaning "divine play."

32
Gold (1988) calls our attention to the continuities between
the play of such deities as khel and lila, and refers to the
play as theatrical play. The use of the word khelna for
possession was reported by Carstairs (1961) in Mewar, by
Wadley (1975) in Uttar Pradesh, and Erndl in Punjab (1984,
cited in Gold 1988). In contrast, the word lila (divine
play) refers to "playing" of great divinities or gods with
the highest powers. Ramlila (Lord Ram’s divine play) and
Pandavlila (or.mandavana in local parlance) staged in
Jaunsar-Bawar are popular dramatic renditions about
incarnations of great divinities such as Ram, the hero-god
of Ramayan, and Pandavas, the heroes of Mahabharat--two epic
legends also celebrated in other parts of India.

Another aspect of possession in Jaunsar-Bawar is worth
mentioning. In the literature on spirit possession all over
the world, possession by spirit is always manifested by a
set of very similar symptoms: trembling, shaking, panting,
abrupt gestures, graceful dancing, and/or glossolalia. Even
the Jaunsari children mimic these classic symptoms of spirit
possession. However, not all who are believed to be
possessed show these symptoms. The Jaunsaris also recognize
latent possession--possession by spirits without the classic
symptoms clearly indicating possession.

Here I am referring to signs which may be considered as
an indication of possession. For example, successive deaths

in a family may be diagnosed as the result of a spirit which

33
has possessed the house or, a child crying incessantly may
be diagnosed as being spirit possessed. In this context,
then, miscarriage, sterility, disease and death may be
interpreted as signs of possession. These are cases of
indirect attack by the external force.4 In considering
cases of spirit possession, Jaunsaris do face the problem of
authenticity. Is the possessed feigning?

In all the cases mentioned above, one could apply the
definition of spirit possession delineated earlier in this
section, in the sense that possession refers to an
indigenously recognized state of being as under the control
of an external force, either directly or indirectly. There
is then, arguably, a case for applying the term spirit
possession as a blanket term for viewing all possessions
prevalent in Jaunsar-Bawar. However, to explicate the
richness of the phenomenon under study, I have used
indigenous categories in the analysis of my data, while at
the same time recognizing that the term possession means a
range of behavior. In doing so I am facilitating comparison
with similar phenomena in other parts of the world.

I will now proceed, after this lengthy discussion of
some of the terminological and contextual concerns, to the
discussion of the various frameworks under consideration

here.

 

‘ Nuckolls (1991) has a very fitting term for victims
of such indirect attack --moral hostages.

34

E l E ll SI 1 E S . . E . :

Belief in magic, witchcraft and spirit possession have
long held a special fascination for anthropologists and
continue to capture the anthropological interest. One can,
in reviewing the literature on spirit possession, easily
trace the discipline's theoretical evolution and detect the
pulse of the current academic scene (Boddy 1994). For
example, the study of spirit possession has become
important in two major topics of theoretical interest
reflecting the fashion of the time:

(1) embodiment as a paradigm for Anthropology (Scheper-

Hughes 1994, Csordas 1990, Stoller 1989, Taussig 1993),
(2) selfhood or identity as culturally constituted and

reconstituted (Boddy 1989, Brown 1991, Corin 1994,

Crapanzano 1980, Lambek 1993, Taussig 1987).

Both of these concerns resonate the current concerns of the
discipline as a whole in its emphasis on praxis/practice
theory and the representation of the Other.

In recent years, two major review essays have traced
the movement and trajectories of various theoretical and
epistemological debates on spirit possession and suggested
where they might be going (Boddy 1994, Lambek 1989). Boddy
and Lambek both concur that traditionally anthropologists,
in considering spirit possession primarily in its practical,

instrumental and physical manifestations, have limited

35
their study to the medical dimension.5 They address the
need to conceptualize spirit possession as a "human social
and historical activity constrained by cultural models"
(Lambek 1989:36) and to locate this activity in the
reconstitution of self and identity (Boddy 1988, 1984). The
turning point, according to Boddy (1994), was the
publication of Crapanzano and Garrison's collection case
Studies in Spirit Possession (1977). The trend they see,
and as several recent studies indicate, is toward
transcending the subdivisions within anthropology (Medical,
Religions, Conflict Resolving) to locate spirit possession
in the wider social and historical contexts. Presented
below are some of the salient debates which have informed my
framework and questions that I have raised.

Numerous theories have attempted to explain the
phenomenon of spirit possession. Functionalist perspectives
have examined the role of spirit possession in promoting
social cohesion (Berreman 1972), and in providing a means
for low-status individuals to manipulate their social
position in a stratified society (Lewis 1988). Other
researchers have focused on the role of spirit possession
in alleviating individuals’ anxiety over failure (Freed and

Freed 1990) and managing stress (Lewis 1988; Crapanzano &

 

5 Csordas has pointed out that this progressive
medicalization of spirit possession is very typical of
Anglo-American literature and in contrast French studies of
spirit possession have emphasized the religious, aesthetic
and most importantly the quotidian relevance.

36
Garrison 1977) and mental illness (Skultans 1987).

Psychiatric and psychoanalytic perspectives have been
prominent in studies of spirit possession, especially in
South Asia. Kakar’s (1982:82) exegesis of Indian systems of
"mental health" recognizes spirit possession as a cultural
phenomenon, but focuses mainly on the individual. Kakar
moves from a context mode to a text mode, locating healing
in a psychoanalytic explanatory framework. Obeyesekere
(1981) analyses ascetic-ecstatic women who have left their
home to become "priestesses;" his interpretation emphasizes
the role of repressed desire in possession states.
Carstairs and Kapur (1976) characterize possession simply
as the manifestation of "hysterical" symptoms; similarly,
Varma, Srivastava and Sahay (1970) and Teja, Khanna and
Subrahmanyan (1970) treat possession as a psychiatric
problem.of the same order as anxiety, depression, and
psychosis.

Classic functionalist studies argue that women use
possession to protest their subordinate status, describing
possession as "a war between the sexes." Psychiatric and
psychoanalytic studies tap the old idea of women’s presumed
susceptibility to "hysteria." While both perspectives make
valuable points, they do not attend closely to two
significant problems: (1) the recognition of spirit
possession as a process through which women (and men) make

sense of the problematic of everyday life; (2) the social

37
and psychological differences between people who participate
in possession and those who do not.

Several recent studies on spirit possession incorporate
the key concepts from feminist anthropology and
ethnopsychology and offer useful conceptual guidelines for
an actor-oriented, meaning-centered approach to spirit
possession (Boddy 1988, Claus 1984, Nichter 1981). These
studies view spirit possession as a culturally appropriate
medium through which women address the contradictions in a
society that legitimizes male dominance and as a social
reality in which women actually exercise a significant
degree of power. This raises questions, for each local
setting, of whether and how women are "empowered" by spirit
possession. Does spirit possession constitute an experience
of "power" and "control" for Jaunaris? What does this mean
in women's own terms? In what ways is "power" gained
through possession reflected in the domestic sphere? TheSe
questions emphasize the importance of interpreting themes
and images in narratives of possession. A

Boddy (1988), for example, analyzes spirit possession
as an experience in which possession trancers expand and
regenerate their own sense of self and recontextualize their
experiences; she raises fundamental questions of gender
identity and selfhood. She draws on the relationship
between sexuality and fertility, and identifies them both

as domains which define gender identity on the one hand and

38
the social and cultural construction of self on the other.
Spirit possession is seen as a cultural experience which
helps the participants interpret themselves and their
society.

Kapferer’s (1991) analysis of demonic exorcism in
Buddhist Sri-Lanka, which is derived from Mead's theory of
social interactionism, shows how healing constitutes a
permanent removal of the spirit, which not only breaks down
the patient's disturbed self but rebuilds her original self.

Both Kapferer and Boddy in their analysis in Sri Lanka
and Sudan, respectively, go beyond a simplistic explanation
as to why women more often than men experience possession.
It is true that in specific cases, factors like feelings of
oppression, status ambiguity and inner psyche disturbances
may motivate women to possession by spirits. And
interestingly, the attributes of spirits correspond to
cultural typification or constructs about the essential
nature of women. For example, menstruation, and child birth,
which define "womanhood," are considered polluted states and
as such are vulnerable to spirit attacks. Further, women's
domestic activities expose them more frequently to polluting
objects such as cleansing dirty dishes and clothes.

These perspectives also examine spirit possession as a
system of communication. Spirits may be seen as symbolic of
symptoms and spirit possession as an idiom for certain kinds
of illnesses. Thus socially sanctioned behavior interpreted

as spirit possession takes the place of stigmatized or

39
deviant behavior and is interpreted as illness. Some
researchers see illness as an idiom for possession, a way of
articulating the feeling that one may be possessed.

Claus (1984) uses symbolic and cultural approaches to
examine the meaning and symbolism of spirit possession in
Tululand (India) and to highlight the significant categories
through which possessed individuals define and differentiate
their possessing spirits. Addressing the limitations of
viewing the phenomenon of spirit possession in medical
terms, he calls for an "ethnography of spirit possession,"
which is "the documentation of the process by which
individual experience comes to be interpreted through a
system of collective Symbols" (61). Thus this approach
explores the dialectic between the individual and the
meaning system.which is socially and culturally
constructed.

Using a similar meaning-centered approach, my framework
is based on the necessity of understanding spirit possession
in terms of its symbolic nature and the dynamic meanings
this has in the ongoing lived world of people. My attempt
has been to demonstrate how Jaunsaris articulate and
conceptualize suffering and find ways to cope with it in a
given social order. For example, I have tried to
demonstrate how women have appropriated religious metaphors
and other idioms to address and cope with the ambiguities
and complexities that result from a social order structured

by polyandry. My effort here is an attempt to move toward a

40
theory which examines women’s activities and women
themselves in order to make visible their experiences.

In my analysis of Jaunsari culture and spirit
possession rituals, I have paid special attention to
narratives of possession. I am especially interested by the
way the narratives are organized, have a particular syntax
and meaning order. The narrative here is approached here
from a "critical phenomenological perspective" as espoused
by Good (1994), who is interested in exploring the
”imaginative linking of experiences and events into a
meaningful story or plot" (118). Drawing upon studies of
phenomenologists who studied individuals with
psychopathology and other disabilities, Good (1994) examines
dimensions of perception and the perceived world as an
approach to understanding illness and experience.

The narratives of illness, Good argues, have less to do
with affective dimensions of experience (as these sensual
and affective dimensions resist objectification to symbolic
forms). So he suggests that we focus on how dimensions of
the perceived world are "unmade," broken down or altered, as
a result of serious illness, as well as on the restitutive
process of the "remaking" of the world” (131). This
narrative turn in writing on illness experience, illuminates
how illness and its experience are constituted through
interpretive practices.

The restitutive process, according to Good, involves

two linked interpretive practices: (a) symbolization, and

41
(b) narrativization. He shows in his study of chronic pain
experience, that the diagnosis itself is a form of
symbolization. It is in the interpretive process in which
the origin of suffering is "invoked." The symbolic naming
of the source or origin of suffering serves not as a simple
metaphor or as a reflection of disorder in the social
structure; rather it serves to "formulate" the object of
treatment and hence organize a set of social responses and
therapeutic activities. Good (1994) argues that one of the
central efforts in healing is to symbolize the source of
suffering to find an image around which a narrative can take
shape. He directs our attention to the provocative analysis
of the role of symbolization among the Dinka, by Godfrey
Lienhardt. In the case of the Dinka, the possessing spirits
represent the grounds of Dinka experience. To name the
origin of suffering is thus a crucial step in remaking the
world.

Narrativization, on the other hand, is a process
through which "the lifeworld is reconstituted" (133).
Narrativization, as defined by Good, is a process of
"locating suffering in history, of placing events in a
meaningful order in time. It also has the object of opening
the future to a positive ending, of enabling the sufferer to
imagine a means of overcoming adversity and the kinds of
activities that would allow life experiences to mirror the

projected story" (1994: 128).

42

Narrativization is about "why" a certain event occurs,
"when" and "how" it does. Consequently, the event is placed
in time, history, place, and in the context of lived
experience and the social world --"its effect on the body in
the world" (133). In his proposal for a theory of illness
experience, Good has assigned central place to narrative
analysis. The narrative analysis enables us to understand
the experience of an event by placing this event in relation
to other events and in experience in life. And as we shall
see, the narratives I have collected are inevitably derived
from the lived experience and the lifeworld of Jaunsari
people, filled with spiritual forces, cosmological
prescriptions, Dharma and other such practices and
ideologies that regulate structures of social relations and
power. And as a number of anthropological studies have
pointed out, an illness event is held as a moral event and
accordingly invokes "moralizing judgements" and becomes a
source of "contested judgements” (Good 1994:134). The
ethnographer's task then, is to uncover and anticipate the
underlying symbolic structures in cultural terms, elucidate
potential meaning and illustrate how these structures and
meaning give form to "distinctive forms of lived
experience."

To see the world from the other's point of view is to
discern the interpretive practices and structures that
people employ is to make sense of their subjective

experience. In my analysis of spirit possession in

.. , _.d_

43
Jaunsar, I will use three analytical concepts from Good ’s
(1994 :135-164) analysis of Turkish epilepsy narratives.
These concepts are: emplotting, subjunctivizing, and
positioning. The "emplotment" of an event refers to the
plot through which an ordered story is constructed and
authored. So there is an underlying structure to a story
and there is an engagement of the reader in the sense making
of the story. In the case of an illness, the plots are
about predicament, a continuous endeavor, and suffering.
These stories give texture and meaning to the larger life
story and uncover the various ambiguities and contradictions
that exist in culture and at the same time bring coherence
to events.

As the story unfolds from one event to the next, Good
points out, the story becomes more diversified and
mmltireferential; new episodes introduce new twists and
opens up potentials for reevaluation of the past events, and
hence the motives, intentions and context. This is what
Good (1994) describes as the "subjunctivizing" of illness
narratives. The subjunctive mode of narratives are
maintained by the provisional quality of the story in which
new events alter the story or a new angle thrown in by a
different narrator or a telling of the story in a different
way. All these give a "creative potency" to the story. Good
argues that this indeterminacy of the illness reality
fosters a continuing reevaluation and reinterpretation of

past events and reopens new possibilities for the future.

44
Thus, the subjunctivizing tactics of narratives provide
insight into the nature of illness experience.

The narrative "positioning" of suffering refers to the
pragmatic of illness narratives. The narratives are
intersubjective and dialogically constructed. The stories
are positioned among authors, narrators and audience and
reveal the structure of social relations and power.

In choosing to explore spirit possession, its meaning
and experiences in narrative form, I situate my work in the
line developed by Boddy (1988), Good (1977, 1994), Kapferer
(1991), Kleinman & Kleinman (1991). and Scheper-Hughes
(1994), stemming from the traditions of existentialism,
phenomenology and social interactionism" For guiding my
analysis, I will begin by considering the embodiment of
spirit possession from the perspective of practice theory; I
will identify the process of symbolization accomplished
first by the diagnosis of spirit possession and later, by
the whole process of initiation and healing. In the
conclusion, I will discuss three key ideas--body, affliction
(dosh) and spirits--that locate these processes in Jaunsari

culture and society.

S . 'l E . . I E .

Belief in possession by spirits is common throughout
India (Babb 1975; Berreman 1972; Castairs and Kapur 1976;

Claus 1984; Crooke 1896; Freed and Freed 1990; Kakar 1982;

45
Majumdar 1962). Spirit possession figures in popular belief
and also in ancient texts such as the Mahabharata and the
Puranas. Jaunsar-Bawar, in the western Himalayan hill tract
of Uttar Pradesh, shows important continuities with all-
India Hinduism, while it also provides a unique social'
context in which to examine questions about women and spirit
possession.

Religious life in Jaunsar-Bawar is primarily concerned
with maintaining proper relations with the supernatural
beings who control the village and family life (Berreman
1972). Many of their spirits can be traced to the great
gods and goddesses of Hinduism, but others cannot.
Possession is a common means of diagnosing and alleviating
difficulties of different kinds. Its nature varies with the
type of spirits involved.

Spirit possession is related to the position of women
in India in general and in Jaunsar-Bawar in particular. In
Indian society, according to some scholars, women are subor-
dinate to men and experience a variety of physical and
social conflicts (cf. Ghadially 1988). Women do not enjoy
the same prestige and authority that men are accorded, and
the vast majority of public roles in rural Indian society
are not available to women. The notion of male superiority
and the cultural belief that a husband has authority over
his wife gives rise to a gender-based hierarchy. However,
if we go beyond formal authority and investigate specific

ways that women use their power, we see that they do

46
influence and manage the men in their lives and their own
lives as well (Wadley 1980).

My study focuses first on spirit possession as a
village institution. Areas addressed include: (1) types of
spirits and their relationship to the deities of the local
Hindu pantheon; (2) the incidence of possession among
various social categories; (3) the range of "possession
performances" from public festivals to private episodes; and
(4) the attributes and activities of ritual specialists who
deal with possession. I am especially interested in the.
language of possession performances, its images of male and
female, and its representations of "power.”

Focusing on the phenomenon of spirit possession among
Jaunsari women, I found that experience of spirit possession
cannot be understood in terms of symptoms and illness,
rather the experience has to be understood as being deeply
embedded in the social fabric of Jaunsari social and
cultural order and explored for its social, political and
personal implications.

Because spirit possession is essentially an act of
intrusion by an external force, it is not surprising to find
metaphors in possession narratives which reflect concerns of
maintaining boundaries. In my analysis of "symbolic
structures" of spirit possession, I found elements that
correspond to many classic concepts that characterize Hindu

thought and action, namely, concepts of self, personhood and

47
body. The underlying principles that were generated from
these cultural patterns were the principles of balance,
becoming, functioning, flowing, channeling, maintaining,
mixing and transforming. These underlying principles
constitute the Transactional Logic that inform Hindu thought
and action.

Marriott (1976:111) directs our attention to the
elaborate transactional and transformational culture of
Hindus in the representations in.Dharmasastra and other
epics on such topics as marriage and gift giving. He cites
several ethnographies that document the elaborations in
actual activities and institutional regulations such as
feasts (Marriott 1968), and service and trade (David 1973).
The classical texts of caraka and Susruta that document
views about health and diet relate the intricacies of
transactional and transformational logic.

The Hindu body, Marriott reports, according to
classical texts is made up of phlegm, bile and air and these
elements are "fluid" and therefore "movable," "mixable,"
"combinable" and "divisible," and in varying proportions are
all pervasive in the world of humans. unlike the Western
self that is closed, bounded, and mutually integrated, the
Hindu person is open and always in flux. As a result, the
Hindu self is constantly conscious of maintaining its
boundary and hence its social identity through appropriate

interactions and transactions.

48

Despite the perennial theorizing in South Asian
literature in terms of binary opposition--purity or
pollution, egocentric or sociocentric, and spirit or body-—
it was clearly evident that there is continuity between a
Hindu person and his or her social and physical world.
Dumont (1970) incorrectly interpreted this as the
sociocentric personhood of Hindus, as opposed to the
egocentric personhood in his society. Marriott was one of
the first to point out the continuity between a Hindu person
and his or her physical world. This has now been well
documented in many other societies. He points out that,
for a Hindu, "every living genus from the moment of its
conception shares defining qualities (gunas), power
(shakti), and action (Karma)” (1980:231) and together these
define its corporate code (dharma) which through appropriate
conduct (acahara) nourishes and sustains the genus. All
human persons are composed of "coded substance." The South
Asian concept of substances refers to body (sharira) and
blood (rakta), and that of code refers to dharma. Marriott
sees a Hindu person as an "embodied moral code." However,
these moral coded substances are not fixed. Personhood in
Hindu thought is conceived of as "channeling and
transforming, heterogenous, ever flowing changing
substances" (Marriott 1976:111). Further, because action
and actor are one, action transforms actor. The individual

could, through transactions, affect his or her own internal

49
order. Therefore, one could change one’s substance through
right actions-~right eating, right marriage, etc. This view
of flowing and striving persons strongly contrasts with
Dumont's view of South Asian thought as being concerned with
the closed, changeless and bound structure of the caste
system.

Criticizing Dumont's formulation of Hindu conceptual
schema in terms of binary opposition, Marriott argues that
the Hindu world and classificatory schema are instead triads
and pentads ( 3 gunas, 3 subtle elements, 3 forces, 3 doses,
5 basal elements, etc.). While Dumont argues that the Hindu
individual is encompassed by the society, Marriott sees
personhood in Hindu society as "dividual." The coded
substances that make up a person further comprise coded
particles that may be shared or exchanged with others. It
then follows that through direct (sharing food, water and
bodily contact) or indirect (as in "gaze,” nazar)
transactions one can bring about a change in the coded
substance of a person. This transactional logic, therefore,
is an important marker for defining personhood and body.
Caste identity, according to Marriott, is defined by the
quality of coded substance. The caste ranking can be then
measured either by the degree of interaction and exchange of

substances that are themselves ranked in value
(W) . or by the quality of the coded
substances in the actors (Attributinnal_IhEQIY). What is

50
missing in Marriott’s transactional model is the "meaning"
in transactions (Wadley 1975).

Notwithstanding the various limitations of Marriott’s
"transactional model," I find it extremely helpful in
understanding what Comaroff (1980) calls "grammar of
therapy.” It provides a foreground to demonstrate how human
actions are evaluated and what their implications are. In
my analysis of narratives of spirit possession cases, I
found that the healing was organized through directed
transactions between the spirit, the healer and the patient,
and it resulted in the desired transformations.

Because the nonduality of action and actor is assumed
in Hindu thought, the therapeutic efficacy of a directed
transaction involves correct performance of the healing
ritual and the sakti embodied in the key participants. The
sakti of the healer is based on an association with the
power of the spirit that inhabit the healers.

The brief discussion above provides a number of
analytical constructs, interpretive practices and metaphors
that can be used for analysis of possession; either as
elicited through interviewing or as observed in natural
discourse setting. In my research on spirit possession,
exploring the ”symbolic structures" and examining the
beliefs relating to possession by spirit, and to the things
that bring possession about, I found that this experience

permeates every aspect of human existence. My inquiry

51

pertains to two basic questions:

(1)

(2)

How do we make sense of spirit possession within the
context of the relationship between self and society?
That is to say, if the self is truly a social construct
and individual selves are constituted and reconstituted
in the course of social interaction, how does the
influence or presence of spirit affect the social
interaction and, as a consequence, the construction of
self? This process of the reconfiguration of self is
my central concern.

Spirit possession in Jaunsari culture is organized
around the central theme of suffering (pira). I am.most
concerned with discovering precisely how a particular
person consciously comprehends his or her suffering and
misfortune, what meaning he or she ascribes to the
problems and possibilities encountered in life. The
focus is on how the person subjectively views the
lifeworld and how they actively engage in their

remaking their lifeworld in meaningful ways.

Chapter 3-
Jaunsari: An Ethnographic Introduction to the Area

and Its Social Structure

At the heart of any anthropological research is what
has been called ethnographic fieldwork, the traditional
research method employed to describe, document and uncover a
particular culture and its people. Let me begin with my
journey to the so called anthropological "field" at the
foothills of the Himalayas. My journey which began in the
united States of America was also a journey of return to my
native land to meet my family and friends at Delhi enroute
to the "field of my dreams" - Uttrakhand. To most Hindu
Indians, Uttrakhand, the hilly tracts on the Northern part
of Uttar Pradesh is Devbhum, the abode of gods and
goddesses. To some affluent Indians, the Himalayas is a
landscape of escape from the throat-rasping, energy sapping
heat and dust storms characteristic of the summer in the
plains. And to anthropologists a paradise in the periphery
peopled by "tribals" or the "exotic." Jaunsar-Bawar, in the
Northwestern part of Uttar pradesh is peopled by a

polyandrous community and for this reason alone has

52

53
attracted the attention of number of anthropologists, local
and well as "phoren."

My journey to the field of dreams began one winter
morning in New Delhi on a date that had been selected as
auspicious by my mother. The district magistrate of Dehra
Doon (Jaunsar-Bawar is a sub-division in the district of
Dehra Doon) was already notified about my research
interests. Equiped with a permission letter from the
ministry of education and a letter of introduction from a
bureaucrat (who was a classmate of the district magistrate
of Dehra Doon), I set off for the field. I wanted to catch
the early bird express special to avoid the crowd and reach
Dehra Doon in time to meet the district magistrate and
proceed to the "field" the morning after. The bus did leave
on time but without me, I was late. The next bus was a
"video coach" and cost five rupees extra. The extra charge
was for the videos that would be shown to make the journey
less boring! Once we crossed the "Yamuna pool" (the bridge
over River Yamuna) to enter the national highway to Dehra
Doon, one could see what lay beyond the smog of wintertime
in Delhi. The roads were lined by tropical trees and the
land beyond was green and yellow, as the mustard plants were
in full bloom. We passed through several small towns where
the bullock and horse carts carrying vegetable were parked
on both sides of the road, taking up a large part of the

business highway. With the help of ear-piercing, screeching

S4
brakes, the master driver drove us through the mired highway
as if he were in a roller derby.

Dehra Doon, a small township at 1000 metres above sea
level is flanked by the Siwalik ranges in the west and
Garwhal Himalayas in the north and east. As one approaches
Dehra Doon one is captivated by the awe inspiring view of
the Himalayas. Eventually we reached Dehra Doon, but the
eight hour trip had me totally exhausted. A three-wheeler
flagged me down and promised to give me the best deal for
transportation for the day and a hotel to freshen up. He
was disappointed that all I needed was a two kilometer ride
to the District Magistrate's office. He had hoped for a
kickback from the local hotel.

I met with the district magistrate Mr. Anand Kumar that
afternoon and he arranged a meeting with the sub-divisional
magistrate Mr. Sunil Chopra for Jaunsar-Bawar, later that
evening. We, the subdivional magistrate and I, decided to
leave the next morning for Chakrata, a major town in
Jaunsar—Bawar and the summer office of the subdivision. We
set off the next morning at 7:30. The path winding upward
from the Doon valley into the Garhwal hills offers a view
that can captivate one's heart. As the road cleaves through
the mountains, the natural landscape changes drastically.
Kalsi, the winter office for the subdivision, is a small
embarkment town where the Tons and Yamuna rivers touch each

other. From here one can look down to the smoggy Doon

55
valley.

We drove on to Chakrata, where Mr. Chopra had organized
lunch and a meeting with some prominent Jaunsaris of the
area. I met with the principle of the Chakrata High School,
a Jaunsari lawyer who has done research among his own people
and the Patwaris who knew the area as well as the blue
prints of the Garhwal Land tenure they were responsible for.
After the morning meal, we set off in a Jeep to skirt around
the various folds of the Garhwal Himalayas looking for a
village that would suit my needs, with a room for board and
a medical hospital not too far away.

From the jeep I could see the majestic landscape --the
backdrop of the undulating slopes of the Himalayas with
villages dotted all over the sloping landscape and
surrounded by cultivated terraced fields and forests of
rhododendron, and deodar. It was a magnificent sight,

kilometer after kilometer.

I! E . 1 II Ii l'l :
Jaunsar-Bawar lies in the Himalayan foothills bordering
Himachal Pradesh, the Tibetan border and district Tehri
Garhwal, about 550 kilometers north and slightly east of
Delhi. Composed of various folds of the Himalayas and
bounded by the Yamuna River in the east, by the Tons river
in the west, and by the junction of these two rivers in the

south, Jaunsar-Bawar roughly forms a triangular land mass.

S6
Hanol, the holy land for all Jaunsaris and abode of Mahasu
Devata, is situated on a small tract of land west of the

Tons river. [see Figure 1]

JD \ .\ I“ v
a v- -. 4: ’—’
- . 5 9‘? _/ 9
4 , J \af' new“ s
’I i- \ f‘ 2
‘1 f \ ‘ 1 (I
o - r ’ ' >
4 I"
l 4' ~..
\
‘3 u
\ .. gV
° ‘ a-
’ Q
P ’/ 0"
mama ,‘
{fo‘
‘9
‘\

Figure 1: Sketch—Map of Uttrakhand (Source: Williams 1874)

57

The Paharis (the mountain folk) believe that because
their living area is a part of devbhum—-the abode of gods
and goddesses--they are ritually cleaner and purer than the
desis (the people who live in the plains. The Jaunsaris
[see figure 2], a subgroup of the Paharis of western
Uttrakhand, are cultivators and herders by tradition, and
they are organized in small hamlets, surrounded by terraced
land. Over the past 30 years (since their special
protection as scheduled tribes in 1962), the Jaunsaris have
been drawn into the urban migration labor system.

The nature of identity is central to any discussion of
any community. Who are the natives? Identity categories
holds a very prominent position in anthropology and its
representation of the other. What does it mean to be a
Jaunsari or a Pahari? Documented below is a myth which
informs the logic of the different cultural identities
experienced and imagined by Jaunsaris.

Once upon a time there was kingdom in the

foothills of the Himalayas in which lived a king

who was very sick. All the healers, physicians and

priests from the neighboring plain states were

consulted but to no avail. It was suggested to the

king and his family by a mendicant sadhu that a

holy person and shaman who lived in the mountains

would surely be able to cure the king.

Soon a cavalcade was dispatched to invite the holy

mountain man to come down to the plains to heal

the king. After a long search, they found the

holy man. Much to their chagrin and horror, they

found him covered with a film of dust as if

neither water nor soap had ever touched his body.

The king's men, judging the mountain man from his

appearance, were skeptical about his ability to
effect a cure.

58

Nonetheless, with no other options left, the
king’s men invited the healer to accompany them to
the plains in order to heal a moribund king. The
mountain man agreed to see the king and soon they
were on their way back to the plains. Shortly
after they had descended about 2,000 feet, the
healer washed his hands and feet thoroughly in a
spring. Another 2,000 feet toward the plains, the
healer sought out a spring to wash his face and
hair. As they progressed toward the kingdom the
healer took a full bath in the Ganga River which
flows at the foothills of the Himalayas.

When asked by the messengers why he was behaving

in this perplexing manner, the healer said, "we

Paharis (the mountain folk) are pure and ritually
clean, as we live in the devbhum (the abode of gods and
goddesses). You who live in the plains do not share
this sacred space and hence need regular ritual
ablutions to retain your purity.

This myth was narrated to me by Bisma, when she was
asked to elaborate on what distinguishes Paharis from desis
(the people who live in the plains). She deduced:

All the impurities from the atmosphere settle on the

plains; do you not notice how difficult it is to

breathe in Dehra Doon? All this pollution pollutes the
minds of the desis as well. We Paharis are very honest
people and this is innate in us, as we share the bhumi

(the soil, here referring to the Himalayas) and space

with the gods and goddesses. However, the air in the

mountains is fresh and clear. Do you not see how the
desis come to the mountains for a pilgrimage, to clean
their souls and minds?
I pointed out that Paharis too venture out of their mountain
abodes to "take a dip" in the Ganga or Yamuna--which
purifies the soil it touches--to ritually wash away their
sins. Bisma, taking in this argument, said "but the source
of the rivers is in the mountain."

Here, Bisma’s logic reflects the Hindu belief that

substances in the soil affect the inhabitants' physical and

59
mental well-being. The Hindu individual is regarded as
"fluid," and easily susceptible to changes brought about by
foreign elements that enter the body. The soil has
transformative power, and in the absence of any pollutants,
there is no need felt for cleansing one's physical body.
The food grown in the soil is ingested by the inhabitants
and mixes with physical substance of the individual. Thus
the soil on which one lives influences the individual’s
makeup even more than regular ritual bathing. Bisma
suggested that soil has more transformative power than
water. Whereas water cleanses the "dirt" of the body and
the soul, the soil’s substance enters and transforms the
body, thereby transforming the whole person.

Although Paharis have a common identity in their
contrast to the desis, their specific identity is no less
important. The Paharis of the Himalayas encompass 3
distinct groups--Pauri, Garhwalis, and Jaunsaris. These
groupings may seem to be the result of administrative
categorizations, but each Pahari group does mark out its own
identity. For example, the Jaunsaris practice fraternal
polyandry, and this sets them apart from the other Paharis.
The Jaunsaris pride themselves on being successful
agriculturalists, and some associate this success with the
soil with their polyandrous practices.

Further, Jaunsaris focus on tribal identity, as opposed

to the Garhwalis and Pauris who favor a focus on caste

6O
identities within their societies. Recently, these
different forms of affiliations have been a major source of
foment among these groups. The Jaunsaris, as a result of
their tribal identity, have been able to avail themselves of
tribally-affiliated reservation quotas, and many Jaunsaris
are in prestigious government service positions that are

unavailable to the caste-oriented Garhwalis and Pauris.

Local Hi to :

Little is known of the early history of the central
Pahari-speaking people and the region. The earliest
outsider account is G. R. Williams' Memoir of Dehra Doon
(1874). William was an assistant superintendent of Dehra
Doon in 1871. He began to collect materials for a
historical and statistical memoir of that district from
1871, and in 1874 he published the first history of this
valley. Replete with Eurocentric interpretations, Williams
describes the "manners and customs" of the people of
Jaunsar-Bawar as "verging upon absolute barbarism."

It is almost needless to add that there is a

considerable amount of freedom between the sexes.

Another very marked peculiarity in the habits of

the people is their extreme uncleanliness, all the

more conspicuous on account of the comparative
fairness of their complexion, and scantiness of
their clothing, the nature of which is familiar

to everyone who has ever had the occasion to make

a journey to a hill station. The superstition of

these mountaineers is as gross as their filth and
immorality. (William 1874:61)

61
The immorality to which he refers is the practice of
polyandry among the Jaunsaris. Despite the book’s
shortcomings, Williams provides a valuable and informative
description of the region and people, tracing its history in
myths, legends and folklore from the chronicled history from
the sixteenth century to 1873.

In the ensuing century, Jaunsar-Bawar has attracted the
attention of anthropologists and sociologists who were
interested in the exotic institutions of the tribal people.
The Jaunsaris became famous as "a fossil of the age of the
Mahabharata" because they claim descent from the Pandavas,
the heroes of this famous epic (Munshi, 1954). A number of
community studies exist, including Murdockian-style
ethnographies by Berreman (1972), Majumdar (1962), and
Saksena (1954), to name a few.

There studies present two major interpretations of the
origin of the Jaunsaris. Both interpretations agree that
the Jaunsari social world can be divided into two major
divisions, the Dams and the non-Dams. According to one
theory, the Doms are assumed to belong to an early
indigenous group which inhabited the mountains. They are
considered to be ritually inferior, comparable to the lower
caste groups in the plains. The non-Dams assert themselves
as people from Jaisalmer, Rajasthan who migrated to the
hills about 300 to 400 years ago and regard themselves as

the descendants of the Pandavas. The other theory refutes

62
the autochthonous status of Dams and asserts that they were
brought by the Rajputs who entered the hills (see Majumdar
1962). Both Dams and non-Dams refer to themselves as

Jaunsaris or Paharis, depending on the context.

Social and Administrative Structure:

The Jaunsari social world is differentiated into social
categories that follow the pan-Indie caste hierarchy. The
caste groups are ranked relative to one another and are
associated with an occupation. The four main caste groups
are Brahmin, Rajput, Bajgi, and Dom. The Brahmins are
ritually most pure and are divided into the Paboch and Bamon
groups. The Paboch are considered ritually more pure than
the Bamons because of their vegetarian diet, and hence their
vidhya (knowledge) is considered more powerful and
effective.

The Rajputs are landowners and agriculturalists who
trace their roots to Rajputana, now known as Rajasthan.

They are divided into two groups, the Khos and the Rawat.
The Bajgis are drummers, tailors, and basketmakers. Some
Bajgi families are known as Deyhardh because of their
association with the temple. The low caste, Doms, are also
internally differentiated into Dom (or Chamar) and Kolta.
The Doms are the tanners and the Koltas are the landless

agricultural laborers.

63

The local unit of administration is called a khat. The
khat is the traditional local unit and comprises a number of
villages. Traditionally this local unit was not only a unit
for administrative purposes, but it also functioned as a
unit for ceremonial purposes. From the time before Raja of
Nahan was ruling the land, and long before the Nepalese
conquest in 1804, Sardar sayana, as he was locally called,
was the leader and spokesperson for the entire khat. The
collection of revenue (malgujari), was the main
responsibility of the Sardar sayana, and his entitlement was
a commission of 5% of the revenue collected. The four most
influential sayana, bearing the title of chauntra,
constituted a senate which exercised control over the whole.
They also managed all internal affairs, being arbitrators
and judges in civil and criminal suits. They had the power
to delegate punishments: flog, fine, imprison, mutilate and
execute. This was before the British took over in 1815.
The British Raj retained the system of representative
government of sayana and chauntra and arbitrarily fixed the
revenue on the whole area of Jaunsar-Bawar in a lump sum.
The chauntras were responsible for the collections and
received a small salary of Indian Rs. 40-100 (in the year
1848) besides fees in money and kind for every case decided
before them. The Sayanas continued to receive an allowance
of five percent of revenue collected and various fees for

the performance of specific duties.

64

When the U. P. Panchayat Raj Act was enacted in 1949
(Cohn 1955), the powers and responsibilities of the sayana
were adopted by a nominated village person, known as the
pradhan. Although the pradhan looks after the distribution
of resources and settles local-level conflicts, the position
of the sayanahari is not totally lost. The Jaunsar-Bawar
Zamindar Abolition and Land Reform Acts were partially
successful in liquidating the stronghold of sayanas, and yet
to date the sayana household is still the most prestigious
and, in some villages, the most landed of all households.

In fact, quite a few of the pradhans hail from former sayana
households. The pradhan is not responsible for collecting
revenues, the 39 khats in the whole of Jaunsar-Bawar have
been distributed among 13 patwari circles for revenue and
administrative purposes.

Dadaji (Male, 85+) remembers that the sayana of the
village of Laccha was responsible for malgujari (the
collection of revenue) but the sayana never paid any of the
taxes he collected. It was Charnu sayana of the village of
Bisoe who paid off the debts and in return became the
(owner) malik of the 16 villages. The descendants of Charnu
sayana continue to live in the village of Bisoe, and in fact
one of his descendants Sham Sher Singh Chauhan is now the

village pradhan.

65
The Village Bisoe and Adjacent villages:

The Jaunsari community I studied was composed of 4
adjacent villages (namely Bisoe, Laccha, Dwinya and Khunna)
in Khat Bahalardh in the subdivision of Jaunsar. Because of
geographical, historical and interfactional links, it is
appropriate to include these villages within the boundaries
of the community. All the villages were anywhere from 2 to
5 kilometers from Nagthat, which is a small township on the
motorable road and is positioned at a comfortable height of

1,980 meters above sea level. [see Figure 2]

 

HUT"

 

Figure 2: Sketch-Map of Jaunsari-Community Studied

66

The village of Bisoe, with a total population of around
250 people living in 23 households, became my base camp.
The citizens of the villages of Bisoe and Laccha are
predominately Rajput, occupying the big houses, with a few
families of Bajgi, living in smaller houses surrounding the
big houses. The village of Bisoe attracts a number of
visitors from distant villages because it is the site of the
temple which is the abode of the region’s principle god
Mahasu devata and because an annual festival, jagra, is
celebrated in the month of August on the 7th day of the
light fortnight moon. This temple, according to the
villagers, has a long history and connects the villages
which form my field area. The legend which every villager
is eager to narrate is transmitted as an oral tradition.
Among the current residents of the village of Bisoe there is
general agreement about the legend, which refers to events
in the village more than 200 years ago. The legend is as
follows:

Near Dwinya is a water spring. We all knew that

there was a snake who lived there. One day, a

Brahmin woman from the village of Dwinya was

washing her clothes when she was visited by the

snake who opened his mouth to reveal a gold

umbrella. This was the miracle. It has sakti

(power).

The woman left her clothes and her dantu (head

scarf) in front of the snake and carried the gold

umbrella back to her house, where she placed it on
the top of the sacred book of the Jaunsaris-~the

67

Bagoi. The devata was established. This happened
in the household that belongs to the vakil
(advocate); his great-grandmother told us this
katha ("story").

That night the woman's father—in-law had a dream
in which he was visited by mahasu devata who
expressed his wish that a temple should be
established in the village of Bisoe for him. The
woman’s father-in—law inquired how he would know
where in Bisoe they should the lay the foundation
for the temple. The devata smiled and told him
that the sutra (connection/thread)would appear in
the form of small black ants.

The next morning, the villagers found a trail of

black ants which formed a boundary in the middle

of a field facing east, almost in the middle of

the village. The whole khat had collected there,

all 16 villages. All the khat members cleared the

ground and laid the foundation for the temple.

This entire temple was raised without any monetary

donation, only people’s time and their hard work.
This legend forms a basis for inter-village relationships
and binds them in a historical space.

Even today, the villages of Bisoe and Dwinya share the
water spring which has become a landmark in the story, a
tale which lies at the interface of myth and history.
Dwinya is a predominately Brahmin village, with a few
families of Kblta who live on the outskirts of the village.
The inhabitants of the village of Khunna are Dom and Kolta,
with a number of Rajputs living on the slightly elevated
portion of the village.

Next to the main Mhhasu temple in the village of Bisoe,

there is a devata temple for the devata’s 52 virs

68
(warriors), which are locally known as chera chatak. There
is also a Kali temple on the outskirts of the village.

Like most Pahari villagesa, Bisoe and the other
villages are built along the contour of a hillside or a
ridge (with altitudes ranging from 1,500 meters to 2,300
meters above sea level), with terraced fields and cattle
posts surrounding it. Each village hamlet consists of 15-25
housholds with the dominant caste groups, the Rajputs and/or
the Brahmins, occupying big houses in the center of the and
other castes, such as Bajgi (the drummers) living in smaller
houses surrounding the big houses. The lowest castes, the
Dams and the K01tas, usually live in a village hamlet of
their own on the outskirts of the land-rich hamlets.

There are no street names, and the houses are not
numbered. Correspondence is generally addressed to the
village name, Post office Nagthat. There is no regular
arrangement of the houses, although traditionally most of
the houses face south. The village houses mostly consist of
two stories with an open courtyard in the front. What
follows is a generalized account of a domestic dwelling,
outlining the traditional set-up in a polyandrous household
and their continuity in modified forms accomodating a
variety of household forms. As will be elaborated in

chapter four, in the domestic cycle of polyandrous

 

5 See Berreman (1972), Majumdar (1962) for
ethnographic details about village layout and economic and
political institutions.

69

household, we observe a variety of marriage forms: monogamy,
fraternal polyandry, polygyny, which affects the living
arrangements.

In a typical arrangement for a polyandrous household,
the houses are split into three levels. The garden level
houses the livestock, firewood and a storage for grains and
lentils. The open courtyard is the center of much domestic
activities such as cleaning, washing and drying grains, and
chopping firewood. The middle level has one room and a
verandah on two sides. This room is used by the botha (the
eldest brother--the patriarch) and the ghariawi. The stairs
from the middle level opens into the small room and serves
as entrance to the living area for the guests. The small
room is often used as storage for water and in some houses a
small bath area is constructed. Also in the upper level is
the kitchen and one big room. Usually the kitchen is the
responsibility of the first common wife (ghariawi) and faces
the front courtyard. The large room is the living area
during the day and in the nighttime serves as a sleeping
area for younger brothers, their wives and their children.

The village water source is a naturally-occurring
spring which may be anywhere between 1 to 2 kilometers from

the village. The villagers have tried to pipe the water

70
into the village, but due to ridges in the hillside, the
source is not very reliable. During the summer months,
shortage of water is acute.

In addition to a house in the village, a majority of
the villagers have a second house in the valley, the winter
home, known as channi. During the winter months, the cattle
and other livestock is moved to the valley to escape the
bitter cold of the winter months. Also in the valley,
during the winter months, the Jaunsaris grow winter crops
and a vegetable garden.

One of the interesting features of the villages is
miniature houses that are erected in the middle of the
fields. These miniature houses, I was told, are houses
built in the memory of paap (sins) which were accrued by the
family for failing to realize the suffering of a family
member who eventually died from his or her sufferings
(pira). These houses serve as daily reminders to the
villagers of the moral codes as grave warning of what might
befall the village, or the household, if those codes are not
followed. The houses are mostly erected in the memory of
women, and stand in stark relief on the flat plane of the
fields, reminding the onlooker of voices and words, stifled
and silenced. I will deal with the placement of these

houses and their effect on village life in later chapters.

71

Beyond the village and terraced fields, in the higher
altitudes are the forests, forests of rhododendrons, oak and
cedar, locally known as Danda. The Danda represents the
"wild," where spirits live and where men go to hunt wild
animals. Beyond the danda is the terrain of Indrapuri
associated with supreme divine beings.

The movement between the domain of domestication (the
hamlet and the terraced fields) and that of the wild and
undifferentiated (danda) is carefully governed and is of
fundamental relevance to Jaunsari perceptions of well-being
and affliction. The domain of domestication is centered
upon the promotion of fertility in women, livestock, and
land; both women and men are equally involved. In the
domain of wild we are faced with fierce animals (hunted by
men), and spirits (who have the power to control mortal
beings). In addition, the wild is known for its plants that
have the power to heal. Because women are considered
"lightweight," and hence vulnerable to wild animals and
spirits, their movement to and from the danda is carefully
monitored. Women and young adults enter the terrain of
danda to collect fire wood but this is done as a collective
activity during daylight hours. Men, who are stronger and

hunt wild animals, are less vulnerable but they too fear the

72

wrath of spirits. A number of supplications are made to the
spirits of the forests before a hunt. The danda is wild,
dangerous, and beyond the control of humans. It is also a

space occupied by the spirit known as Matris who belong to a

higher order than humans.

Chapter 4

Gender, Kinship and Marriage in Jaunsar—Bawar

This chapter will examine the practice of fraternal
polygynandry7 among the Jaunsaris and how it conditions the
social relationships of men and women. It will also show
how polygynandry gives rise to gender ideology and kinship
relations which sustain a patriarchal structure that is
lodged in the family. Closely following Rubin's (1975)
lead, this chapter will explore the ways in which affinal
relations engendered by polygynandry reproduce hierarchical
relations between a woman and her affines, a relationship
that emerges from and feeds back upon the wider cultural
notions of the relationship between women and men. Finally,
this chapter will also delve into the ways in which divorce
compensation and marriage arrangements articulate with the
male authority structure and this in turn with gender

conceptions.

 

7Polygynandrous marriage refers to the marriage of 2 or
more women to men who are brothers. This kind of marriage
system is different from group marriage where no particular
individual has exclusive marital rights over any of the
spouses.

73

The Jaunsaris traditionally practiced a rare form of
marriage: fraternal polyandry-—the marriage of one woman to
several men who are brothers. There is a strong indication
in early Himalayan ethnographies8 that women in polyandrous
societies enjoy a fairly high "status." Women do not
observe purdah?.and enjoy greater freedom in their natal
home than women who live in the plains of Uttar Pradesh.
This raises interesting questions about patriarchy and the
cultural construction of gender and kinship.

One of the general ways in which patriarchal practices
oppress women is by controlling women’s sexuality and
reproductive capabilities. Identifying paternity as the sole
determinant of the custody of children is another important
element that perpetuates this patriarchal social system. At
the surface level, polyandry seems to present an anti-
structure to patriarchy, as polyandry requires that men
relinquish their exclusive control over their wives'
sexuality and reproductive opportunities. Further,
polyandrously married women do enjoy a lot of attention,
particularly sexual attention, as they are bearers of the
future members of the household. It can be argued, invoking
the logic of binary opposition, that since polyandry is

structurally contrary to polygyny and since polygyny leads

 

° Jain (1948), Majumdar (1962), Saksena (1954), and
Sen (1956) to name a few.

9 Purdah is the Hindu system of secluding women by
making it a rule that they cover their head and face.

74

75
to the devaluation of women, it then follows that women will
be highly valued in polyandrous societies.

As we shall see, however, the features of polyandry may
serve to strengthen the power of patriarchy in a polyandrous
marriage pattern. In fact, Levine (1988) argues that these
apparent paradoxes of polyandry may be no more than
constructions reflecting the cultural bias of the
researchers themselves, who belong to a monogamous society.
In monogamous societies, exclusive rights over one's wife
are considered the most important aspect of social control.
Besides, polygyny, which is far more common than polyandry,
may seem.more plausible and perhaps more agreeable to a male
eye. As Berreman (1975) suggests, this fascination with
polyandry reflects an androcentric bias which plagues much
of early ethnography.

Numerous feminist theories have been put forth to
understand the institution of patriarchy and the oppression
of women. Feminist theorists have called our attention to
the various manifestations of patriarchy and especially the
various mechanisms of control which are explicitly and
implicitly interwoven into the fabric of everyday life.
Common to all is the position that the use of gender as a
social category is fundamental to the analysis of social
life and that the idea of gender as a category of analysis
liberates sexual differences from "constraining naturalistic

assumptions“ when it is viewed as a cultural construct

76
(Ortner and Whitehead 1981). Following this logic, gender
refers to the social relations between the sexes and may be
seen as the product of social and cultural processes.

Ortner and Whitehead (1981:19) in Sexne1_ueeninge point
out that men in a culture are almost always defined in terms
of role categories whereas women are defined in terms of
cross-sex relations. This is so because all social activity
associated with males is culturally accorded a higher value,
while women are always defined in terms of their
relationships with men. Therefore, analysis of gender
hierarchy should involve cross-sexual relationships. Rubin
(1975) has argued that we need to focus on family and
kinship to demonstrate how they mediate women's position in
the society. Firestone (1970) has located oppression within
the family, with women's reproductive role and domestic
activity being the tools of oppression. Therefore, it is
through an analysis of the kinship and marriage systems that
we can begin to understand the root of the production and
reproduction of the gender ideology.

According to Ortner and Whitehead (1981), cultural
symbols are not mere reflections of social structure but are
invested with meanings which shape the ways in which an
actor participates in society. This is the "common sense"
(Geertz 1983) world of the actor. Ortner and Whitehead also
suggest that cultural symbols which constitute "structures

of prestige" (caste, sex, class, age) are of the greatest

77
import for the cultural construction of gender, and further
that "prestige considerations" are everywhere centered upon
"socially dominant male actors." These structures are
direct expressions of definite beliefs and symbolic
associations. Hence, these prestige structures, by
reflecting the symbolic order, are legitimate in ordering
certain hierarchical social relations. Male prestige is
closely involved with relations with women and therefore
with the centrality of kinship and marriage. Ortner and
Whitehead (1981:22) argue that: "the prestige system
highlights certain cross-bonds within the total range
available in society, insofar as they are central to
generating and maintaining status."

Rubin, in developing and extending Levi-Strauss’s
analysis of alliance theory, argues that the exchange of
women in marriage serves as the foundation of human
societies. By extension, marriage becomes critical to a
man's social standing (Ortner and Whitehead 1981). Ortner
and Whitehead (1981) point out that domains of kinship and
marriage are crucial in understanding gender ideology and
the sphere of prestige relations. They argue that it is the
prestige structure which mediates between the organization
of kinship and marriage and gender ideology. I argue that
in Jaunsari culture and society, Bhaichara (brotherhood) is
a prestige structure that is culturally articulated and

justified, and that this structure gives rise to a

78
supporting gender ideology which in turn is self-sustaining.

Taking into consideration the centrality of gender and
kinship in defining the web of actual social relationships,
I will try to explicate the tacit and implicit consequences
of polygynandry for kinship and gender relations in the
domestic lives of Jaunsari women. How the relations between
men and women are articulated depends substantially upon
kinship, which is defined and established by variables such
as sex, age, position of the family within the community
(especially for marriage and other such alliances”), and
caste. In a family, a person’s individual status is defined
by relative position in a sibling set, varying with kinship
role and age. By paying attention to the variables which
articulate relations between and among men and women, I hope
to illuminate the gender ideology of the Jaunsari culture.
To explore gender and kinship relations in Jaunsar, I
interviewed women about their attitudes towards polyandry,
polygyny and monogamy.

The Jaunsaris practice what in anthropological
terminology is known as fraternal polyandry. This is an
arrangement in which brothers are united in one marriage and
maintained as a single household. However, across the
development of the household, one can observe a variety of
marriage types, including monogamy. fraternal polyandry and

polygyny. Although ideally polygyny occurs in cases where

 

w see Krengel 1990.

79
the first wife is unable to bear children, polygyny in
combination with fraternal polyandry is the most common form
of marriage in Jaunsari society and accounts for 38-53% of
all households [see Appendix A]. So common was this type of
marriage that a new term-~fraternal polygynandry--was coined
by Majumdar (1962).

The Jaunsaris understand the polyandrous aspect of
their society through legends of origin and descent. The
Jaunsaris regard themselves as descendants of the Pandavas‘l
of the Mehebhezeea and regard their land as devbhmi (the
land of devas). The sharing of a wife is a cultural
prescription, and being able to live in harmony renders
prestige to the family. The bigger the household is, the
higher the prestige of the family. Men lose face if
families divide, and they take great pains to control their
behavior in order to prevent this from happening. Jealousy
and rivalry among the brothers are suppressed. In the
socialization of male children, there is an emphasis on the
importance of solidarity among brothers. For example,
Ramlall (age 92) explained that sharing a wife and living in
harmony under one roof is possible only when there is prem
(love) between brothers. Further, sharing a wife builds
solidarity among brothers and integrates the family. Also,

this system prevents the division of land and animals and

 

‘1 The five Pandava brothers shared their common wife
Draupadi.

80
thus facilitates a higher standard of living, and counts for
more votes in the political decisions made by the family.

While Jaunsaris believe that they are descendants of
the Pandava family and understand the practical benefits of
polyandry, their own explanation for choosing fraternal
polyandry is grounded in and reinforced by a world view that
dosh (a careless breach of cosmological prescription)
originates from a faulty division of land. By choosing to
have a common wife, every generation has only one set of
heirs, and thus, the family is able to avoid a division of
land. However, monogamous marriages among brothers would
necessitate a division of land. One of my key informants,
Dadaji, narrated several stories in which misfortunes like
miscarriage, childlessness, death of household members and
animals, had harvest, and sterile land and women could be
traced to a dosh which was born from the unfair distribution
of land. He considers bhratav bhav (solidarity among
brothers) an extremely important ingredient in the recipe
for family prestige.

Let me illustrate this point with a case study: I met
Vikram (age 45+) at a local healer's house. He was
consulting the healer because his brother had recently died
and both of his wives were unable to have children. Both of

his wives had several miscarriages. The healer divined

81
dosh, which took the form of a ghat that was put‘2 on

Vikram's (individual # 15) lineage by the divided kin from

the previous generation.

 

 

Figure 3: Kinship Diagram

In many ways, this case reveals the kinds of conflicts
that may arise when a family divides their ancestral
property. Among Vikram's ancestors, individuals 1 and 4

were brothers who were married to individuals 2 and 3.

 

“ Chat is "put" by leaving a desired wish at a shrine
along with a sacrifice.

82
Individuals 2 and 3 each had two sons. The cleavage in the
family's solidarity first started when individual 8 was
monogamously married to individual 9. He wanted to set up
his household and wanted his share of the property.
Individual 6 was the ghar ka botha--the head of the
household--who gave a meager portion of the ancestral
property to individual 8. Later on, individual 6 wanted to
separate from individual 10 and forced 10 to go to 8 for his
share of the property, as 8 and 10 were from the same
mother.

Individual 8 was already upset at the unfair division
of land. He had to give a portion to 10 from his already
scanty share. Individual 8 put a ghat on individual 6. In
Vikram's narration, it appeared that division of the family
had caused a lot of "hurt" to the victims and the "hurt
feeling" (gam/ahh) was later "born into" individuals 20 and
15 as dosh. Vikram (individual 15) felt that if individual
20 accepted the mistake of the past and joined hands with
individual 12 and him, it would be enough to "cut the dosh."
This situation, Vikram considered, served as a timely
reminder of the practical advantages of polyandry.

In a polyandrous marriage, although all brothers have
equal conjugal rights and obligations to their common wife,
the eldest brother (jethang) always has more access to the
common wife, as well as having exclusive paternal rights.

The eldest brother is the ultimate authority; he is ghar ka

83
botha (the head of the household). He is the one who brings
the wife home with his name and initiates sexual relations
with her. This is somewhat paradoxical, for this unequal
status among the brothers can threaten the fraternal
solidarity. The question is then why do the younger brothers
agree to a polyandrous marriage? For the Jaunsari men who
are not the eldest in the family, the choice is between
economic security and social prestige or freedom and
economic uncertainty. Vikram's case study does throw light
on the double bind facing the younger brothers.

The membership in the household is kin-based and
consists of a common hearth (chulla) and a common purse.
The household is the basic residential, social, religious
and economic unit in the community, with patrilocal
residence, patrilineal descent, patronymic designation and
patriarchal authority. All the earnings and agricultural
products of a household are pooled together in the hands of
one man, the botha (who is almost always the eldest
brother), and one woman, the ghariawi (the first common
wife).

A typical Jaunsari household will have three
generations: the ghar ka botha (the head of the household).
his wife or co-wives,13 brothers of the botha, their
children and their children's wives and children. There is

a variation to this composition as male out-migration and

 

” Co-wives are rarely, if ever, sisters.

84

seasonality also affect the composition of the household.
For example the channi (the winter home) is usually looked I
after by younger brothers and one of their wives. This
spatial division of the household, even if only for the
winter months (November to March), enables the unity of the
household to be maintained by minimizing co-wife friction.

Unlike the Hindus of the plains, with whom monogamy is
the only form of marriage permitted, Jaunsari society allows
a variety of marriage types, including monogamy, fraternal
polyandry and polygyny.. Therefore, it is not unusual that
simultaneously in any family one can observe associations
which might be monogamous, polygynous, polyandrous or
polygynandrous in nature.

Also, in the development of household, one can observe
a variety of marriage types including monogamy, fraternal
polyandry and polygyny. This variation may also be the
result of a particular phase in the domestic cycle of the
household, but male out-migration and seasonality also
affect the composition of the family. In order to describe
and understand the coexistence of these arrangements of
family and marriage, it is useful to observe one household
over time (after Berreman 1975:134-5). The changes that a
typical household undergoes are illustrated in the following
example. This fictive household is a composite structure
constructed from the various experiences of individuals in

different households.

85
Let us assume that three brothers were married
polyandrously in 1920, when the eldest brother took part in

a marriage ceremony (simlaith) with a 15-year-old.

 

1920 2; Z: Z; = 0

Five years later, a second wife, a 20—year-old, was
married in the same manner as the first, becoming the second

common wife.

 

1925 21 [it 23 = o = o

The domestic group in this generation then became,
structurally, a fraternal polgynandrous one.

Ten years later, the youngest brother migrated to the
city as a government employee and told his brothers that he
wanted one of the wives to live in the city with him. The
domestic group was thereby transformed into 2 households,
one polygynous household in the village and a monogamous

household in the city.

1930 Z; 25 = O (in the

village)
[3 = O (in a nearby city)
With the passing of another 10 years, the eldest
brother in the village might have died leaving a typical

monogamous family.

86
1940 [5 = 0

Following the death of the eldest brother, the other
brother requests his youngest brother to return home,
creating a typical polyandrous household. This then
describes the cycle of a domestic unit, with the same value
system supporting it in every phase (Berreman 1975).

The productive labor of women and men is equally
valued, but women are also valued for their reproductive
capabilities. The children born in a polygynandrous family
have several mothers and fathers. The children call the
eldest brother babe and all the other fathers are also
called babe, with their name or the activity they perform
prefixed to it. For example, the father named Vikram could
be called Vikram.baba or ghair baba, meaning the father who
looks after the cows.

The children do recognize their own biological mother,
but call their mothers ma with a prefix that refers to the
natal village of the mother. For example, Pabo wali ma
refers to mother who is from village Pab and Dasau wali ma
refers to the mother who is from village Dasau. As a
daughter-in-law, one is called buhari with the name of the
village as a prefix. As a wife, one is ghariawi (the first
common wife) or gharwali meaning "wife." To a married
woman, all of the brothers she is married to are known as
khawand, but there are no kinship terms to distinguish her

relation with the brothers.

87

In Jaunsar, as in the rest of Indian society, it is the
moral and religious obligation of parents to contract proper
marriages for their children. Traditionally, proposals for
marriage (mangna) are made by the parents of the bridegroom
and, if consented to by the girl's father, the promise is
solemnized by a gauna. This involves an offering in cash (a
1-Rupee coin) by the bridegroom's kin to the bride's father.
The villagers were quick to point out that the gauna money
is not bride price but a symbol of the promise. This
exchange is considered to be the betrothal, and marriage
takes place once the girl reaches puberty.

Before the formal marriage ceremony, the bride visits
her future home for major religious festivals. The practice
of "asking/begging" for a daughter-in-law (also known as
mangna) is considered by Jaunsari men as evidence of the
higher status of Pahari women than that which is accorded
the women of the plains. They argue this because in the
plains the bride's parents have to make offerings to the
bridegroom's family in the form of a dowry.“

Female children are considered burdensome, and this
compounds the poor status of women. Some older Jaunsari men
recounted stories of the era when marriages were fixed even
before a child was born. In practice, often a man with sons

would ask another man whose wife was pregnant to "reserve"

 

“ Illegal since the passage of the Dowry Prohibition Act
of 1961, but widely practiced nonetheless.

88
the child if it was a girl for his son(s). Now, with the
influence of the mainstream culture of the plains, young men
and women are in favor of monogamous marriages; but they do
realize that in some cases (landed agriculturalists)
polyandrous marriage is necessary and so conform to the
practice. Puran, a clerk at the bank in a nearby township,
expressed this attitude:

I am working away from home and cannot support a

wife or family with my earnings. But I can make

this money go a long way if my wife stays at home

and works the fields. We have the cash and the

produce from the field. I realize that, being

away, someone needs to look after my wife, and if

my younger brother shares my wife he has a vested

interest in looking after her. This works very

well with me. The woman is happy, my brother is

tied to the village, I bring in the cash, and we

are all happy.

Marriage ceremonies are performed only when both the
the bride and the bridegroom are previously unmarried.
Second marriages are less often ceremonialized than first
ones. All brides who would be ghariawi are virgins, but
women who have been previously married are likely candidates
for the position of second wife. The Jaunsari do make a
distinction between women who can or cannot be a ghariawi.
Previously married women are not considered less pure, but a
,paboch--vegetarian Brahmin--will not accept food cooked by
choot (previously married) women. Another consideration is
that marriage must take place within the social space of

one's caste but outside the geographical space of one's own

village.

89

The Jaunsari marriage is very distinct from the
Brahmanical Hindu marriage (which is usually practiced by
orthodox Hindus in the plains) in that it is not only devoid
of religious symbolism and requires the bride to come to the
bridegroom’s village for the ceremony. For example,
Kanyadan, the father’s gift of his daughter to the
bridegroom, the most important ceremony in Brahamanical
Hindu marriage, is absent. Also, in the Brahmanical
tradition, the fire (agni) is the divine witness and
sanctifier, whereas in the traditional marriage as practiced
by the Jaunsaris, the divine witnesses are the four distinct
spaces--east, west, north and south-~which constitute the
cosmos. The marriage ceremony is simple and involves the
holding of the bride's hand by the bridegroom and the taking
of the vows of marriage. The traditional marriage which
sanctifies the polyandrous union is known as samlaith
jharjerae.

As Jaunsaris adapt to the monogamous marriage pattern
of the orthodox Hindus, elaborate vedic rituals are finding
their way into the marriage ceremony. As with the orthdox
Hindus of the plains, the bridegroom comes to the village of
the bride where kanyadan ceremony is performed. The father
of the bride provides a dowry. The ritual paraphernalia,
brides's costume and jewelry portray eager acceptance of the
mainstream Brahmanical culture of the Hindu Indians.

Among kanyadan marriages divorce is rare. This type of

9O
marriage could be interpreted as involving women as a "gift
of a virgin" instead of a "secular transaction" as is the
case in polyandrous union. In marriages which involve a
secular transaction, the transacted goods can be returned,
hence the possibility of divorce. But gifts cannot be
returned, and where women are given as "gifts," divorce is
rare.

Ideally, the relationship of wife to husband is one of
complete devotion and servitude, for the husband is her
malik, or owner. The wife will not call her husband by his
name but will use the generic term malik to refer to her
husband(s). Though the the patriarch (botha) is the
decision maker, most Jaunsari men discuss with their wives
about household finances, there were some who considered
this no affair of their wives. During meal times, I
observed, women comment on things that needed immediate
attention (for example, shortage of grains, extra help for
harvest season, etc.), recite incidents and events that
might interest the family, or forewarn about tensions
building in the neighbourhood. Many women told me that in
privacy their husbands listen to them and take into
consideration their opinions on different issues.

A household can have more than one dwelling; one is in
the village and one, known as a channi, is usually the
winter home located outside the village. Channis are

usually built for animals on the foothills to escape the

91

harsh winter at the higher altitudes. The channi is usually
looked after by younger brothers and one of their wives.
This spacial division of the household, even if only for the
winter months (November to March) enables the unity of the
household to be maintained by minimizing co-wife friction.

The local discourse on brotherhood, kin identity and
personhood seems to correspond to abstract
conceptualizations propounded by Marriott and Inden (1977),
Daniel (1984) and Egnor (1978). In Hindu society, kinship
and gender identities are formed and transformed by a code
of bodily substances, in accordance with the rules of purity
and pollution. A person carries a template which is coded
into their soul and which can be transformed by sharing
food, bodily fluids, and through their actions (karma). The
Hindu personhood is regarded as "fluid," easily susceptible
to changes brought about by foreign elements that enter the
body. Hence, the body is carefully guarded from elements
that pollute it. After marriage, a woman becomes emotionally
and physically identified with the kin-group of her husband
through sharing natural physical substances or "coded
substance” as coined by Marriott and Inden (1977). The
coded substance that is transferred from a man to a woman
during sexual union is said to transform her kin-identity.
According to this Hindu belief in the fluidity of the
person, sharing a wife would be tantamount to sharing

natural physical substances (coded substances) with each

92
brother. Hence, I suggest that by sharing a wife the
brothers become closer emotionally and physically. Also,
sharing in this transformation further cements their
commitment to each other and builds a stronger kin-identity.

Although the man usually takes the lead in initiating
sexual relations, the onus falls on the woman to treat all
of her husbands fairly in sexual matters and keep all her
husbands satisfied. It is common for woman to select her
sexual partner by manipulating situations to suit her best
interests. There is no set pattern, but the mother-in-law
may regulate the sleeping pattern of the family, especially
in the first few days of marriage. But as there is no set
pattern, women find it a tremendous strain (both emotionally
and physically) to maintain a balance in performing conjugal
duties fairly with all of their husbands.

Most of the marriages among Jaunsaris are of the
fraternal polygynandrous type. This family structure
threatens the unity of the common household because the
wives not only have to balance their conjugal duties with
their husband's, but also have to fight for their husbands
attention without disrupting the peace of the household.
Again, the onus falls on the co-wives (sok) to maintain
domestic harmony.

Let me share 2 cases which throw light on the realities
of the women's experiences and reveal the social relations

that underlie polyandry. What I want to emphasize here is

93
the role of the woman in connecting and building solidarity
among the brothers at the cost of her own well-being. These
case studies very poignantly tell us about the realities of

women's experiences in polyandrous unions.

1 l 1 . E . ( EE-lfllz

Puran and Param decided to remarry because they needed
an extra hand to work in the fields. Their first wife did
not live in the village but worked in the nearby township as
a dai (midwife) in the local Red Cross hospital. Lakshmi,
who became the second wife to Param amd Puran, was quite
vocal with me about the frustrations and traumas in her
life.

Lakshmi was 20 when she was wedded to Puran in a
traditional polyandrous marriage. The first night after the
marriage was spent with Puran who was the eldest brother who
naturally had the right to initiate and establish sexual
relations with the new bride. She still remembers the night
very vividly. Puran was drunk and forced himself upon her
and left marks all over her body. The next night, under the
direction of her mother-in-law, she spent with the younger
brother Param. Param was horrified to find "ugly marks" on
her body and decided that Lakshmi would be solely his wife
and that she had no further obligations to entertain Puran.

About 20 years has passed since then, but little has

changed. Puran still visits her in the fields and

94
forcefully enters her body. She does not tell Param about
this as this could result in the division of the household,
the blame for which would fall on her.

It is quite evident in this case that the problem of
compatibility between a wife and all of her husbands can
complicate and jeopardize the future unity of a household.
Sometimes a specific brother might not like the wife and
will let the family know about it, or the wife may prefer
one of the husbands and let her preferences be known.
However, an ideal (izzatdar) Jaunsari woman is a married
woman who can maintain a household despite the difficulties
of her situation. When brothers do set up different
households (the reasons for which are various), the wife is
deemed responsible for the partition. The most common
complaints are that she is jiddi (has a quarrelsome
disposition), or that she does not treat all of her husbands

alike.

Pratimajndlimla (both in their early thirties)

Vimla and Pratima are co-wives. Both of them were
wedded to the first brother Sham Sher. Vimla, the first
wife of Sham Sher, was the only wife for about 12 years
before her mother-in—law died suddenly and the family needed
help for working in the fields. The men kinfolk decided to
bring a woman to the family to help out. So for Rs 5,000

the brothers were able to marry a woman, Pratima, who had

95
been divorced twice. She had no children from her earlier
marriages.

Pratima is considered very attractive, and, much to
Vimla's annoyance, is favored by her husband Sham Sher.
Vimla had agreed to this alliance because it would lessen
her household work, and she had been made to believe that
Pratima was intended for the younger brother. Vimla favors
monogamous marriage and finds it difficult to share her
husband with another woman. She has even attempted suicide.

Pratima was told that she was being married
polyandrously into this family. But after the tension that
followed Vimla's attempted suicide, she discouraged Sham
Sher from meeting her in the fields. Where could she go?
By that time, she had 2 children and her parents were dead,
so she could not even return to her natal village. All of
this has resulted in a tension-filled environment which
stifled both Vimla and Pratima.

Vimla had been losing a lot of weight, which had been
diagnosed as an attack from daag. Pratima was the most
likely candidate for having made all of this happen.
However, Pratima was herself possessed by a matri, which had
caused her much physical and emotional discomfort. In June
of 1994, Vimla died at a local hospital.

To a Jaunsari woman, maintaining a joint household is
not only physically strenuous but it is a tremendous drain

on her emotional energy and well-being. Her self-esteem

96
depends on her capability to maintain a joint household even
if it means repressing her desirability, her sexuality and
her own emotional and spiritual well-being.

However, a woman who finds her life in her partner’s
village unbearable can initiate the dissolution of her
marriage. This, in local vernacular, is known as choot.
Divorce or choot is commonly practiced and can be initiated
by either a man or a woman. A divorce is permitted for
reasons of adultery, barrenness, having a quarrelsome
disposition (jiddi), carelessness in household work,
laziness or refusal to love in harmony. Whether initiated
by a man or a woman, the blame for initiating divorce is
usually placed on the woman. After the divorce, she is
referred to as daag (a witch), especially if she has failed
to give birth to live children, or tej (cunning and of
"loose morals").

In cases where a woman initiates choot, her father has
to pay compensation to the former husband(s). It would be
ethnographically inaccurate to equate compensation money as
a bride price or bride wealth. The divorce involves writing
out an invoice (rashid), documenting that the fact that
family jewelry was returned and choot money was given as
compensation to the former husband(s). To stop divorces
becoming a business for profit, the panchayat regularizes
such a divorce by fixing compensation money. If the woman

wants a divorce, the husband and his family get the custody

97
of her children. If, however, the divorce is initiated by a
man and his kin, the woman may take her children with her.

Choot is negotiated between the woman’s male kin and
her male affinal kin. The woman has no say in this
negotiation, even though she may initiate choot. Thus, the
institution of marriage, including remarriage and divorce,
is male dominated, which further strengthens the ideological
structure of patriarchy.

Remarriage is as common as divorce. This should not,
however, be interpreted as resulting in women having more
choices and options. Because women are highly valued as
agricultural laborers and reproducers, the cultural value
of women in the hills depends on their ability to perform.
As one young Jaunsari man, disgusted by this tradition which
he felt degrades women, suggested, his society is like a
huge.mela (gathering) where women are bought and sold like
cattle.

Sexual relations outside of marriage are tolerated for
men, while women face different standards of morality
depending on their marital status. As a wife, a woman
(rianthuri) has her sexuality controlled by her affines in
the village, but as a daughter (dianthuri) she is free to
have sexual relations in her natal village. This is another
cultural features that distinguishes Jaunsaris from the
other Paharis. Berreman (1972) reports that this cultural

feature is more pronounced in Jaunsar-Bawar than in any

98
other part of the Garhwal Himalayas. Marriages between
people of the same village are tolerated even less than
intercaste marriages.

Jaunsari women have very few economic and jural
rights.” Daughters can not claim shares in the parental
property but the father has to provide whatever is necessary
for marriage ceremonies. Land and livestock cannot be
inherited by women. Though there are very few money-making
activities within the village, a woman has several
possibilities of acquiring cash. Jaunsari women do earn
small amounts of money through selling home-brewed liquor.
This kind of money is earned without the knowledge of their
kinsmen. Midwifery, teaching and weaving carpets are new
money-making opportunities available to women as the
Government of India and its various programs are encouraging
girls to stay in school. I must add here that the incidence
of women working outside their domestic sphere as dai,
teachers or teacher’s aide are insignificant. In my sample
of 4 villages with a total population around 800, there was
only one woman who was employed as a dai in the nearby
township are and a few girls were being trained to weave
carpets. So even though women are considered an "economic

asset," they are nevertheless economically dependent on

 

” Jain (1948) for a detailed description of dastoor ul
aml or Jaunsari customary Law.

99

their male kin. Saroj laments:

What is the use of "taking choot" from my husband

and becoming a burden on my maite (natal village).

I will be a burden wherever I go. At least I have

more status as a rianthuri (married woman) than a

divorced dianthuri (unmarried woman) in my maite.
Jaunsari women find themselves belonging neither to their
maite nor their sasural. A number of women pointed out that
because of the curse of being born a woman ("karm of my last

birth") their lives are so hard.

Conclusions;

A critical analysis of the social relations that
maintain polyandry reveals that in Jaunsari culture and
society male prestige is closely linked to relations with
women. It is the woman who mediates the relationships
between brothers and who shoulders the responsibility of
maintaining solidarity among them. Brotherhood is a
prestige structure and it becomes the imperative of the
family to keep the brothers together. What better strategy
than to bind them to a common woman. If common property and
residence hold brothers together, a common wife would
further increase the obligations between the brothers. In
other words, women are used to strengthen the bonds between
the brothers.

This suggestion is illuminated by the fact that
although women can initiate a separation, the ultimate

control over consenting to and dissolving marriages is in

100
the hands of the male kin. I have made an attempt to show
how marriage and kinship rules directly strengthen the male
authority while having a negative effect on women's
selfhood. This chapter provides the social context for a

meaningful analysis of spirit possession in Jaunsar-Bawar.

Chapter 5-

Jaunsari Cosmology

This chapter documents the local construction of the
world and those categories that form the basis for
understanding the existential dilemma that perplexes any
ordinary being. In an attempt to construct what I have
called Jaunsari Cosmology,16 I have sifted through my field
notes to determine categories of powerful actors. As "power"
is an important attribute that defines these categories, I
have emphasized the power hierarchy of supernatural and
natural forces. The last section of the chapter is devoted
to understanding the relationship of a person to the
cosmogenetic bodies and supernatural forces.

The Jaunsaris recognize the existence of the high god--
Devata Mahasu; his three brothers Chalda, Bassi and Pabassi;
his army (the bir and pir); and numerous deities called
Matriya. They honor Siva and Kali (devi), the great
deities, and they also closely identify with the Pandavas of

the Mahabharata and consider themselves their direct

 

” By Cosmology I refer to that aspect of culture which
forms the philosophical basis for the interrelation between
the various categories of actors that constitute the various
worlds and the rules that govern these actors.

101

102
descendants. And just as the Pandavas are worshipped as
ancestors, the Jaunsari also worship and pacify spirits of
those humans who died due to neglect and misdeeds on the
part of their family. In addition, Jaunsaris recognize
certain individual humans (nordai) who have special powers
that may be benevolent or evil.

The universe, according to the Jaunsaris, is
stratified, with the Indralok (upper world) above, Mrityulok
(underworld) below, and the Prithvi in the center. There are
a number of loks (worlds) between the upper world and the
underworld (7 below the center and 7 above the center), but
to most Jaunsaris Indralok, Prithvi and Mrityulok form the
three-tiered indigenous cosmos.

Each lok (world) has its respective spirits, which in
turn have their own hierarchy, and each lok is defined by
its denizens. The Indralok, which is above the high
mountains, is the home of the major gods and goddesses. The
danda (mountain top) is closer to the upper world, and is
the home of the matriyas. The Mrityulok is inhabited by
nefarious spirits, while Prithvi is where humans live. The
inhabitants of Mrityulok are the spirits of humans who had a
premature death or died unfulfilled a condition, variously
known as masandh, bhut, pret, or heyrdh. The cremation
grounds, which are considered to be continuous with the
Mrityulok, are areas where malevolent spirits roam free.

The shaman, who resides in the Prithvi, is seen as the

103

mediator between the beings of Indralok and Mrityulok and he
or she acts on behalf of the humans inhabiting the Prithvi.

In addition to the three loks, the Jaunsaris also
recognize nine grahas (planets). ” In accordance with the
Hindu astrological system, a villager Bamon will develop a
janam kundalini (horoscope) upon the birth of a child. The
horoscope is calculated by taking into account the date of
birth, the time of the birth and the first two letters of
the child's name. Two levels of analysis develop for use
with this chart: the ruling number and the relation between
the planets. The date of birth, according to certain rules,
is calculated/manipulated to determine the ruling number.
The time of birth helps to calculate the asterism (naksatra)
under which a child is born. The particular naksatra one is
born under is therefore defined for the person from birth
and determines the planetary influence (rashi) on his/her
life. Each planet has certain attributes which affect the
mental, physical and spiritual strength of the person. For
example, people born under certain zodical signs (rashis),
like Gemini (Mithun), Virgo (Kenya), Cancer (Maker) and
Pisces (Meen), are vulnerable to possession by spirits
because these rashis are considered "naram" (soft) or
"halka" (light). In their local theory, it is believed that

a person’s psychological makeup (vaiktitya) is often

 

” The nine planets correspond to the 7 days of the week,
and the remaining two are rehu and keen.

104
governed by a dominant graha (planet).

The birth chart is consulted for major decisions and
for finding out the "cause" of suffering and misfortune. It
also helps to predict anxieties and problems that might
afflict the individual, and finds solutions to them. Each
year, a number of publishing houses bring out an almanac
(jantri) which is vigorously and extensively consulted by

Bamon and Paboch of the community.

nahasu:

The history of Mahasu Devata, the high god, is linked
with the village of Hanol, which is the destination of the
ultimate pilgrimage for all Jaunsaris. Tana Nana, the
deyhardh of Bisoe, narrated the legend of the birth of
Mahasu:

Near Hanol, on the bank of the River Tons, was a
village named Mahendreth where the four Mahasu
brothers "took birth." In the olden days,
Mahendreth was a village of Bhatts. This village
has since been destroyed. During the time when the
village was a flourishing, a demon named Kirmir
Dana "took birth" in the River Tons. He used to
eat humans and would not allow any humans to use
the river.

The villagers had agreed among themselves to send
him one man in return for the temporary use of the
river. Soon many villagers had been sacrificed so
that the river could be used. Then came the turn
of a Brahmin named Urna Bhatt. The demon had
already eaten Urna Bhatt’s 7 sons and 7 daughters.
Urna had been trying to kill the demon and, the
night before the fateful day, he had a dream about
4 warrior brothers Mahasu who lived in Kuru
Kashmir and understood that with their help he

105
could kill the demon.

When he woke up from his dream the next morning,
Urna left for Kuru Kashmir with a silver stick and
chanted reverentially Mahasu’s name. He had to
overcome quite a few obstacles. He had to fight
lions, tigers, bears, and snakes. It was in the
darkness of the night that he reached his
destination. Once he was there, he had to face 51
chatak (bhut-pret) and 52 bir (warriors). Some
wanted to eat him raw and others wanted to roast
him.

It was the mantri (ministers) Kailu Kapla Vir and
Sukhrirdh Vir who explained to the 51 chataks and
52 virs that Urna Bhatt had nowhere to go and had
come to them for help. So the chataks and the bir
explained to Urna that he should not panic and
that he would come to no harm. They said that on
Sunday, when the drums are beating the Regjhega
Tal, the 4 brothers would appear outside of their
palace. At that time, Urna should get hold of the
forth palki (palanquin) that will go to Chalda's
and present his case. Chalda promised to kill the
demon Kirmir and asked Urna Bhatt to return to
Mehendreth.

On the first Sunday after his arrival they said
Urna should plough the largest field using blades
made of gold and with a plough made of silver, and
in the furrows he would find that the 4 brothers
would take birth. Urna acted accordingly and Botha
(Mahasu) was the first to appear followed by
Chalda, Bassi and Pabassi. Soon the whole army
appeared on the field. In no time the demon was
killed by Kailu Kapla Vir. The villagers
dedicated a temple to Botha in Hanol, where he is
seated to this day. Chalda decided to move around
in Jaunsar-Bawar and Bassi and Pabassi left for
Garhwal.

Various regional interpretations of Mahasu exist. Some
Jaunsaris identify Mahasu as Siva (Maha-su = Maha siv),
while some equate him with Rama (pointing out that.both Rama
and Mahasu have three brothers). Most Jaunsaris agree that
Mahasu is the highest god in the cosmological hierarchy.

It is believed that the laws have been laid down by Mahasu

106
and should be followed by all people in their everyday
living.
Apart from the temple of Mahasu at Hanol, there are
temples in different villages which are dedicated to Mahasu.
One such temple was erected in the Village of Bisoe after it

was approved by Mahasu in a person's dream.
Pandavas:

The Pandavas, the heroes of The_Mehehhe;eee, are
considered to be the ancient ancestors of the Jaunsaris.
For most Jaunsaris, the Pandavas are the model of
brotherhood and provide validation for the existence of
polyandry. The story of Raja Virat, who is believed to have
given shelter to the Pandavas when they were in exile, is a
part of their oral repertoire and was recounted to me
several times as evidence that the Pandavas lived in
Jaunsar. Bhairat Khai, an old fort, located about 5
kilometers from the Village of Bisoe is evidence of the
existence of the kingdom of Raja Virat. This story also
appears prominently in the Mahabharata.

Mandavana is the annual ceremony to honor and worship
the Jaunsaris’ direct'lineal ancestors, the Pandavas. It is

a dramatized rendition of their local history18 eulogizing

 

“ See Sax, William 1992

107
the solidarity between brothers, presenting ideal womanhood
as portrayed by Draupadi Rani as the ideal wife and Kunti as
the ideal mother, and legitimizing the practice of
polyandry. To most villagers, Mandavana is an annual
festival celebrated for the welfare of the village. This
ceremony removes any dosh that the village may "carry" and
requests the Pandavas to control the powers of ghosts and
demons.

The festival may continue for as long as seven days,
depending on the financial situation of the village or on
any crises which may arise. It is a performance at which a
number of chosen villagers are possessed by the Pandava
spirits. Briefly, Mandavana is a ritual that focuses on the
well-being of the village or the local unit (depending on
who is the sponsoring unit). Since polyandry is the basis
for the well-being of the community, it is celebrated and
eulogized with songs like:

Sewa manya koiki kunta,.meri sat ki mata

dharam ki sewa manya meri pita pando raja

jayee ke jerma sat ke‘pancholpando bori bhai bandh

sewa manya.meri yudhistir.maharaj

sewa manya.meri devi draupadi

nahi lena mere pandov, hari haridwar birdi ka dwar

nahi lena mata hari haridwar

nahi lena pando yudhistir maharaj.

Respect to mother Kunti, Mother of the truth

respect to religion, and to the father of the Pandavas,

to whom was born the truth of five Pandava brothers

respect to my great King Yudhistir

respect to my devi Draupadi

We will take ritual a bath, my Pandavas, at Hari's

Hardwar,

Birdi's door
We will take a bath mother, at Hari Hardwar

108
We will take a bath, pando Yudhistir Maharaj.
This song is sung to encourage the people to participate in
Mandavana, to allow the spirit of Pandavas to "ride them,"
and, in return, to become recipients of a ritual bath at

Hardwar.

Devi :

Although devatas, especially the Mahasu devata; are
considered the most powerful (virat sakti) of the gods, Devi
is next in the hierarchy as far as sakti is concerned.
Whereas the devatas have regular followers and a fixed
calendrical ritual, Devi has a limited following and no
rituals associated with her. Most Jaunsar households have a
kuldevi (household devi), namely vaishnudevi, Nagarkot,
Jawala, etc. Devi may vas (reside in, possess) human bodies
and provide prakash (light =insight) for their hosts. The
hosts are considered to have sakti and are believed to have

a "healing touch."

Pokhu :

Every time the word Pokhu is mentioned, the Jaunsaris
will bite their tongues and touch their earlobes as a way of
asking for forgiveness. Pokhu is a divine being who is

feared because of his destructive powers and the expedience

109
with which he operates on behalf of the people when they
call upon him to intervene. A legend traces the power of
Pokhu to the special vardan (gift) from Siva. Pokhu was a
rakshash (demon) who, as he took his last breath, remembered
Siva. Siva bestowed on him the vardan that Kaliyuga people
will worship him in the tradition of Asura (a demon).
Pokhu's birthplace is Netwar, a region north of Jaunsar,
where the Kauravas, the enemy of the Pandavas, are
worshipped.

The Jaunsaris describe the power of Pokhu as being as
dangerous as a bijli (lightning/thunderbolt), which only
causes destruction and loss. A woman described Pokhu and
his power as follows:

His influence is like the impact of thunderbolt:

it finishes (khatam) anything on which it falls.

For example, I have an enemy, and I think of Pokhu

in my mind and I debate and think that lightning

should strike that person or that the person loses

face, and it is not long before the impact can be
seen. . .very fast impact and then the person dies

or loses everything he/she has.

In some areas of Jaunsar, especially in the west (the area

bordering Himachal Pradesh), a similar spirit is

worshipped, locally known as Brijat.

Matri :

Matri is a cultural construction of a kind of wind

(hawa) which has no physical form but belongs to the female

gender. She is believed to reside in indralok (upper

110
world), and is variously known as jogini, yogini, or hawa.
There are as many as 64 jogini forms and there is some sort
of a configuration among them. They could be related to
each other as sisters, they could be occupying a different
space (in terms of different spatial direction), or they
could be categorized in terms of the symptoms or
afflictions they cause. While domesticated plants and
animals are protected by the higher devatas, the domain
under the jurisdiction of the matris is the wild-forests,
danda (high mountain peaks), jungle animals and plants. To
enter their domain, one needs to seek their permission, for
example if hunting or lumbering has to take place.

Given the formlessness of the matris, Susan Wadley’s
(1980: 23-24) analysis of sakti as symbolized by the wind is
pertinent here. Wadley in her research in Tamil Nadu found
that the qualities of wind correlate with the character of
demons and lower gods and contrasts with the character of
higher gods. As one Eamon put it, "hawa is constantly
present and so is the presence of matri." For the
Jaunsaris, matris, like the wind, are relentless, always
moving, without a form, and are always in search of pinds
(bodies) to reside in.

Matri is believed to be attracted to beautiful women,
to the color red, and to ornaments. She might decide to
reside in a woman if she is attracted to her. This form of

possession may manifest itself in the form of an affliction

111
or bodily change. She may also "stick" to a person, for the
person may be carrying a dosh, or she might protect a person
afflicted by malevolent spirits. Metri may be an avenger,
protector or "soul mate." However, matri is easily angered
by abusive language, noise and human excreta. These attract
the attention of matri and anger her. It is said:

A well respected man from the Bawar region of
Jaunsar-Bawar was a flutist, and would graze his
goat on Kharamb, one of the highest peaks of the
Chakrata hills. These hills were also known to be
the residence of higher-order matris. Although
matri had warned him in his dreams not to play his
. flute in the hills, he continued to play his
flute, while keeping an eye on his grazing goats.

One day he climbed a tree and fell asleep while
watching his flock of goats. As he slept, he
dreamed of several women plotting whether or not
to kill him. This frightened him and he woke up
immediately and found himself in the midst of a
dense jungle. Although he found his way home, he
never played the flute again in the hills. He
also appeased matri by paying his dues.

While the matris are generally attracted to women, they make
no distinctions between caste groups. This is well
illuminated by the Myth of Daagar Tila:
During the time of British Raj, a certain British
couple was hiking to a mountain top, locally known
as dagar tila. They were told to be careful, as
the matris wandered there. The couple did not
believe these stories, but all of a sudden the
British woman’s jaw twisted and she fell to the
ground. The man then pissed in her mouth and the
woman’s face regained its shape.
Although there are at least 64 different forms of
matri, they can be easily dichotomized into symbolically

opposite categories that are mutually exclusive, not

112
complementary to each other, and coded by color. They are
succhi matri and masan matri. The succhi in succhi matri is
a Jaunsari version of the Hindi word sudh (pure). The succhi
matri resides in the high mountain peaks (danda), while the
masan.matri lives in the marghat (cremation ground), which
is near a stream (neuar), and is mostly found in the
foothills of the Himalayas. The characteristics that define

and configure the two matris are clearly in binary

opposition.
i l' . ll .
* pure * polluted
* white, red, solid * black, printed
* wheat flour, cotton thread * kala mung
* vegetarian, no oil * Nonvegetarian,
* mountain peaks, earth * lower level, near
water source
* morning * night
* Purnima (full moon) * Anus, amabas
(moonless)
* auspicious * inauspicious
* no sacrifice * sacrifice
* the victim remains the * the animal
dori/rath (vehicle) sacrificed becomes
dori
* bonth (tie together), * always exorcised

or request to leave
Some Jaunsaris recognize a third category of matris known as
kali, while some others consider Kali as a devi and place
her on a higher level than the rest of the matris.

The Jaunsaris believe that matris take possession of
humans at will and affect their physical and mental well-
being. Under their influence, the soul strays (atma bhatak
jati hai) and the person may experience dysphoria. The host

may also have some somatic symptoms such as stomach ache,

113
headache, nausea, loss of appetite, heart palpitations,
squeezing sensations, etc.

Succhi matris cannot be exorcised; they can either be
placated from time to time or assimilated into a permanent
relationship with the host. In other words, possession by
succi matri is lifelong. Over a period of time, individuals
possessed by matri can tap into her sakti and use it to heal
people. In contrast, masan matri is always exorcised as

possession by such matris is not desirable.

Kali :

Kali, in Jaunsar, is a generic name for a number of
deities known for their nefarious activities. To some
Jaunsaris, Mahasu is Kali’s mama (mother's brother), while
some refer to Kali as Mahasu’s beti (daughter). The image
of Kali in Jaunsar has a broken neck, and a legend19

explains that Kali's neck was deliberately broken by Mahasu

 

” A similar myth popular in Bengal explains the need to
control the dangerous female power sakti. Kali was sent by
gods to fight a demon and his army. Crazed with her victory,
she did not stop killing and the earth was near destruction.
The gods sent Siva to stop her, and as entranced as she was,
she did not notice that Siva was lying at her feet. When she
stepped.on.him, an inexcusable act for a Hindu wife, she stuck
her tongue out in embarrassment, and that stopped her rampage .
The explanation the Jaunsaris give for her hanging tongue is
that when Mahasu in his attempt to control her rampage and
stop destruction of the earth and her people; Mahasu struck
her neck, her tongue jerked out. In Bengal, Kali’s image is
always worshipped with Siva lying under her feet. The shakti
is rendered.positive and.benevolent by Siva's control on her.
This is similar to the reason why Mahasu broke her neck.

114
to make her less ferocious.

The first Sunday of every month is dedicated to Kali
and a goatling is sacrificed in her name. The color red is
associated with her and her dori puts a vermillion mark
(tilak) on their forehead. Her doris have the power to heal

people.
Paap :

Paap literally means sin and, in Jaunsar, paap is
believed to be passed on from generation to generation and
is, in a certain sense, an "ancestral cult." A paap is born
(janam leti hai) from hurt feelings caused by exploitation,
torture and/or neglect experienced by a person, which
feeling drives him/her to commit suicide. The resultant ahh!
(a cry of anguish or angst) "takes birth" as paap, which is
perpetuated in one's family line and possibly across kin and
caste boundaries. It is believed that one may even get the
‘paap of animals. Once the paap is "born," the paap may
"rise" or "come" from time to time (possession being one
possible avenues) in the form of misfortune in order to
demand justice for those unjustly exploited or hurt. The
Jaunsaris recognize three kinds of paap.

When a man commits suicide or has an unnatural

death because of the hurt caused by somebody, a

‘puruslpaap is "born." When a woman dies or

commits suicide, a kanya paap is "born" and

depending on the party responsible it is either
rianthuri (if her in-laws were at fault) or

115

dianthuri paap (if her natal household was

involved). In situations where sudden death of a

pregnant woman occurs, the household is said to be

"stuck with" (lagti hai) ostri-purus paap.
To show respect for paap, a locket is made with figures
engraved on it and is taken to Hardwar for ritual
oblagation. In some cases, on return, miniature wooden
houses are constructed for paap for pacification, and every
sankranth of jaith (May-June) it is honored and worshipped.

The paap is considered a type of affliction (dosh) and
is believed to be permanently attached to the household. It
is manifested in misfortunes like death (sometimes of the

entire clan), infertility, and miscarriage, and it is also

said to effect animals and harvests.

Daag:

Some individuals, generally women, are endowed with
evil powers. These evil forces are not an inherent force but
are learned skills that can be used to generate power.

These evil powers are used by daags to cause sudden deaths
in families and cattle. "A daag eats (khana)." They are
active at night and especially on moonless nights (anus).
When I asked villagers how one becomes a daag, who selects
them, and where they are trained, they gave me contradictory
information. They indicated that the daags themselves do not

know they are daags which contrasts with the perception of

116

learning their skills. However, all agreed that the power

of Brahmins is superior to the evil power of daags. This is

not surprising given the stronghold of Brahmins and the

gender ideology that favors males in that area. The

Jaunsaris illustrated the difference in the two powers with

the help of myths:

Myth # 1:

Myth

The daags meet every bhado at amabash (no moon) on
the top of a high mountain known as Ghitya Dhat,
which is also the place where Bisu mela is
celebrated at sankranth in baisakh (AprileMay7.
The daags get drunk, rip off their clothes and
dance in the nude. One year, the Bhola villagers
(the village very close to Ghitya Dhat), fed up
with the obscenity and amoral character of these
meetings, decided to attack one such gathering.
They carried with them fully-loaded rifles, but
when they reached the tile, the daags had
transformed themselves into lomrhi (foxes). The
foxes threatened the villagers never to disrupt
their meeting again. The villagers were unable to
fire bullets because the power of daags had
converted the ammunition into water.

#2:

The villagers were very frustrated by the
disruptions that the daags caused in their lives.
They decided to engage a Eamon who was reputed to
be the possessor of murtiman sakti (great power).
The Eamon arrived with his assistant and requested
a hukka (a pipe). When the assistant entered the
kitchen, the ghariaya put her hand inside the
hearth and handed the assistant some burning coal
for the chilum (the top portion of the hukka).
This was an indication (chinha) that the woman was
a daag and was trying to scare them away. The
assistant informed the Bamon about this incident.
The Eamon was not worried. That evening, the
Eamon assured all of the male members of the
village that by the next morning he would be able
to identify the daags in the village. To help him

117

he asked the men to bring a piece of their wives’
jewelry.

When the Eamon retired for the night, all of the
daags got together to find a way out of this
predicament. When the Eamon fell asleep, the
daags removed the top of the roof to eat the
Eamon. But the Eamon knew of this already. When
the daags removed the roof, the Eamon, using his
sakti, extended the walls of the hut so that the
roof of the hut would not fit. He challenged the
daags to put the roof back, and, if they failed,
he would expose them to the public. Because of
the inferior knowledge of the daags, they were
unable to extend the roof of the hut. The Eamon
agreed to let them go if they presented him with a
piece of their jewelry.

The next morning, in front of all the villagers,

the Eamon collected all the jewelry from the male

members of the village, and then matched it with

the jewelry he had collected from the daags. In

this way he was able to identify the daags in

public, showing the superiority of his knowledge.

A similar myth, along the same story line, was narrated
to me about a daag who was the wife of a Eamon from the
village of Dwinya. She was his first wife and was childless.
The villagers' perception of a daag is of a woman who is
usually ugly, with a protruding tongue, big teeth, and loose
hair falling on her face.

In the sacred text, Bagai, which provides yantras and
mantras for killing a daag, she is portrayed as a woman who
has fire coming out of her mouth. This, I was told, is the
weapon of the daag, and through her words she brings about
destruction. She has learned the skill of using words

(mantras) to cause "things to happen." Her power to destroy

is analogous to the destructive power of fire. However, her

118
power-to destroy can be controlled by Eamons, whose power is
greater and who can neutralize the power of a daag. The
most powerful of all is Pokhu.

It is common to see cactus plants placed at the opening
of the chimney to prevent the daags from invading the
households and its members. Daags are said to use the
chimney or the opening in the ceiling (khatai) to exit or
enter houses. In a similar manner, the daags are able to
enter a person’s body through any opening (without being
seen) and eat the kernel organs--the heart and liver being
their favorites. They are skilled at eating the inside of a
fruit without leaving a trace of their activities; a piece
of fruit may look healthy from the outside and yet have
nothing inside. The human victims may show no signs of skin
damage but may have no heart or any other vital organs left.
Daag are said to be responsible for causing miscarriage,
sterility or barrenness in women. Unable to bear children
themselves, they are jealous of fertile women. Daags
attacks their victims in such a way that they can see the
daag but are totally paralyzed ("the body feels like a huge
boulder") and cannot do anything. These symptoms are similar
to the symptoms of narcolepsy--sleep paralysis in which a
person is paralyzed while conscious.

A woman walking alone at night or very early in the
morning is branded as a daag (this is possibly a way to

curtail extra-marital relationships within the village).

119
All of these images mentioned in the above paragraphs
construct what is considered non—feminine among Jaunsari
women--childlessness, greed, destructiveness, and causing
death or ill-health. A daag, in the mind of Jaunsaris,

connotes a negative image of what it means to be woman.

Bhut-Pret:

A bhut or a pret is the soul of someone who dies
accidentally or unnaturally before he/she has led a "full
life." The soul wanders around as if it is still attached
to this world and is unable to transcend or take rebirth.

It is believed that bhut and pret are totally under the
control of higher gods and act as their chela (follower). In
fact, they do errands for the devatas.

Heyradh is particular type of pret--the soul of a
pregnant woman. She is feared by women as she can take away
from them what defines womanhood for Jaunsaris. It is
believed that these particular prets are vulnerable to daags
who have the learned skill to control them and make them do
whatever their hearts desire.

Cheradth are the souls of very young children who die
at infancy or at the time of birth, and whose antim smaskar
(final funeral rituals) were unsatisfactory. They are under
the control of daag and are known to be the daag’s chela

(follower).

120

.Divine Humans:

This category consists of humans who have special
powers (divya shakti-—the power to see) and who bridge the
gap between the supernatural forces and lay villagers. They
have the ability to see things beyond the perception of
normal humans, with the "light" (prakash) provided to them
by the knowledge they garner from reading sacred texts (as
in the case of enlightened Eamon or Paboch) or by the shakti
of spirits that possess them (as in the case of Mali,

Matriya, and Masanya).

Pir:

Pir, a Muslim.hero's spirit, is consulted for
afflictions which are the actions of bhut and pret. During
my research, I met only a couple of pirs (individuals who
are possessed by Pir) who were sought after as healers for

special cases of "fright."

Dunkin is the Jaunsari perception of the "evil eye."
Some humans, especially women, have a personal attribute
'which is an inherent quality enabling them to cause harm

‘with their "gaze" (locally known as nazar). This inherent

121
quality cannot be changed even if the person wills it. One
may, however, with the help of a healer, remove the effects

of the "gaze."

Nordei:

Nordei is a term used for lay people, who as mere

humans, they are prone to make mistakes.

Conclusion :

This chapter provides the backdrop for the human actors
straddled between the separate worlds of benevolent and
nefarious spirits. I have tried to chart out a cosmological
map that will help navigate through the case histories
featuring both human and divine actors and. will provide an
understanding of the dilemmas faced by these actors and
their fellow humans. This, I hope, will throw into relief
the various cultural schema, logic, rules and
interrelationships and guide us in addressing issues of
suffering, affliction, and misfortune in the Jaunsari

community.

Chapter 6

The Lives and Rituals of Healers

This chapter is a record of the life histories,
diagnoses and healing rituals of several traditional
healers. My primary objective is to do ethnography, to
document in detail the symbolic system of the healing
rituals that is the foundation of Jaunsari healing tradition
and to present the logic that informs the workings of such
systems of healing. It is important to keep in mind that
the healing tradition that emerges from this discussion is a
reconstruction on the part of the researcher that pieces
together the accounts and curing practices of the healers
under study. This is not an ethnoscientific study of
Jaunsari ethnomedicine.

The specialists who are the focus of this chapter are
those special human beings who have the "power" (sakti) to
establish communion between the living and the spirits of
other cosmic domains. The Jaunsaris, however, distinguish
between the different specialists by classifying them in
terms of the means by which spiritual power (sakti) is
gained or obtained. The "power" is either achieved by the

learned knowledge of sacred texts (vidhya) and/or by the

122

123
power (vardan) vested in humans by the spirits of the upper
worlds or under worlds.

The learned power of communicating with supernatural
worlds is almost always exclusively the domain of the caste
of Brahmins--the Eamons. The Eamons are specialists who
gain their power to heal or alleviate afflictions by
learning to use the Eagoi or bhagyabahi (the book of fate).
This text is written in an ancient script (kashmirilipi)
quite different from the devnagri script (Hindi). The same
text is used by the Paboch. However, the Paboch are
considered to be of the higher caste, more pure than the
Eamon who eat meat. The purity of the Paboch results from
their vegetarian diet. As the Paboch are considered more
pure, their healing power is believed to be more effective.

The Mali (male diviners) or Matriya (female diviners)
are healers who have gained ”power" or sakti as a special
gift (vardan) and are selected by the spirits who are known
to possess them. The hierarchy that exists among the Malis
and Matriyas reflects the position of the possessing spirits
within other cosmogenetic environments. This hierarchy also
mirrors the existing caste and gender hierarchy in Jaunsari
society. For instance, a woman from a higher caste would be
possessed by a spirit which has a lower status than the
spirit that possesses a Mali, who, although, belong to a
lower caste, is a male. Similarly, a Malis belonging to a

higher caste would be possessed by a spirit which has a

124
position higher than the spirit that may possess a Mali who
hails from a lower caste.

There is another category of practitioners known as
Masandhya. These practitioners usually belong to the lower
castes, the Dams and the Koltas, and are assumed to
communicate with nefarious spirits of the underworld. They
are considered to be powerful mediators between the human

world and the world of the dead.

H J‘ . II . 1' i E'I J E I'

The Malis (also known in some areas as Eaki or Ehagat)
are a group of male diviners who arbitrators/mediators
between the superhuman forces and the layperson. They
communicate with people under the ecstasy and spell of
powers. Divination is done under the protection of the
guardian supernatural force.

A Mali is a mouthpiece of a particular deity, and is
selected by the deity himself/herself for whom he acts as
the medium in the diagnoses of suffering and misfortune.
The divination occurs when the supernatural force enters
into the Mali's body and possesses it. The Mali then
becomes the mediator, able to communicate with the divine
forces and other spirits not considered benevolent.

Malihood is a legitimate diviner status. This status

is legitimized by the blessings obtained at the temple of

125
Mahasu at Hanol. However, Malis differ in terms of their
divinatory objects, style of divination, language and area
of expertise, as well as their caste affiliation.

Becoming a Mali or Matriya is not automatic after
having been "chosen" by the divine (a special calling). It
involves the process of "habituation" (bonth), a process in
which the deity is "tamed." This process can sometimes take
months or years. The habituation ritual confers on the Mali
the legitimate status of a diviner.

With the help of several vignettes describing Malis.and
Matriyas, I hope to highlight their similarities in order to
(1) present the cultural logic that informs the workings of
Jaunsari healing traditions, and (2) extend it to interject
the local knowledge that suggests how people construct

meaning from the events that design and shape their lives.

m1 he Mali (MES-r):

Jagat Singh was the youngest of all his siblings and
belonged to the local Rajput caste. In his description of
his initiation to Malihood, he details a number of themes
common to the experiences of a number of healers in that
community. He recounts:

The first time devata "came" (ana) in me was when

I was a Vth grader--I was 13-14 years old at that

time. I have a brother who lives in the same house

and has two sons. It so happened that one day the

2 boys "became together" (saha lag Jana) with
bhut:pret--they came under the wrath (prakop) of

126

bhut:pret. It was 7 o’ clock in the evening. With
the saha, their hands and feet had been bent out
of shape. Since I am the bhagat (Mali) of Lord
Parushuram, when this happened my father advised
that a fist full of wheat should be waved around
my body and then prasad should be waved over the
bodies of the boys. At that time, I was having my
evening meal. As soon as I had the first morsel
of roti, the devata came.

At that time the devata came in me in an elaborate
way (chant). I could see him from a far distance
and he came and sat on the roof of my house. It
was then that my eyes closed and I could see no
one other than Lord Parushuram. In one hand he
carried a double edged axe (fharsa) and in the
other hand tongs (chimta). I saw him in his vikral
rup [frightful /formidab1e form]. He did not say
much, only "son, go be responsible for sangraha."
By sangraha we mean the ability to calm the
spirits. For instance, I was responsible for
destroying those under the influence of bhutepret.
With that advice, he disappeared.

After that incident, for three months at 4 o’clock
every morning, he would enter (praman) my body and
at 9 a.m. sharp manifest (prakat) himself. I
would begin to tremble and shake (chant). Then
over the next 3 months he began to come to me in
the evening. He did not say anything. The words
seemed stuck somewhere. This went on for another
6 months. This was because until I was purified
(suddhi) I could not speak. When I was in a
trance and people would approach me and ask me
questions, he would not speak. I was not purified
you know. How could I speak? Once this body
(pind) is purified, I will speak. This went on for
three months.

Then one day, He (Parushuram) told the people that
a temple should be established in his name. The
villagers were in a fix because no one knew of
this lord. They asked him to reveal to them about
himself, what needed to be done and where the
temple should be built. He said that he would
himself identify the spot on which the temple
could be built. He searched for a space; it was
very close to the village and with his chimta he
drew the boundary of the temple. When the temple
was near completion, He decided that it was time
for Him to visit Renuka, which is his birthplace
and the place where His mother is contained

127

(samaee thi). And that I need to go to Renuka and
from there I will bring back a sign (chinha).

About 7-8 people accompanied me to Renuka. I was
very young-~14 years old at that time. The
villagers were also thinking that it (my kampan)
could be due to a jhapat, or due to saha: or that
I had become mad. They were worried about me. I
was after all a bawala [innocent or not
knowledgeable]; who knows what I could do. I
could run away or jump into the river or fall off
somewhere. So there were 7-8 people to accompany
me.

When we reached Renuka, we saw a man (guruji) on
whom the devata had "come"--Parushuram. This man
said I could not find a chinha so easily. We
informed him that devata Parushuram "comes" in me.
He was very skeptical but decided to hide a chinha
in the lake somewhere and the next morning I was
supposed to enter the lake and find it. Early in
the morning at 4 a;m. we were prepared for the
test. The devata had come to me at 2 a.m, and by
4 a.m, he had manifested himself and desired to
take a bath in the lake. I started towards the
river and the people who had accompanied me
followed. I jumped into the lake and brought back
the chinha which the guruji had hidden the day
before.

The chinha was an image made in stone--the way
images (murti) are. Not the image you saw in the
temple (he is referring here to the temple that
was established in his village). That image was
made-to-order from Jaipur; it is made of marble.
The chinha that I got is buried under the temple.
The chinha proved that it was devata himself who
"comes" in me, not one of his followers as the
guruji had suspected. The guruji was now very
open and declared that truly it was Parusharam's
‘prancharnd (trance movements), that the chinha has
a lot of shakti and that this door will remain
open for me (Jagat Singh) and my companions. He
enquired if I knew how to worship Lord Parushuram.
I told him "Maharaj, I do not know anything, nor
do I know the ways of worship. How will I serve
Him?" The guru then taught me a hymn (shloka) and
advised me to start his worship with this shloka.

128
I will tell the shorter one:

Kar Kalit kuthur pujo yarnd surari
guru charaneshu seva tat purn karti
surumani garbandhoyo karti bijaye

deyntu parushuram sarvada survadum.

Since then I have been responsible for the whole
puja. If some saha attaches to someone, or dusth
or bhut--pret attacks, coming to the temple
alleviates these roblems. All sorts of problems
are solved: dusthO problems and progenyless
people get the blessings (vardan) for children.
Sometimes Maharaj refuses, but, when they start
crying, Maharaj is overcome by compassion (daya)
and gives his blessings. He hates when anyone
cries at his doorstep.

It has been forty years between then and now. But
this has not been continuous. I stopped for a few
months. It so happened that if asked I would be
able to give the name of the person, the village
he was from, and if the person was involved in
illegal dealings. I would name the person who was
causing problems in someone's life and this
wrapped me in a court case. Then it made the whole
village miserable.

For instance, I would tell a woman that she was a
dunkin and that she had eaten so-and-so person's
son. Then the victim would take it to the court
as evidence. Now the government does not
recognize this. So when I became tied to several
court cases, the harassment followed. The
villagers called a meeting. All I wanted was to
resolve problems, and now I was being dragged into
conflicts.

In the meeting it was decided that an arji
(request) be made to Parushuram: "You be
compassionate and remove people's suffering
(dukh), but never give names of the illdoer." The
entire village shut their doors and windows and
staged a protest outside the temple. They
proclaimed "you must not give the father's name
nor the mother’s name." Maharaj said "this could
never happen; I refuse to hear this." Hearing
this, the villagers decided that if He did not

 

” dusth refers here to any nefarious spirit.

129

heed their request they all would commit suicide.
Then Maharaj felt daya for them and asked them
what would make them happy. "That, Maharaj, you
bless the progenyless with progeny, drive the evil
spirits, drive the opri pari (matri), show the way
toward peace, give shakti to people so that they
can follow the path you show them, but under no
condition should you give any names."

Since then, naming stopped and devata was calmed
down and stayed like that for a few years. When
"he" would manifest I would feel bound, unable to
speak freely as I had made a promise to the
villagers-~the trance (prachandh) would not appear
fully. It has only been a few years that devata
has manifested in his complete form. This started
after I left the family life (grahasthi); I was
married when I was just a child. I needed to
focus on much bigger issues than family, the world
which is full of sufferers (dukhi people), and
this cannot be achieved remaining entangled with
everyday problems of family life. Now I live in a
separate house and cook my own food. When I am
away from the village, I accept food from
everybody except the food cooked by women who are
menstruating. Paboch refuse food from all peOple
because they fear bis.

According to Jagat Singh Mali, his ability to heal and
divine is a special gift (vardan) from devata. He contends
that a legitimate healer is born (chosen), not made. His
"calling" came in various ways. Jagat Singh pointed out
that the "calling" often takes the form of a sign (chinha)--
legitimate evidence that the person is the "chosen one."

In his case, Jagat Singh indicated that the signs were
many--his vision of Parushurama, dreams of Parushurama,
regular trance behavior, and lastly the stone image. As he
had shown enough signs to qualify as "the chosen," he became
eligible to obtain permission to practice from the guruji at

Renuka, who validated his experience as authentic. With the

130
stamp of approval from a reputed healer, he started his
practice and began to build his own reputation as a healer.
To elucidate Jagat Singh's style of divination, I

present a selection from one of his healing sessions:

When Lord Parushuram came to the drumming and chant of
invitation, Makhti ka Mali became entranced. The spirit had
entered his body. The drumming stopped and his "trembling"
(chant) stopped and his trance was now more controlled. He
began to speak in Hindi, his hand near his ear as if holding
a telephone. "I am communicating with the spirit of Lord
Parushuram," he informed the huge audience that had
collected outside the Parushuram temple he had founded.
Moments later a woman started shaking violently. Her
movements were so vigorous that her headgear (danthu) fell
off. She was trying to speak but it seemed the words were
caught in her throat. Mali placed his arms around the
woman’s shoulder and asked the spirit, "who are you? what do
you want? why have you entered her body?" No reply, save
her continued jerking movements. Mali reentered the temple
and brought out a brass plate and a stick. He started
drumming the plate with the stick, encouraging the spirit
possessing the woman to speak. .Mali repeated his questions.
A hoarse voiced answered "I am Shobhan pari."
Mali: What do you want?

Woman: No reply.

131
Mali: Will you leave her body?
Woman: No reply.
Mali: What do you want?
Woman: No reply.
Mali started drumming the brass plate and tried to summon
the spirit: "Hey Ehagwan, please speak what you desire
(icca)."
In the middle of the sentence, the voice resurfaced: "nahana
mangta" (want ritual bath). Mali promised her a bath in the
Renuka Lake.
Mali: Any other icca maharaj?
Woman: Jhuta kanna nahi.(no used food)
Mali: Thik hai maharaj. (okay maharaj)
Accha maharaj, thik rup se jao.(okay maharaj,

return in the right form).

The woman continued to breathe heavily and suddenly fell on
the ground, very rigid.

Jagat Singh's expertise is limited to diagnosis.
However, he does recommend appropriate practitioners who
could conduct rituals which would alleviate the affliction.
In his trance state and with the help of his guiding devata,
Jagat Singh is able to control (vash) the spirits and
involve the spirit in a dialogue in order to extract the
cause of affliction and provide solutions. He added that in
his trance state, with the help of the vision (prakash)
provided by the devata, he can "see" where the people came

from (the village, its layout), the reason that brought them

132
to him and the person or spirit responsible for his/her
suffering. The vision or the psychic sight enables him to
see beyond his visual perception and to transcend space and
time dimension, an experience, Jagat Singh reasoned, very
similar to watching t.v. "I can "see" the problem
afflicting them. They do not have to tell me anything, the
”prakash" throws light which lets me "see," just like a film

you would see on t.v.
mm] 1:3 ”311 (”55-14:

Hari Singh describes his "calling" as "a pull" exerted
by a divine force towards the local temple (Kailu Mahasu--a
local name for Mahasu). This recurrent event happened when
he was about 25 years of age. He would feel a great
strength pulling him.towards the temple several times every
day. Everyone in the village thought he had gone crazy
(jhal). This went on for several months, he had begun to
lose weight and showed no interest in his work (he is a
carpenter by caste and occupation). One day, as he danced
in front of the temple, the devata manifested (praman hua)
and spoke through his body (pind) to indicate that Hari
Singh had been "chosen" to be bestowed a special gift
(vardan). The whole village community gathered that evening
and collected money for his pilgrimage to Hanol. The head

Mali at the Hanol temple immediately recognized Hari Singh

133
and gave up his spot (sthan--throne) and saluted him "jai
Maharaj."

Hari Singh’s wife, Bijma, recalls that the head Mali
was very impressed with Hari Singh and had predicted that
one day Hari Singh would be known far and wide for his
healing powers. Hari Singh stayed back in Hanol for over
two years to be the head Mali's assistant. Besides learning
the rituals associated with healing through spirits, he
gained a tremendous experience of the extensive problems
that plague human beings.

Because the spirit that had chosen Hari Singh was one
from among the highest orders, he never goes into a trance
during healing sessions. He had been given the "spot"
(sthan or gaddi) by the head Mali and, since then, every
Friday, Hari Singh prays to Mahasu as he sits down to heal.
Mahasu then enters his body and guides himt The fact that
Mahasu has entered his body is not manifested by any
movement typically associated with trance and/or possession,
but his capability to heal is an evidence of this fact.

Hari Singh’s expertise includes diagnosis and a
knowledge of rituals which heal and cure people. This, he
suggests, he learnt from his guru--the head Mali at Hanol.
He calls his style of divination "healing through spirits."
Under the guidance of his devata, he urges the forces that
afflict his "patients" to reveal their identities and

verbalize their desires. His seance by with imploring the

134
spirit with this prayer:

Jai Shri Raghunath bothiya Mahasua
Chatradhari antarjami Raghunath Ji

Dori mey vas loia aur sathya ka prakash kori
nordei ke dhukh dur karna

aun galti maphi kori

dori ki mukhise va pindse

sathya ka praksh kori

argi devata argi kori

kar Prakash

dev kala se ana dev kala se jana.

Hail Raghunath, Botha Mahasua

omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient Raghunathji

reside in the host (dori) and bring forth the truth

remove suffering from humans

pardon the mistakes and transgressions

throw light on the truth

through the mouth or the body of the host

I am calling you, devata, I am requesting you

come in the form of devata and leave in the form of

devata.
Once the spirit manifests (prakat hona) itself, he exhorts
the cause of its presence in the body of the host
(dori/doli). In the dialogue between the Mali and the
enticed spirit, the healing process begins. The diagnosis
also involves throwing rice grains and catching them
(motia). The motias he catches in his palm, the number and,
the spacial location and association, are interpreted by
himm They enable him to decipher the cause of dosh and
possibly to remedy it.

To illustrate Hari Singh’s style of divination, I
present excerpts from the slightly edited fieldnotes of one
Friday morning in the month of April at one of his "Friday

clinics." The "Friday clinic" as I have named it, is a

small structure (one room 10 by 14 feet) recently built on

135
the south side of the Chakrata--Nagthat highway. Located a
short distance from the bus stop, this clinic attracts a
number of people who are in despair (dukhiari).

By 8 a.m., there is a long line of people trying to
register their names, as the service is on a first-come-
first served basis. On an average day, the clinic draws as
many as 35-40 people. This includes patients and their
escorts. The healer spends anywhere between 5 to 35 minutes
on each person. Beginning with a song of invocation
(mentioned above), his diagnostic style combines dialogue
with the spirits and the "patient," with interpretations of
the number and design of motia and/or coin or paper money
(given by the person seeking a remedy for his/her problem).
Sometimes he looks at fingernails and palms as well.

Mali begins with a song of invocation. As he sings, he
looks at the paper money provided by the person. He then
picks up a few rice grains (motia) and waves them around the
person’s head and upper body. He throws the grains in the
air and catches them, Opening his palm, he interprets the
rice grains which have formed a design on his palm, With
the help of the "light" (prakash) granted by his devata, he
says, he is able to "see" the problems (parashani)
confronting the person. i

The interpretations drawn at this time set the stage
for reaching a conclusion about the nature of the affliction

(dosh). If he infers that the cause of the problem is the

136
anger of a spirit, he begins to implore the spirit to
manifest itself and make his/her wishes known. If, however,
the dosh is a result of the transgressions of norms, then
the audience along with the Mali addresses the issue and a
consensus is reached regarding an appropriate way to redress
it. In this sense, the Mali is in the role of a Vindicator
of social injustice, over and above his role as a healer.
The dbsh might be the result of possession by an evil
spirit, in which case exorcism rituals are recommended. The
possession of an individual by evil spirits is indicated by
"lines on fingernails," informed Hari singh.

Hari Singh was an apprentice for the Mali at Hanol, and
therefore his healing repertoire includes rituals associated
with healing, traditionally the tasks of Eamon (discussed
below). He has extensive knowledge of mantras and yantras
(hymns and mystical designs) which he uses to heal people.
This expertise has gained him quite a reputation and he has

a thriving business of healing and curing.

II | . . I' i E I'

The Matriyas are female diviners who may belong to any
caste and are believed to he possessed by a particular
matri. They act as a medium in the diagnosis of afflictions
and existential dilemmas that confront her fellow humans,

especially but not restricted to women. Matriyas are very

137
similar to Maliss in their specialty, which is limited to
diagnosis and recommendation of appropriate practitioners
for relevant rituals. Through a process of "habituation,"
a process comparable to Malis, a woman becomes a diviner

(also known as dori).

Dwinya ki Matriya (F50+)

Deepa Dei is a Brahmin woman from the village Dwinya.
Though still married to her husband, she only lives with her
daughter in Chakrata. Her husband lives in the same town,
but with his second wife. She told me that as she was
unable to deliver children in the first few years of being
married, the family decided to bring in another woman.

Her first experience of possession was symptomatic of
an illness. She describes the that she first experienced,
which events later were diagnosed as matri possession. She
remembers that:

I was married but until then had not delivered any
children. It was the month of September (bhado).
My two sisters (I was at my parent’s house) were
mimicking and making fun of other girls in the
village. I too was involved in it and was
drumming on a brass plate. A number of young
girls were dancing in the courtyard in the front.

The next day, my sisters and I took our goats and
sheep to feed on grass. There were a number of men
and women who were singing and dancing--they must
have stopped to rest on their way back from
collecting wood. I started to dance and sing with
them. Then, when we reached home, I felt as if I
had a fever, I felt cold and was scared. My heart
(dil) was confused (ghabrai). Then the dhat

138

(possession) "came." I was in that state for
several days. My sisters took me to the nearest
Primary Health Center.

When her symptoms did not respond to biomedical treatment,
her family consulted a Eamon from the village who with the
help of the sacred book (bagoi), "calculated" it to be the
working of a matri. With the help of the Eamon, the matri
revealed her name and her desires (iccha). The matri
communicated that she was Robhan Pari and wanted to reside
(vas) her body and in return would give her special powers
which would enable her to alleviate people's problems.

Deepa Dei, on her return to her husband’s village,
faced many problems. Her in-laws did not agree with the
predictions of the Eamon and refused to let her conduct
seances every Friday. But every time she refrained from
possession activity (dhat), she would become critically
sick. "And then one day," she narrated:

A number of dukhi people had collected in my
house. I had left my house to go to a nearby
water spring (devata ka pani). On my return I
found to my dismay that my in-laws had sent away
the people who had come to visit me. The vessel
in which I was carrying water fell from my hands,
and I fainted. When I regained consciousness, I
felt as if someone had beaten me up. My whole
body was hurting.

From that day, for 15 days, I did not touch any food or
drink tea or water. This worried my in-laws who took
me to the nearby town for a full checkup. There was no
problem found, so no solutions were suggested by the
doctor. Then my father visited me and suggested that
my in-laws consult a Eamon of their choice. Jagat Ram
Joshi was summoned, who induced himself into a trance
and revealed that in fact I was under the protection of
Robhan Matri. He scolded my in-laws for being ashamed
of this fact, and demanded that every Friday of April,

139

July, and October and every New Moon day, I should hold
possession seances.

She recalled that, within a year, her daughter was born.
Since then she had visited Hardwar (two times), Hanol (three
times) and had taken a ritual bath on several occasions in
the River Yamuna. On her visit to Hanol, she offered four
silver coins to the Mali at Hanol who blessed and returned
one coin to her.

Every Friday, before her seance, she puts the coin on a
silver chain and wears it around her neck. As she sings
hymns urging the matri to manifest herself, she places the
silver coin on her forehead. She then enters into a trance
and is ready to communicate on behalf of the people who come
to her with their problems. As she put it, "every Friday I
dance (khel = play) after which I feel light and I
experience peace." It has been 30 years, and she continues
to hold regular Friday seance sessions and prides herself on
having initiated a number of other women in becoming healers

themSelves.
Kl |° K' H | . lElD+l

Bijma Dei is the ghariawi, married to three brothers
who belong to the Bajgi caste. She first experienced
possession when she was 12 years old. At that time on, she
puts it, "I felt as if I was being pulled by some tremendous

sakti." She was shown to the local Eamon who detected the

140
hand of the matris. He suggested that a silver locket with
the image of the marti engraved be given a ritual bath in
the River Yamuna and then tied around her neck with a red
silk thread. However, this brought no respite from the
power of the sakti.

Every time she heard the drums or singing, she would
run out of her house and start running towards the fields
around the periphery of the village. Her strength would be
so great that it would take a few able-bodied men to carry
her back to the village. This behavior worried her family
members as she was not yet engaged, and it made many
villagers suspicious about the possible paap (sin) wrath of
the devata's anger that had manifested in the dianthuri of
the family. This blemished the reputation of the girl and
her family.

Bijma's family simultaneously consulted several
Eamons, Malis and.Matriyas. It was the Matriya from village
Dwinya who calmed her down and tamed her spirit. Matriya
Deepa Dei divined that the force that was pulling her to the
periphery of the village was the sakti of the Goddess Kali,
who desired that a temple be established outside the
village. A temple of Kali now stands outside the village,
and on the first Sunday of every month the villagers offer
her fruits and vermillion. powder.

Bijma married when she was 17 years old and now has

three children. In her house, she has a framed picture of

141
the goddess Kali, to which she offers incense every day.
Every Sunday she conducts healing seances for people who
come from neighboring villages seeking relief from their

suffering.

K i e K. II I e ‘El'n...’ .

Rani Devi is a recent initiate and already has a large
clientele. The village where she holds healing seances
every Friday is only a two-hour walk down the hill from
Chakrota, a town well-connected by bus to different regions
of Jaunsar-Bawar.

Rani Devi’s initiation into healing was very similar to
that of many other women healers. She suffered from pain
all over her body and no pain killers could ease the pain
(dard). In the next few weeks, she experienced involuntary
body movements followed by a total loss of sensation in the
left part of her body. This happened during the harvest
season, a very busy time for agriculturalists. Her family
members were especially worried as she was unable to work in
the fields. They summoned a well-reputed Eamon who
diagnosed the symptoms to be the working of a matri.

Rani Devi decided that she must consult with.matri
specialists---the.Matriyas. For the next 3 weeks, every
Friday she visited Deepa Dei. During one of her curing

ceremonies, the spirit demanded to be "tied" permanently to

142
the host, at which time Rani Devi began to dance to the
rhythmic drumming of a brass plate. This demand of the
spirit created a lot of tension in the family despite the
fact that this was a "divine call" and Rani was the "chosen
one." She began to experience an array of emotions that she
could not relate to other experiences in her life. This is,
she informed me, locally known as bawala--a state of mental
uneasiness, instability and uncontrolled possession. She was
conscious of what she was doing, but had no control over her
activities.

With the help of her family Eamon, Rani Devi observed a
series of "habituation rituals" (bonth) in which the matri
afflicting her was "tamed" and permanently bound to her. In
the series of rituals, the spirit "matured." The maturity
of the spirit is indicated by the fact that the host is able
to communicate with the spirit. She was now a bocwan--a
person whose "tongue has opened" (i.e., can now effectively
communicate with people and conduct divination on her own).
The following year, Rani Devi made a pilgrimage to Hanol
where she obtained a blessing and a silver coin from the
Mali at the temple.

DISCHSSIQNI

In these short vignettes I have tried to highlight
certain salient features embodied by the practitioners known
as Mali or Matriya. The theme of the signs of calling (the

idea of special selection) followed by legitimization from

143
those higher in the hierarchy is common to all the life
history narratives I collected from Malis and Matriyas.
Prophetic dreams, various childhood experiences involving
possession, visionary encounters (darshan), periods of
living in an untamed state (bawala) and the opening of the
tongue" (bocwan) are common experiences among those who
become healers. The special vision (prakash) which enables
them to identify and discern the causes of and provide
solutions to suffering is a gift (vardan) granted by the
devata or other benevolent spirits of the upperworld.

Though divination styles vary, the diagnosis process
involves the healers engaging in a dialogue with their
guardian spirit or devata and the afflicting spirit. The
idiom of vision (prakash) is articulated through their
ability to discern and identify spirits, to map out time-
space topographies of the various events of their lives and
to detect the dosh that might have instigated the whole
process of misfortune or suffering. From their dialogical
space, they communicate for resolution as well.

The seances begin with prayers that evoke the power of
sacred sites, and periodic pilgrimage to these sacred sites
is a consistent pattern with all the healers. In fact,
pilgrimage to sacred sites is an important part of the
initiation ritual. Drumming and chanting mantras are the
most common ways of invoking the spirit to manifest itself

(parkand hona). Jerking movements of the body to more

144
controlled movements, as in khel, signal that the spirit
wants to communicate its presence and/or its desires.
Falling to the ground rigid signals the departure of the
spirit. Whether this departure is a permanent one is by no
means predictable. The spirit can manifest in any body of a
person at its own will, without any invocation.

The curing ceremony typically involves a contractual
relationship with the spirit. During the ceremony, the
healer, with the help of mantras and rhythmic drumming,
invokes and invites the spirit to introduce (prakat)
herself. The patient enters into a trance, starts to dance
and identifies the spirit. Actually, it is the spirit that
identifies herself and makes her demands known. With the
promise of fulfillment of her demands to her satisfaction,
she agrees to restore the patient's health. This concludes
the ceremony, but by no means puts a closure to the
contractual relationship. She can intrude the spirit at her
will and make new demands.

The contractual agreements are infinitely bargained and
negotiated. In some cases, the spirit may decide to make
the body of the patient her home (vas) in return for certain
privileges. Rituals of habituation (bonth) are performed to
tame the spirit and "tie" the spirit permanently to her
host. In such cases, hosts become healers and are known as

dori or doli.

145

Once a person has been identified as being possessed by
matri, "curing" entails developing a viable relationship
with the spirit. Close observations of the rituals and
discussions with several healers and hosts reveal there is a
common theme--a "grammar of therapy" that involves two
processes that structure spirit possession in Jaunsar--
transaction and transformation. The elaborate transactional
and transformational culture of Hindus has been well
articulated by McKim Marriott to indicate the idea that, for
South Asians, the self is essentially nondiscrete and fluid.

In the contractual relationship, the spirit makes
demands on the host (food taboos, sacrifice, taboos on
activities which are polluting, ritual bathing), and the
healer, on behalf of the host, bargains for restoration and
maintenance of the well-being of the host. These
"conditions" set out by the spirit bring about some positive
changes in the life of the host. For example, a ritual bath
makes a person "holy" having had all her sins washed away by
the sacred river. The Jaunsaris call such people nainu or
the holy people and interact with them with reverence.

The experience of possession itself is therapeutic. On
leaving the trance, I have heard women saying how the ritual
made them "feel light" (halka) or "at peace" (man.mey
shanti), affirming that the state itself has "intrinsic
remedial powers" (Boddy 1988). The curative power of

possession does not only derive from the experience of

146
possession but from the interpretation of the possession by
the healer that provides a new meaning for the affliction.

The narratives I collected reveal another feature that
was common to all the healers: the state of bawala. This
state is described as frightening and uncontrollable and
features considerable physical uneasiness. This was,
however, followed by the "opening of the tongue" (bocwan)--
a state of maturity. It is interesting to note here that
these stages, reflecting the "development" of the novice,
are very similar to those stages that shape the development
from infancy to adulthood. anala is very similar to the
state of an infant--not knowing where one is or where one is
going. In contrast, bocwan is a state of "enlightenment"--
one with prakash (vision)--and able to articulate (speak)
what one can "see in this light."

In terms of the power objects and ritual paraphernalia
used by the healers, there is a certain amount of mimicking
of Hindu rituals--sprinkling ganga water around the space
in which the healer sits, burning incense, applying
vermillion on the forehead, etc. Whether conscious or not,
it does establish a link with orthodoxy and gives the healer
an official legitimacy. A number of healers hang pictures
of local politicians and famous people they claim to have
cured, which also creates an image of official status. In
fact, as a healer’s reputation spreads, the distance

traversed by the patient becomes indicative of the

147
effectiveness of the healers and charts the healer’s career.

Malis and Matriyas deemphasized the role of economics
in their lives. As Jagat Singh puts it, because Malis and
Matriyas are "chosen," their ability to heal peOple is a
special calling, not an occupation ("a divine call" (bulava)
to help people and not a business to make profit from.").
Dwinya-ki Matri fears that the gift will be taken away if it
is made into a business.

Makhti ka Mali agrees with the other healers that the
gift was bestowed on them so that they could alleviate
suffering, and not so that they could make money. So they
never ask for money, they only accept what people offer
them, They feel that the money is a sort of reimbursement
for the time they devote to healing people, adding that the
money that is left on the "lap" (jholi) is barely sufficient
to survive. I must add that my research into their healing
practices conferred a new kind of legitimacy to this old
traditional healing system, which clearly benefitted a
number of healers.

Another salient feature directs our attention to the
issues of power and struggle in spirit possession. While
Malis emphasized the gift of healing (vardan) as an
essential part of spirit possession, issues of struggle seem
to concern Matriyas. This mirrors the power differential
between the two genders in Jaunsari society. Rani’s story

and other narratives of possession stress that the body

148
becomes the locus of struggle. The family claims her duties
as wife and/or mother; the "divine call" claims the body as
the doli (vehicle) for the divine. Rani often confided in
me about this tension in her mind: "there is a tug-of—war in
my mind between the loyalty towards my family and the desire
to be a healer. It is not that as a healer I will not
fulfill my duties as a woman but my family will not have a
total claim on my labor (body) or time."

So we see that the struggle between "loyalty and
desire" provides a strategy to reclaim their bodies and
their labor. In reclaiming their bodies (as a vehicle for
the divine) they create their own metaphorical space, a
space in which one has claim.to her own life and time as
well as a privileged position from which she is able to make

a change in her life and in the lives of others.

E i ll . R'I 1 E I' .

Eamon refers to a class of healer that almost always
belongs to the Brahmin caste. As healers, they blend
elements of popular Hinduism and Tantric vidya with
indigenous beliefs about spirits to constitute a healing
tradition distinct from that of Malis and Matriyas. Two
categories of persons are found in the Brahmin caste--the
Paboch and the Eamon. The Paboch, as noted earlier, is a

group that traces its lineage from the Brahmins of Himachal

149
Pradesh. Placed ritually higher than the Eamon, the
Paboch's mantras and yantras are considered more effectual
and convincing. But ultimately, the Paboch's popularity
depends on the therapeutic reputation gleaned from years of
effective practice.

Although healing tends to be caste-specific, I found a
few exceptions to this general rule. Kishnu, a Dom from the
village of Khunna, had been an apprentice to a Brahmin and
had learned the skills of a Eamon. He could read the Eagoi
(scripture), diagnose, suggest remedies and, if needed, go
into trance. He is not only popular among his caste group
but among the Rajputs who avail themselves of his skills.

All Brahmin men do not become Eamons. Since it is not
considered a profitable profession, very few Brahmins are
now seeking apprenticeship. As one Eamon stated
regretfully: "Eamnai is a dying art. People care only about
their body so they run to the primary health centers and
come to us in situations of severe dosh when it is far too
late. We do what we can." The ones who practice Eamnai are
those whose lineage has gained a reputation over time, as
well as the very few who have visionary encounters telling
them to practice it.

A novice masters the knowledge of the Eagoi and the
rituals associated with the healing from his guru, who in
most cases is the father of the novice. The student of

Eamnai learns to read and interpret the Eagoi by learning it

150
by heart. He also accompanies his guru on his rounds of
distant villages and gains "hands-on experience." Once the
guru decides that the student's learning has reached a
satisfactory level, he writes a bagoi for the student. This
marks the student’s initiation into the bamnai.

A Eamon who is a reputed healer gains popularity
through his ability to use the Eagoi to resolve the problems
perturbing people. In the role of a healer, they are judged
by their mastery over mantra, and their complex use of
yantras (ritual/mystical diagrams). The knowledge of the
bagoi and skills associated with it are transmitted in a
traditional way through a practicing Eamon to the apprentice
(sadhana).

The Eagoi is scripture written in a script called
Kashmirilipi. This book contains mantras, tantras, and
yantras, for all kinds of afflictions and misfortunes. These
designs, mantras and remedies are handwritten on long sheets
of paper (earlier it was written on bhojpatra--a tree bark)
and is wrapped in deer skin.~

The Eagoi is consulted with the help of a solid
rectangular bone, locally known as pasa or goti, which has
four sides, each side having one to four dots. The pasa is
flipped three times and the sum of the numbers is used to
"calculate and search” (anad-ganad). The sum of the numbers
refers to the page location, which page reveals the nature

of the dosh and the ritual required to rectify it. The

151
Eamon here plays the role of an "interpreter" who can not
only read the script but who can interpret the real meaning
innate in the verses. This interpretative skill requires a
considerable amount of manipulation to fit the requirements
of his clients and to convince them of the scripture's
veracity. It also involves the knowledge of chanting the
mantras "correctly" in order to activate the power inherent
in those words. The Jaunsaris believe that the "power"
(sakti) of words and that the vidhya (knowledge) can never
go wrong.

The prayer verses are comprised of a number of letters,
numbers, and designs. The verses are of different types:
while some verses reveal the nature of dosh, others provide
a formula for remedy. A number of sheets are devoted to
verses which contain geometrical formulas, distinct patterns
that represent for each god and goddess of the Hindu
Pantheon and the local spirits (e.g., matri).

The use of formulas of mantras and yantras is a very
popular means of remedy. The operation of such formulas
varies. The Eamon may write a mantra and/or yantra on a
small piece of paper and then fold it and seal it in a small
locket to be worn around the neck (bhujri). The power of
the yantras and mantras may be ingested directly as well.
For example: the bhujri may be soaked in a small bowl of
water which the "sufferer" then drinks. Or the Eamon may

blow mantras into a small handful of rice grains (motia)

152
which is then ingested by the person who seeks remedy.

The yantras, also known as mandalas, are geometrical
patterns formed using colored sand-and powder that are
composed of lines, curves and dots (bindu), which patterns
are formed on plates that the healer uses in ceremonies.
The yantras have a special significance for the healer. As
noted earlier, each deity has a specific design and the
yantra represents the body of each deity. The Eamon is
skilled in being able to invoke the power of the deity into
these geometrical designs. As Eamon Hari Joshi put it,
"the yantra with its contours binds the body of the deity
and taps his/her power. Once confined within the yantra, it
is held captive and cannot escape. At this stage, I can use
my knowledge and skill make the deity do what my clients
want." It is interesting to note here that some Malis have
also learned to draw mandalas and have incorporated this
style in their healing repertoire.

Apart from the use of scriptural formulas in bhujris
and.mandalas, there are several rituals which are
monopolized by the Eamons as their sole copyright. The
rituals of "habituation" (bonth) often prescribed by Malis
and Matriyas are conducted by Eamons. Another very
stylistic ritual managed by the Eamons is chui--chalana, a
ritual which is performed in severe cases of dosh. Both
these rituals involve inducing trance or possession. The

third important healing ritual is "brushing and blowing"

153
(jhar-fiphoonk). This ritual activity is common among some
Malis and Matriyas. However, the most common and most
frequent rituals performed by Eamons are the healing pujan
(sometimes recommended by other healers) and seasonal pujans
(SatyaNarayan katha and paat) for the well-being of the
household and lineage.

The Eamon also use jantri or panchang (yearly
astronomical calendars) in conjunction with the Eagoi to
offer remedies and suggestions. For instance, dosh
resulting from the conflicting influences of planets--
grahadosh--is "calculated" from charts in the jantri that
map the movement of various planets. This is very similar
to the art of astrology practiced in the plains, and may be
a recent phenomenon in Jaunsar—Bawar, indicating the almost
complete intrusion of dominant great traditions from other
parts of the subcontinents into this region.

unlike the Malis who have a guardian spirit directing
and counseling them during the healing session, the Eamons,
with the help of their knowledge (vidhya), are able to
invoke any supernatural force and tap into that force for
diagnosis and healing. The healing sessions which involve
the invocation of spirits, thus, resemble seances conducted
by Malis and Matriyas. The difference is the use of
scriptural knowledge by the Eamons to make it seem.more

"official" and hence more legitimate.

154

H il 1 l' E'I J .

Masandhnya are believed to divine with the bones of the
dead and with the spirits of the underworld. Their
divination style involves "awakening" the masandh (nefarious
spirits) Lmasandh ko jaganevale] and/or calling the dead
[mritak ko bulanevale] to impart information about the
causes of unnatural deaths. For example: in the case of a
suicide, they will examine the exhumed bones of the dead
person to provide information about his or her wishes and
frustrations. The Masandhnya are known for possessing
powers that are evil powers which are obtained by meditating
on a moonless night in cremation grounds. Some Masandhnyas
possess a book of figures (yantra) which they use to make
charms (bujhri) and designs used during rituals of exorcism.

I did come across two Masandhnyas, but both refused to
be interviewed. Considering the fact that they are believed
to possess evil powers and are therefore marginalized, their
reticence was not surprising. Despite this, I included this
category of healers in this chapter as they played a
significant role in healing people by exorcising evil
spirits and in for finding answers for unnatural deaths,

especially suicide.

155
Conclusion;

In the cases discussed above we saw a Matriya going
into a trance and observed Malis remove dosh from the
afflicted. We witnessed the transformation of a simple
Jaunsari woman into a healer. In the life history
narratives of the Mali and Matriya, the theme of
"selection," (bulava) "vision" (prakash) and the "gift"
(vardan) were the primary organizing feature, indicating
that the people "chosen" had special abilities--to discern
(vichar) and then provide the healing touch. Prophetic
dreams, various childhood experiences involving possession,
visionary encounters (darshan), periods of living in an
untamed state (bawala) and the opening of the tongue
(bocwan) were common experiences among those who become
healers.

In the transformation of a simple person (manush) to a
healer (Mali or.Matriya), the host (dori) acquires a new
identity, an identity that has power. Through the process
of "habituation," taming of the spirit and the final
initiation at Hanol, Jaunsaris believe that the spirit
transmits power (shakti) to the dori. This shakti enables
the dbri to "see," "discern," and heal, to take control of
her life and the lives of others.

These observations about healers, their lives and

practices reveal how indigenous conceptions of power and its

156
generative capacities inform the workings of the healing
system. The fact that a majority of the healers in my
sample refer to their selection as a "special calling"
suggests that it is power that is out--of--ordinary--beyond
everyday life. It also suggests that the healer's journey
reflects the emergence of a new self in a manner similar to
the process of development of the self from infancy to
adulthood. In the next chapter, we will take a closer look
at the healing process, which further reflects the
underlying principles that characterize Hindu thought and

action.

Chapter 7

Narratives of Spirit possession

In this chapter, I will turn my attention to women who
have been diagnosed as being possessed by spirits.
Realizing the desperate marginality of women's voices in
many ethnographies, this chapter will focus on women and
present narratives in which women speak for themselves.
Transcribed below are narratives and stories of women who
had been diagnosed as being possessed by spirits. I see
seances as providing a space for "talking back." The
dialogues, performances and interpretations of their
experiences reveal each woman's self-presentation, about
what is problematic in her life and how she copes with them.
The voices you hear are of women who are speaking for
themselves and what is significance to them. This is not to
say that women's voices you hear are untouched by me, rather
they have been filtered, selected and translated by me;
circumscribed and interpreted by me. In choosing to narrate
the experience of possession, and perceptions and
definitions related to possession, I have tried to retain
the authorship by presenting to the best of my knowledge

women’s own stories.

157

158

In Jaunsar, the image of the feminine and femininity is
still in the grasp of vedic/Hindu pronouncements. Girls are
raised to be mothers, nurturers and strong individuals. The
image of Sati Drapaudi as an ideal woman is inscribed in
folk songs, rituals and myths. Drapaudi, who knows how to
please others and bring happiness and confidence into
people's hearts, has the power to read the "chal" of her
enemies. She suffers on behalf of others. She is an
example of the highest devotee. Her respect, great love and
faith for Lord Krishna is an example of great devotion. In
addition, she also has unlimieed respect, love and bhav
(feeling) for all of her husbands. This is her specialty.
veneration of mmrtiman shakti, which defines the power of
Drapaudi, is a significant part of a young girl's
socialization in Jaunsar-Bawar. Brought up to believe in
polyandrous unions, Drapaudi becomes their role model.

Another image that informs the concepts of the feminine
and femininity in Jaunsar is the model of Sita, the pure and
chaste wife of Lord Rama. Ramlila (a play about Rama),
which glorifies spousal faith and describes the trials and
tribulations of Sita in her role as a wife, shapes women's
experience of their sexuality and defines what essentially
constitutes a woman's existence.

The scenario I outlined in chapter IV--the various
problems that women face in polyandrous unions and in their

lives within extended households--is very significant in

159
contextualizing women's possession experience. Those
narratives will help explore the tensions between the ideal
images that women are supposed to uphold and their own
experience of their sexuality. Concentrating on finding the
links between social institutions and women's daily
experiences, I hope to show how women perceive their lives
and how they create and make their daily experience and
activity meaningful and bearable.

In this chapter we will also pay attention to the
actual practice of the healing act. We are concerned here
with the interaction of patients and healers and what this
reveals about conceptions of suffering, affliction, and
misfortune, as well as the patient's lived experience and
the structure of therapy. The patient’s own perception of
her experience of possession and her interactions with the
healer are grounded in a sociocultural and economic reality.
This analytical link will also be explored. This will
situate women's experiences in the context of actual social
relations and help us to construct the cultural logic behind
suffering, affliction and misfortune. For example, whether
the possession results in illness or illness is the
manifestation of possession, we will see clearly the
cultural logic that informs such a distinction.

While I will discuss in greater detail the life history
of patients and the nature of their complaints, I need to

point out that some cases were collected in totality, while

160
others were collected "episodically." Also, a majority of
the cases represent simultaneous resort strategies and high
chronicity.

Each individual life history will be followed by a
brief discussion of the symbolization and narrativization
process that patients use to make sense of their illnesses
and that constitute the cultural model of the source and
meaning of suffering, misfortune and affliction. The final
discussion will aim to construct the conceptual system
(cultural logic/model/scenario) by which everyday realities

are understood.

1. Roshni(F39+):

Roshni is one of my principal informants and, of all
the women I met, she seemed to understand my project the
best, and became a willing collaborator and confidant. She
enjoyed sharing her past experiences with me as much as she
envied my life as a single person free from any obligation
or responsibility. At the time I met her, she was the
second and the last wife of two husbands, and mother of six
children ranging in age from four to seventeen. It was her
story that made me aware of how more than one spirit can
possess a body. Roshni’s life reveals what is significant
and problematic in a woman’s life--marriage, divorce, ties

to her maite. childbirth and the envy of sterile women. Her

161

somatic discomforts were attributed to possession, and the
healing process involved a continuous and persistent attempt
to make this possession experience a meaningful event.

Roshni (F39+) recalls her first experience with the
spirit: "Dhat started after I started having babies. The
first time I had dhat was when Sunita was born, 17 years
ago."

Once I suffered from heavy gas problems; my
stomach would bloat up, urine and stool would
stop. I went to Dehra Dun and was treated by a
physician for 3 months. The doctor said that my
intestines were weak and that I should have soft
and light food--not heavy foods like fried food,
meat--that can be digested (hajam) easily. This is
my bimari but I have another parashani (problem)
which makes me suffer (dhukh) and that is the
problem that started with my first child delivery.

At that time Kavita was just a newborn my heart
was at a loss and I panicked (ghabrai). I felt
restless and nervous. Kavita was sleeping next to
me. My sokh (co-wife) had just served me the
evening meal. I put the first morsel in my mouth
and I spit it out. I felt as if something was
stuck in my throat-—trapped inside. I did not tell
this to anybody, but just laid there. As I was
simply lying down trying to fall asleep, my heart
was again filled with nervousness and panic. I sat
up very rigid. My co-wife repeatedly asked me if
anything was wrong but I did not answer. It was
then that my co-wife called Thandyan ka Nana (the
patriarch of the Thandyan aal). He took a black
goat and moved it over my head. As he was doing
this, I made a sudden swoop for the goat and
grabbed her (the goat) between my teeth.

In the meantime, quite a crowd had collected
outside our house and a pujari had been summoned.
First, he waved and brushed an eagle feather all
over my body. Then he brought a bunch of kuska
(poison oak) which I ate. He made me inhale the
smoke of black pepper and ajwain (a kind of
aromatic seed) roasted in fire. When nothing could
calm me down, he hit me with a chimta (tongs) and
he himself was absorbed in a trance. Then began

162

the battle between the two of us. He grabbed my
hair and pulled it between my legs in such a way
that my body twisted around to form a circle. It
was then that what was sitting in my heart and
trapping my throat spoke in a masculine voice,
saying "now I am dead." The pujari was under the
influence of devata (devata ka dhat). The
pujari's prognosis was that it was the chatak who
had engulfed her enough to cause death (mrityu
jog), but now the time had passed.

The next "attack" that I can remember was when
Kavita was 2-3 years old. I was at my maite at
that time. The same pujari was called who got rid
of them. We consulted Kishnu of Kolta jati when I
returned to my sauraye. He calculated (ganat) it
to be chatak, which is similar to and resembles
the chatak of_dunkin. He requested the sacrifice
of a baby goat (kid), a pig and a chicken after
they were circled clockwise around my body. He
then came out of my stomach (pet) and shouted "I
am coming out." He had completely filled my body-
-spreading like jahar (poison).

Last year I again came under the influence of
ghee. It was the month of kartik (October -
November 1992), I remember. I felt it in my heart
and my breath in the form of suffocation. My heart
was in confusion. Then I requested water from
Kavita, after which I fainted/passed out. A Eamon
was called to chant (calculate and diagnose the
problem). He saw dista, matri and Masandh. You
see, it was Friday, Marti's day. She had entered
my body to drive the Masandh out. When they
battled inside my body, my whole body shook. On
Tuesday, I had another dhat. Krishna of Kolta jati
saw it as the work of chardha.

On several occasions, I was able to witness Roshni's
attacks. One evening when I was preparing to go to bed, I
heard piercing cries from Roshni's house. I ran out to find
a crowd had collected in front of her house. Inside the
house, I found Roshni lying flat on her back on the floor
with her head on her co-wife's lap. Her whole body was

jerking slightly but her head was shaking violently. Bijma,

163
her co-wife, was having a hard time holding her to avoid her
head being bumped around on the hard wooden floors. All this
time Roshni was breathing very heavily and making grunting
noises. The women around her were watching very closely and
Vimla was trying to pour some water into her mouth. Soon
thereafter Roshni lost consciousness and fell stiff onto the
floor. Outside, the men were discussing what needed to be
done. They decide to call a Eamon this time. Her youngest
husband summoned the Eamon from the neighboring village for
anad-ganad and to predict dista and offer a remedy.

I was able to accompany Roshni to a number of curing
ceremonies (9 to be accurate). The following passages
describe trips to the Friday Clinic at village Makhti.

On this occasion, Hari Mali makes Roshni breathe
incense and she closes her eyes and inhales. Mali chants a
long mantra and drums on the brass plate that covers the
earthen pot like a lid. Roshni’s body slowly starts to make
violent jerky movements and she starts speaking in tongues.
Mali uses a knife, on the handle of which an eagle feather
is tied. I tape-recorded the session and later Roshni and I,
with the help of the taped version of the session, her own
recollections and the Mali's interpretations, collaborated
on the following narrative. Cheradha is the possessing
spirit.

Roshni: I will not go. I have completely taken over her

stomach
(pet) and womb (kokh).

Mali:

Cheradha:

Mali:

Cheradha:

Mali:

Cheradha:

164

Pujan (chants his mantra)
I will always be behind you, never leave you
alone.

I will leave her heart but not her
maite.

Leave her body (pind).

Why do you want me to leave her pind? She is very
lovable (pyari). When she was a mere infant, I had
given her my chatak. Hey Ehagwan, what have I done
to you? I will now eat you (fem).

Okay. You may eat me. When you eat me, you will
know. but now go out of her pind in the most
appropriate manner.

Mali, tell me, where should I go? I have no one
who is born of me. Who do I give?

(Roshni: In my maite I know of a daag (witch). She had given
me this chatak.)

Mali :

Cheradha:

(Roshni:

Give it to the family which has nothing.

I will give it to my bhabi (brother’s wife)--in my
maite.

Mali and I were under the influence of devata. I
cried a lot and then the cheradha left me.)

Roshni and I stayed at Mali's place for 4 days. Roshni

repeatedly lost and regained her consciousness and spoke in

tongues when under the influence of the "spirits." Mali

advised her not to have meat or any kind of "hot" food.

Later, Roshni recalled her last vist to Makhti.

This was my last visit to Makhti. Remember, You
were there. Hari Mali--Makti ka Mali--wants to
make sure that there are no remnants of Cheradha
left in my body. Only matri. I danced (khel) for
matri, after which I passed out. When I woke up my
body felt heavy but I felt better--peaceful. Our
kulpujari--Jagat Ram Joshi of Dwiyna-—will perform
puja just to protect me from the daag from Laccha
(my maite).

165

Mali told me that when a pujan was performed, the

dunkin came to know about it. The dunkin lives in

Laccha, she is Ghar ki bothi, has never born a

child. She has a thick nose and is fat. She wanted

me to remain in Laccha and serve her. She has

even poisoned her co-wife.

I asked Roshni to take me to her maite and introduce me to
the woman who Mali "saw" was the daag (witch). I promised
to maintain confidentiality. Instead she informed me about
the daags in Eisoe--in her sasural (the home of her in-
laws). She named an aal (lineage) in which the mother—in-
law and 2 of her daughters-in-law were daags (witches). A
number of women have confided in me that they suspect the
women of this household as having an evil "gaze" (buri
nazar).

Roshni’s opening statement, and her various physical
symptoms, are very typical of women's stories that I
collected. They reflect their understanding of the problems
that plague them. The physical symptoms, however unrelated
they may be to their experience, give them a legitimate
reason to seek help. In most of the cases, the initial
symptoms they report are stomach ache, headache, loss of
appetite, or nausea. This process echoes what Good (1994)
has described as the symbolization of illness narratives in
reference to the need to "localize;" a "struggle for a
name," an image around which a narrative can take shape.

The first help, outside of home remedy, is the local

health center. If the physicians are unable to cure the

166
ailment, and the problem becomes severe, the therapy
management group may now attribute the symptoms to
supernatural factors. In cases where the symptoms involve
recurrent fainting, or shivering and violent jerking
movements, a supernatural factor is always attributed and
the local healer is summoned. The local healer, through
astrological prediction or divination, depending on his/her
skill, may identify the specific cause.

This narrative and the reconstructed dialogue between
the patient, healer and spirit reveal that women themselves
link fertility and childbirth complications to possession.
In his provocative analysis of Turkish epileptic patients,
Good (1994) pointed out that stories have plots which give
coherence, order and meaning and help people contextualize
their experiences. They also help them to link their
experiences to a number of other life experience. Roshni
saw the link between childbirth and dhat, as exemplified by
her opening statement "dhat started after I started having
babies." The second episode she recalled was when Kavita
was 2-3 years old and Namita was a few months old. Because
there is a high incidence of infant mortality in the area,
women fear the loss of their children, as this may call into
question their femininity and womanhood. The ability to
reproduce is a natural function of womanhood. After all,
witches are thought to be ugly, childless "women" who enjoy

eating unborn fetuses. Jaunsari women also believe that

167
possession by a witch or even glimpsing her nazar (evil
gaze) can cause miscarriage or sterility.

Roshni also repeatedly drew upon certain metaphors
which give us certain insights in her everyday reality. She
used religious metaphors and popular images in Hinduism,
such as the goddess battling with a demon for the soul of
her host and winning. First of all, possession by both a
goddess (in this case matri) and a demon, and later the
eradication of the demon, leaves Roshni with the good
spirit. The possession by a demon puts the body of the host
in a polluted state and inversely the possession of the body
by a benevolent spirit makes the body pure, and thereby
divine. Also matri represents the ideal role of a woman—~to
protect and be responsible for the well-being of the family.
In contrast, Roshni's representation of a daag as a
childless and ugly woman refers to what is non-feminine--
infertile and undesirable. This also reveals the resentment
that might build up against a woman who has been unable to
reproduce and is branded a daag.

Because matri is attracted by beautiful women, and will
protect them.from evil spirits, Roshni was trying to draw
our attention to the fact that despite being an ideal woman
she was suffering and her suffering should have some
meaning. The last episode to which I was a witness was
during the time of Roshni's first daughter's marriage. On a

number of occasions she had voiced her concern about her

168
daughter’s happiness in her new home. Surely she was
worried about her daughter’s acceptance in her new home and
her ability to reproduce.

It is relevant to point out that Roshni’s relationship
with her co-wife leaves much to be desired. There has
always been tension in the family since Roshni became the
second wife and the privileged position of the first wife
was curtailed. In fact, Roshni's co-wife tells the story in
a different way. She locates Roshni's problem in tensions
in her natal home.

As the story of Roshni unfolds before my eyes, it
became very clear to me that there were several plots to her
story. The process of narrativizing thus reveals potential
ways of interpreting spirit possession and finding
alternative approaches to alleviate the problem and bring it

closure.

2. Punni: (F36)

Punni was married for many years, but never once became
pregnant. So her husband Ram Lal Thakur married another
woman, Namita. She too failed to conceive. Ram Lal
Thakur’s family is one the richest households in the
village, so he could afford to take his wives to a number of
"fertility clinics" in Dehra Doon and Delhi. This went on

for five to six years and the trips to fertility clinics

169
proved fruitless and expensive. The family, now desperate,
turned to Malis and Eamons for their expertise. They agreed
that the nature of their affliction was a severe dosh that
had "taken birth" a few generations ago. To propitiate and
appease the devata and encourage it to help the family
(identify the exact nature of dosh), the family with the
help of their lineage Eamon had organized a three-day pujan
(worship). On the third and final night, Punni became
entranced and started speaking. The entity that had
possessed her introduced itself as a matri spirit, and
revealed that the nature of dosh was a female-male,paap
(ostrigpurus‘paap).

This paap was later found to be emerging from Punni's
maite. Punni's grandmother was polygynandrously married to
four brothers. She had three co-wives. It is the norm that
a woman should devote herself all of her husbands with equal
love. But one of Punni's grandmothers liked one brother
best of all. They made a promise to live together. Such an
act is known as keeping "nim dhoram" (rules and
obligations). Under this agreement, a couple promises to be
faithful to one another for the rest of their lives, with
devata as their witness. This family was divided later on.
Unfortunately, this couple was separated during the course
of this division, and, as a result, the agreement was
broken. The rianthuri felt very bad about it, but it was

not under her control. Distressed, she committed suicide.

170
As she was pregnant at the time, the paap that resulted was
a male-female type.

Under the guidance of their lineage Eamon, Punni’s
father made an idol (a silver block with three female
figures engraved on it) and took it to the banks of the
River Ganga and gave it a ritual bath. The idol was brought
back to the village and given a home--a miniature house in
the family field. Punni's affinal family took her to
Hardwar where she took a ritual bath. Thereafter, a number
of children were born by her.

Very recently, the family witnessed a heavy loss of
animals. Besides this, a number of family members had died.
It was thus evident that either some serious dosh was
involved in all this or someone had put a hex (jadu) on
them. They had approached Hari Mali to reveal the source of
their afflictions. It was at the Friday Clinic where I met
them. .Mali divined that a Jadu was in operation and
recommended that a Eamon perform the ritual of chui-chalana
to relieve the effect of the curse.

D' . .

This case narrative highlights cultural understanding
and the ways in which one can learn to cope with barrenness.
I gather that the reason Ram Lal Thakur did not marry a
third time was because it had become evident that he was the
basis of the childlessness in the family. Although it was

never stated as such, villagers would gossip about Ram Lal's

171

impotency. The fact notwithstanding, the wives were held
responsible for it. In the search for a cure for impotency
(or the women’s barrenness), which was seen as a bimari, the
first step was with biomedicine and herbal medicine.
Finding no cure, Ram Lal turned to indigenous healers for
remedies. Locating the cause of impotency and sterility in
some kind of cosmic transgression erased the stigma from the
people involved, and at the same time confered a new meaning
this situation.

It is interesting to note here that the kind of paap
that surfaced was related to the unnatural death of a
pregnant woman. This suggests that the repercussions of
one's actions can often hurt future generations and can lead
to the end of a lineage. The source of paap throws light on
what Jaunsaris regard as the constructive functions of
polyandrous families. If the family had not divided, the
rianthuri would have had no reason to commit suicide. It
also promotes what an ideal woman who is polyandrously
married should do--love all of her husbands equally.
Another example already discussed in Chapter IV deals with a
very similar issue--the dynamics of the household which also
have a great impact on women's lives. The case discussed

below goes into greater detail.

172
3. Vimla and Pratima: (both in their early thirties)

This case study echoes the stories of many other women
and raises the issue of the impact of polyandry on household
dynamics and on women’s lives. I have already introduced
Vimla and Pratima in chapter IV, in order to illuminate the
allusions and nuances of gender relations in a
polygynandrous family. I also made reference to the fact
that both the co-wives were experiencing physical and
emotional discomfort.

Pratima was diagnosed as possessed by matri soon after
her marriage to Sham Sher. Pratima, for her part, was not
altogether happy with the possession, but as the years have
passed, she has given in and accepted her situation as her
fate. Over the last 6 years that she has been married, she
has consulted a number of Malis and Matriyas.

Vimla too had a difficult time accepting Pratima as her
co-wife. When it first became clear to Vimla that Pratima
was Sham Sher's favorite, she left for her maite, leaving
behind her three oldest children. By this time, she had 5
children and it was therefore too late to divorce and marry
again. Moreover, her.maite is one of the most prestigious
families (treasurer for the temple at Hanol) in Jaunsar-
Bawar, consequently divorce was not an option.

Sham.Sher tried to ignore her stubbornness (jid) but
when a year had passed and she had not return (he had sent

his brothers on several occasions), he went to bring her

173
back home, himself. If Vimla had belonged to an ordinary
family, this separation would have resulted in a divorce.
But Sham Sher, who was an aspiring-politician, knew that a
divorce would cost him a huge number of votes in his
constituency and so he relented. He made a promise to Vimla
that he would not have a sexual relationship with Pratima.
Vimla gave in and returned to her affinal home (sasural).
Since then, the two co-wives have lived in a tension-filled
environment. Fortunately for both, during part of the year
(December-March), Pratima moves to the winter home (channi)
in the foothills, which grants space and imparts relief to
herself and her co-wife.

When Vimla was living in her maite, she had consulted a
number of healers--Matriyas, Malis, Eamons and Pir.
Multiple causes for her affliction were revealed, and a
number of curing ceremonies held but none engendered
complete relief. Her family suspected that she had
tuberculosis (she was losing weight and coughing up blood)
and had her treated in a hospital at Dehra Doon. After her
treatment, she gained back considerable weight and was
looking healthy. However, after her return to sasural. she
has once again lost a lot of weight and had started
consulting the Mali who runs the Friday clinic at Makhti.
It was at that time that the Mali had revealed that a daag
was after her life. No positive identification of the daag

was made, although it was common knowledge that Pratima was

174
the prime suspect.

Pratima, on the other hand, left to go to her maite
when Vimla returned. She was expecting her second child at
the time. Even after two years, Sham Sher did not send
anybody to bring her back home. She had to "swallow her
pride" and return to her affinal home on her own. With
tears in her eyes she recalled her humiliation and said she
wished that "the earth should split open and swallow me."
This is similar to a well-known episode from the Ramayana in
which, the heroine, Sita, humiliated by her husband, calls
upon the mother earth to open up to give her shelter.
Pratima returned to her sasural home after two years. After
all, she was a burden to her family and, after her parent’s
death, she would be at the mercy of her sisters-in-law.

Over the past three years, the co-wives have been
living together, but a lot has changed. In his greed to
become a politician, Sham Sher was forced to pay more
attention to Vimla. Pratima, says "I am happier that Sham
Sherji spends more time with his first wife; it has reduced
the tension-level in the house. She even treats me better."

However, things were not quite as good as Pratima had
depicted. I accompanied Pratima to her maite for Diwali21
celebrations. There we visited with her healer (bhagat).

The day we visited the healer, Pratima woke up at the crack

 

“ Annual festival which celebrates the return of Lord
Rama and his wife Sita from exile.

175
of dawn and collected all of the required ingredients for a
three-day pujan. As she put it, "I pray (pujna) to matri
every year and bhagat organizes and communicates with my
matri spirit". The second day we were there, Pratima broke
into a dance (khel) and three hours later fell on the ground
unconscious. The last night we spent at the bhagat’s house,
the matri "played" (khel) again and this time "spoke" and
made some demands. She (the matri spirit) wanted to hold a
seven-day pujan before Bisu (a harvest festival held in mid—
April).

This demand, Pratima pointed out, put her in a very
"compromising position." If she were to go ahead with the
‘pujan as desired by the matri, her affinal family would be
upset, as a seven-day pujan would cost a lot of money and
not to mention the labor time lost. Moreover, harvest
season is the busiest time of the year. On the other hand,
were she to ignore the demands made by matri, she would have
to face the wrath of matri. She returned to her affinal
home, dejected.

Seeing Pratima's face on her return home, Vimla knew
something was the matter, but she ignored her. Pratima knew
that Vimla should be consulted about her return to her natal
village in less than six months for the pujan, but she
decided to wait until she returned (in March) from the
winter home. But Vimla had already heard from the gossip in

the village, about the demands made by the matri. However,

176
she did not say anything to Pratima or her husband.

In February, Vimla had to attend the marriage of her
niece (her brother’s daughter). She decided to take a long
vacation. Pratima moved back to the village to look after
the main house in Vimla’s absence. While Vimla was away,
Pratima broached the subject of her return to her maite to
celebrate the seven-day pujan, and the money that would be
required, with her family. Her fathers-in-law and her
husband ignored her. That night, as she sat near the
hearth, warming her hands, she entered into a trance. She
started dancing wildly and yelling loudly as if she was
scolding someone. The spirit spoke through her and again
made the demands for the seven-day pujan.

When Pratima did not calm down after three hours of
dancing, a Eamon was summoned from the neighboring village
to make peace with the spirit. It was agreed with the help
of Eamon that her demand for a seven-day pujan would be met.
But the matri was not appeased; now she wanted more. The
.matri wanted a ritual bath at Hardwar and a pilgrimage, both
of which would cost more money. Besides, a pilgrimage would
mean the loss of two people’s labor for three days. Pratima
could not go on her own; another adult would have to escort
her.

For several days, the family debated this issue. And
Pratima's possession spells became more frequent. Vimla

found this very annoying and suspected that Pratima was

177
suffering from "hysteria." The day Pratima fainted while
working in the field, Sham Sher promised the ritual bath at
Hardwar and requested matri to give the family more time to
organize the seven-day ritual. At first she refused, but on
the family’s insistence, the matri spirit relented.
Thereafter, there were no possession spells.

A month passed by, but there was no indication that the
pilgrimage promise would be kept. Pratima became very
apprehensive and wary, because her experience of possession
was anything but enticing. She said, "when matri descends
on me, she does not let me go and when I wake up (from
falling unconscious after the possession dance), I feel as
if someone has beaten me up. My whole body hurts. It is
very different feeling when I dance (khel) to the drumming
and singing, then I feel light (halka) and at peace."

One evening, just before the harvest season, Pratima
was feeding the horses and the mules. One of the horses
pushed her over. She lost her balance and fell on the
ground, hitting her face on a jagged end of a rock. She was
carried to the local PHC where the doctor put 14 stitches in
the side of her forehead. Pratima was convinced, beyond a
doubt, that it was a "sign" (praman) that the matri spirit
was angry. .

The next day, Pratima got ready to go to the field to
harvest. She had barely crossed the front courtyard when the

matri spirit "descended" (otri) on her. She started

178
speaking loudly and dancing wildly. No one could hold her
down. It seemed to me that she was writhing in pain. A
huge crowd had gathered around her. The group seemed to
sympathize with Pratima and their consensus was that Pratima
was receiving the punishment for the total disregard of the
matri’s wishes by her husband and the rest of the family.

Pratima’s brother was visiting at that time; he had
brought a gift (banta) for his sister, as is the custom for
the Eisu holiday. He was convinced that Pratima’s behavior
showed all the signs that the matri was furious. The family
concurred; arrangements were made to take Pratima to
Hardwar, and to execute the seven-day pujan on her return.

After the ceremony, Pratima says, she felt a lot
better. In July 1993, almost three-and-a-half months after
the seven-day pujan, Pratima continued to have no further
complaints of physical ailments. Then in September 1994 I
received a letter from Sham Sher telling me that Vimla had
died suddenly of a serious illness. She was only thirty-two
years old.

D' . .

This case study is an excellent illustration of the
household dynamics that are the consequence of polygynandry.
The case highlights the stress and strain that polygynandry
contributes to women's lives. This is a situation where
both the co-wives are contending for the same husband. What

is most significant is the fact that both women were

179
diagnosed as "afflicted." Vimla saw Pratima as her rival
and the cause of her misery. It is thus not surprising that
she was diagnosed as suffering from the handiwork of a daag.
When she complained directly about the situation, she got no
sympathy. But when she was diagnosed as being afflicted by
daag, as evidenced by Vimla losing weight, neighbors became
suspicious of Pratima and sympathized with Vimla.

On the other hand, everyone knew that Pratima was under
the control of a matri. Emphasized in the majority of matri
possession cases is the element that the matri chooses
peOple who are pure. If the matri had chosen Pratima's body
to inhabit, surely she was an unlikely candidate for daag?

I must mention here that Pratima's matri possession episodes
became more frequent after Vimla was diagnosed as being
afflicted by daag.

In both the cases, given the timing, there was more
than a hint that the matri possession of Pratima and the
daag’s attack on Vimla articulate the tenuous position of
polyandrously-married women in their affinal households.
matri and daag became the media for articulating their
frustrations and their desires. The spirit enabled Pratima
to assert a position in the family that is revered.

Pratima, as I mentioned earlier, was a divorcee (chut
aurat), and so a position of reverence could may well be
something that Pratima desired. When she takes a ritual

bath, her status is raised from a mere mortal (nordei) to a

 

180
holy woman (nainu). Of course, she is not the one who
desires these things, they are demanded by the spirit.
However, these demands amplified the tension between the two
co-wives and Pratima’s relationship to other members of the
household. Such ambiguity of motivation exists in other
cases as well. In this case, the recurrent possession
episodes augmented the tension in the household. So we see
that spirit possession is not a refuge, but, a space outside
the home (social space) to confront the problems of everyday
living and to enable the individuals to fight for what each
one thinks she deserves. Notwithstanding, there was no
definite future outcome in the case, and in fact, a year

later, one of the co-wives died.

4 . Vivek: (M2)

I have included this case study because women are, as
is the case in other parts of India (Skultans 1988),
considered to be the primary care givers and are held
responsible for the well-being of their family members. In
fact, a healthy family is one of the important indicators of
a good wife and mother. This case delineates how women play
this significant role and understand the cultural logic that
underlies the conception of suffering and affliction and the
structure of therapy.

Vivek, from the village of Bisoe has two fathers and

181
two mothers. His mother gave birth to five sons and three
daughters, while his younger social mother's progeny
included two sons. His family had seen the death of a
number of male children. For instance, his four
grandfathers faced the deaths of a number of their male
offspring. Only two male children survived, his two
fathers. Since they owned a considerable amount of land,
the family hoped to achieve the status they once enjoyed by
having more male offspring. Vivek’s mother (age 34), a pale
anemic woman often complaining of giddiness, loss of
appetite and weakness, was the envy of many women in the
village, having given birth to five sons, almost one child
every two years.

Vivek for one whole year did not show any signs of ill
health. Immediately following his first birthday, Vivek
started suffering from loose bowel movements (dust).
Believing, the dust to be due to heat so frequent in
infancy, his family treated him to powdered cumin (jeera).
sugar and opium. .As his mother was still nursing him, she
restricted her diet. They waited patiently for a few days
but the child failed to show any signs of improvement.

Vivek grew weaker each day and the problem intensified.
When the family realized that the child had lost a lot of
weight, his mother asked her older husband to go to the
nearby Primary Health Center to get medicine for loose

bowels. The nurse at the Red Cross clinic gave him two

182
pills to be broken in half, and indicated that he should be
given half of a tablet twice a day. The child showed
improvement for three days, after which the same problem
manifested itself. This was an indication that what Vivek
was suffering from was not a somatic problem (sharirik
bimari), but something in the line of dosh. A Eamon, their
kulEamon, was consulted, who attributed graha-dosh to Vivek.
This diagnosis indicated that the child had an inauspicious
relation with the planets. This could be rectified by
propitiating the planet Mars, which was in opposition with
the other planets. An elaborate planet (graha) pujan was
performed and a bhujari (amulet) was also prepared to be
worn by the child for future protection from the grahas.

The child showed no improvement whatsoever and the
condition had by this time become very severe. Some was dosh
definitely at work. The mother remembered that the child
cried heavily during his bath. Another Eamon who had a
better reputation was summoned. The Eamon calculated a
different dosh affecting the child. The position of the
planets with the child were normal, he said but the child
had "got" matri.

The matri was "calculated" (anad-ganad) and identified
as being of the highest order of purity--succhimatri--
requiring the family to observe purity rules. The specific
responsibility belonged to his mother, who had to abstain

from leftover food (jutha) and meat. Thus, Vivek entered

183
into the status of khatri and the pujan of succimatri was
set up for the following Friday, the auspicious day for
matrilpujan.

No visible relief was observed. Vivek had by now lost
half of his body weight; his mother was, however, convinced
of the succimatri’s association. Recalling the incidents
that might have attracted succimatri, she said:

There was nobody in the house when Vivek was born.

All the family members had gone to the field and I

was lying on the ground floor. My bohini (co-

wife) was looking after me. Suddenly, I started

having pain and my co-wife went out for help.

Before she came back with help, the child was

already born. When the child's head emerged I

screamed for help. This might have attracted the

attention of a matri who came to my rescue and
ultimately entered the child. We should have done

a pujan for her; now she is hurt and this problem

is actually a sign from her that she is upset.

But now that the dosh was taken care of, the medicine would
be effective. This was in accordance with the local logic
that the succimatri was the cause of illness and had
hampered the treatment. As I mentioned in chapter II, dosh
and Eimari are not mutually exclusive categories. If bimari
persists despite biomedical treatment, Vivek's mother
reasoned, the cause is attributable to dosh.

Having appeased the matri, the child was now taken to
the doctor who prescribed the same medicine as the nurse
had, which only gave temporary relief. As both the doctor’s
medicine and the Eamon's pujan proved ineffective, the

family suspected a new association--dosh associated with

paap. This time they consulted a paboch who assured them

184
that paap was not the cause, but who confirmed the existence
of succimatri--jal matri. He performed a bonth ritual.
D' . .

What is significant in this case study is the primary
role played by the child’s mother in decisions made about
the course of therapy. At every stage of decision-making,
she was trying to make links in order to decipher the
probable cause of the illness. This case also clarifies the
conceptions of dosh and bimari, highlighting the logic that
underlies conceptions that shape and influence the structure

of therapy.
5. USha (F17):

I met Usha on the first day of my fieldwork. Usha,
dianthuri of the village Bisoe, was in the tenth class in
school and was preparing for her first public exam. She was
born second in a family of seven. On my first visit to
Khati ki Matriya (a week later), I was surprised to see Usha
along with few other girls from the village Bisoe. They
knew I was researching about matri and women healers, but
had never mentioned their participation in matri-related
rituals. In fact, they had actively denied any knowledge
about matri and.matri possession. Such a denial is not
surprising since belief in possession is considered

superstitious by many, and some (especially those with a

185
high school education) openly ridicule and mimic body
movements associated with possession. I imagine that Usha,
who was a high school student, felt that she should not be
indulging in "backward" beliefs and customs.

Since our encounter at Khati, I had accompanied Usha to
other such traditional healers. Usha opened up and narrated
the reasons for her visits to the Matriya at Khati. She
told me that once she was collecting fire-wood in the
forests on the hill top (danda) when she fell off a branch.
She was unconscious for a few hours. She was only nine
years old at that time. Another time she was returning home
after collecting firewood. As her load was very heavy, she
was lagging behind her group. The sun was setting, so she
started to walk faster, but then she fainted. (She recalled
another incident when she was cutting grass along with her
friends from her village. When they were taking a short
respite, she fell asleep while her friends were amusing
themselves creating new songs. One of her friends screamed
into her ear to wake her up. This frightened (dorey goi)
her and she fainted. About the nature of her fainting
spells she says:

Khati ki Matriya tells me that I have a dosh on

me. Succhimatri has entered my body to protect

me;; My family believes that succhimatri enters

bodies that are pure. This means I am.pure and

eucdhimatri will protect me against attacks from

nefariOus beings (bhut:pret). You see, in all of

the cases that I mentioned to you, I fainted

because I was attacked by "bad spirits." The bad

spi its linger around the periphery of villages
forests. When I am returning from the forests

186

or after cutting grass they trouble me, and I

faint. So I avoid going outside the village, only

to go to school. Now I have a succimatri

protecting me. She battles with them when they

attack me. You know how I fling my arms and legs

around. I am not conscious about what actually

goes on.

Matriya tells me that when my body jerks

violently, it is so because matri is waging a

battle in my body against the attack by bhutspret.

When I did not have a succimatri protecting me, my

whole body would go numb (suun), like people with

paralysis (adhrang). I could not move any part of

my body even if I wanted. People tell me that I

start frothing around my mouth. My teeth clench

up and I just lie there rigid. Only when someone

forcefully puts a spoon of water in my mouth do I

wake up.
I probed if her symptoms were signs of epilepsy (mirgi).
She said even though the symptoms might look the same, in
her case the jerking movements were resulting from
succhimatri trying to drive the bad spirits out of her body.

Later on, she told me of her encounter with a Pir (a
muslim healer) that suggested a different interpretation of
her fainting spells. According to the Pir, she was
afflicted by.mirgi.matri. The Pir suggested that someone,
possibly a rianthuri in her family, was unhappy and her
angst (aha!) was the cause of this affliction. Usha thought
it was her youngest mother who was unhappy. After all, she
has no children of her own and she has to bear the brunt of
being branded a daag. I inquired if this diagnosis had any
effect on her younger mother. Usha thought that to a
certain extent it did, although no one teases or harasses

her about her situation to her face.

187

A few months later, on a visit to see her brother who
is in a school in Dehra Doon, she was shown to a physician
who gave her pills (buti) for her fainting spells. Usha
pointed out that the doctor had lamented that her illness
could not be cured. I asked her if the physician had
diagnosed her with epilepsy (mirgi), but she did not answer
me and left the room.

‘In the months that followed, Usha avoided any
encounters with me. Then one afternoon she knocked on my
door. She was visibly very upset and asked if she could
speak with me. She told me that what she had feared all
along had come true--she had failed her public exam. She
said:

I never find any time to study. All day long I
collect fire-wood or cut grass for cattle. Who

will want me now? I am useless. Nobody can leave

me to do any work on my own. If only I had passed

my exams, like bablididi, I could have studied

further. Now this. No one will ever want to marry

me. I am of no use to anybody. I cannot look

after children, not knowing when I might have a

"fit" (dbhra).
This was the first time she had ever used the word "dohra,"
the Jaunsari word for epileptic convulsions. She recalled
her conversation with the physician in Dehra Dun who had
informed her that her illness was incurable, and then she
left abruptly.

The next day was Friday. I was getting ready to catch

the bus to Makhti to document and follow up cases at the

"Friday clinic." Usha was waiting for me at the bus stop.

188
Although she sat next to me on the bus, she said nothing.
Her older brother Dinesh was escorting her.

At the "Friday clinic," when Usha’s turn came, the Mali
looked at her nails and asked her if she was ever
"frightened" (dorey). She told him of incidents that she
had never told me. She said she was frightened when she was
returning home one night from another village where she had
gone to see Ramlila. Hari Mali, true to his divination
style, made her breathe incense, and started drumming on a
brass plate invoking the spirit to manifest itself.

Mali: jai Maharaj
Hail Raghunath, Botha Mahasu
omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient Raghunathji
reside in the host (dori) and bring forth the
truth
remove suffering from humans
pardon the mistakes and transgressions
throw light on the truth
through the mouth or the body of the host

I am calling you devata, I am requesting you
come in the form of devata and leave in the form

of devata.
Usha: Nahi (NO).
Mali: Oh Maharaj! Please tell me what tortures you, I
will do as you say.
Usha: I do not want leftovers, meat or oily
food. I want ritual bath at
Hardwar.
Mali: So Maharaj (so be it).

Usha opened her eyes as if she had just woken up from a
deep sleep. Her brother noted down the suggestions made by
the Mali-aperhej (restricted diet), bath in the Ganga River

and three more visits with him,

189

When I left the field, Usha was still on her restricted
diet, and had successfully cleared her public examinations.
She was making arrangements to move to Dehra Doon for higher
studies.

Usha's story is narrated from different points of view,
providing alternate readings of the same experience. It
clearly indicates that no single point of view (religious
healer, biomedical healer, or family) adequately renders her
experience. This multiplicity of interpretation embodies
the fact that possession experience cannot be represented
from a single vantage point. This narrative structure,
according to Good (1994), is the "subjunctivizing" quality
of a narrative.

Usha’s views about her experience radically change from
one encounter with the healer to the next. This is revealed
in the ambiguity inherent in her narrative and hence, as I
have tried to show in this sample, there is no way to
envision a definite encounter (Wolf 1992). The framing of
the story using a different account of the cause of illness
presents a very different meaning to the same experience. In
fact, each interpretation casts doubt on the other,
providing potential alternative interpretations. This
contingent element of the interpretation of possession
experience introduces a quality that is potent with

creativity.

190

The creative aspect is clearly exemplified in this case
study and the case study reported below deals with the
stigmatizing nature of several diseases, not only for the
individual but for their families as well. Usha knew that
if her "fainting spells" were diagnosed as epilepsy, her
family would have a hard time finding a groom for her. For
if the label of "epileptic" was stamped on her, it would
mark her for life, even after remission. Her seeking out
Makhti ka Mali was a desperate attempt to escape the label
and create a meaning that will help her cope with this
situation.

At the same time, this case represents the stress of a
young woman who is at the crossroads of her life, for what
she accomplishes at this point will determine the rest of
her life. She is torn between working towards the womanhood
defined by her society versus those presented in images in
the mass media of a working woman who achieves a good living
through college education. Her anxiety about her future is

intensified by the diagnosis of epilepsy by the physician.

6. Namita (F22):

I met Namita at the "Friday clinic" where she was

getting treatment for bis”. Namita is a garrulous woman

who was very open about the problem that was plaguing her.

 

n Poisoning through sorcery

191
She told me that her illness was about three months old.
The problem was discovered quite by accident. A Mali who
had actually come to divine for her sister suddenly spoke of
a dosh related to her. But at that moment Namita was quite
normal, showing no signs of the effect. However, as a
precautionary measure, she took a few rice grains (motia)
given to her by the Mali. As she was in her parental house,
her father became extremely worried for her because the Mali
had divined bis as the cause of her dosh.

There was no sign of bis for the next three days. But
when Namita visited a doctor with her son who was ill, she
vomited blood in the clinic. She at once realized that the
bis had shown its effect on her. The doctor gave injections
and glucose to her, and he clearly declared that the
symptoms were very severe. He advised Namita to go to a
better place (a hospital). Namita listened to the
suggestions of the doctor but was thinking otherwise. She
was convinced that she had an affliction of bis which needed
to be calmed immediately. She hurriedly returned to the
village.

At home, she again vomited blood; everyone was
convinced of the bis effect now. A Mali was immediately
called who confirmed his as a causative factor. The Mali
gave her a few rice grains to be taken the next morning.

Her condition was gradually deteriorating. She was

becoming weaker due to vomiting. At this juncture, it was

192
decided that the patient should be given "power" medicines.
Here the choice of the healer's prescription had nothing to
do with the treatment of the illness but was made to help
her overcome weakness. She was taken to the nearby Primary
Health Center where the nurse immediately put her on
glucose. Her vomiting stopped, but only for a short period.
As soon as the effect of the glucose wore off, she vomited
profusely.

There was no improvement in Namita’s symptoms. She was
in her parental house, so her father decided that she should
first be handed over to her husband’s family, who should be
shouldered with taking care of her. At her affinal home, it
was decided that she should be taken to the military
hospital. A

On the way to the hospital, they met a very famous
Eamon named Bheru, the electrician, who is a bis specialist.
Namita's father was once cured of bis by Bheru, so he
recognized him. Bheru "found" (khojna) the bis and prepared
an amulet for Namita. However, he instructed them that the
amulet should be worn only when Namita returned from the
hospital. He considered the environment of the hospital to
be highly polluted, which could defile the sacred amulet and
make it ineffective. It was also suggested that the amulet
be kept away during menses, death and birth.

Namita received the hospital treatment for thirteen

days. There was considerable improvement in her and she

 

193
felt strong. However, she considered that the hospital’s
treatment had only helped in regaining the lost "power," but
believed that the actual cause of the illness, bis, was
still lingering. She wore the amulet as soon as she
returned home.

Namita remained normal for one full year, but started
vomiting blood after that time. She correlated it to the
act of defiling the amulet. She recalled that she had
visited her co-wife whose son had died. In such a
situation, she reflected, she should have kept the amulet in
a safer place. But she forgot to abide by this purity rule,
and so the amulet became ineffective.

A Eamon was asked to calculate bis for her. Namita's
condition once again started deteriorating. Although
someone was immediately sent to Bheru's village, she was
immediately taken to the PHC, owing to her severe condition.

At the Primary Health Center, "power" medicine was
injected into her. Namita was puzzled when the doctor at the
Health Center diagnosed her illness to be tuberculosis. She
knew the doctors were wrong. She only hoped to get the
"power" medicine, and once discharged, she would wear the
new amulet made by the Eamon.
amnion;

In Namita's world, spirits, dosh and bis are
responsible for suffering. Unable to localize the source of

suffering in terms of her cultural model of the world, her

194
suffering remained ambiguous and invalidated. She had made
a conscious attempt to find the meaning of her suffering in
bis. Namita’s case also illustrates the fairly common
situation in which people's problems were uncovered quite by
accident.

In this region "tuberculosis" is highly stigmatized and
feared. So it is not surprising that a conscious effort was
being made to find alternative meaning to this experience
which would help "remake" her lifeworld. Her insistence on
wearing the amulet was an attempt to, what Good (1994)
describes as a bid to "authorize the self." She was
describing events along with the meaning she wanted to craft
for herself and hence imagining a culturally appropriate

solution to her predicament.

Conclusion;

In all the narratives of spirit possession, we
discovered the multiple layers of meaning that were
attributed to various events. In considering the unfolding
of events in the sufferer's life, one observes that there
were several themes in a story. With each new turn of
events, there is a concern for a potential outcome.
Interactions with different healers also help in shaping how
the story may turn out. The actors themselves are engaged
in shaping their activities and forming their world. The

therapy management group has an agenda of its own. In the

195
quest for a desired outcome, the narratives resist a
closure. This also opens up possibilities and potentials for
multiple interpretations for the possession event and
alternative ways to seek therapy.

There are certain aspects of narratives that help
maintain this subjunctivity, which permits alternate
thematic structures without a definite closure. The
Jaunsaris have access to "pluralistic medical systems" and
this facilitates a hope-~a potential for cure. Within each
healing system, different healers have access to different
shakti. Each "reading" present the suffer with a different
interpretation and a different meaning which opens up more
possibilities, providing alternate thematic structures with
a desired outcome. Each interpretation draws on a
particular concern making available unlimited thematic
structures. People draw upon them all at the same time,
stretching and molding to accommodate multiple readings
which make sense of their experience. Even organic diseases
(bimari) have "supernatural" explanations (e.g.,
tuberculosis and epilepsy), and this further opens up
possibilities for cure without the stigma associated with
these diseases. Also ambivalence towards traditional
beliefs sends people to biomedical arenas where many more
stories are created to understand their experience. So we
see, each narrative, embodying contradictions and a multiple

network of perspectives, has a creative potency to recast

196
reality.

The concepts used in these possession narratives
uncover the indigenous explanatory model. For example,
talking about perhej, ritual bath, jutha, bis, and doli is a
part of an indigenous model of the well-being of the self,
emphasizing closure, mixing, balancing, channeling, purity,
etc. For Usha and Namita and others encountered in this
chapter, the association of a stigmatized illness with dbsh
provides, through spirit possession, an alternative
interpretation that helps to escape the dishonor and
disgrace associated with these diseases.

These self narratives, rampant with ambiguities and
contradictions and enriched with metaphors, proverbs and
allusions, go beyond individual experience. They expose
Jaunsari women's desires and frustrations, their memories
and their fantasies. Within the space provided by spirit
possession, women discuss, articulate and make sense of
crises and of the unattainable objectives of womanhood and,
invariably, tell us something about gender relations,
household dynamics, and their existential dilemmas. By
tapping into the imaginary world (cosmology) and in dealing
with the harshness of the realities of their everyday world,
they strive toward healing with an openness to change and to
healing. Herein lies the creative potential of spirit

possession.

Chapter 8

Closure

Shared images and metaphors are conventional mode of
organizing the structure and meaning of spirit possession.
In the next few paragraphs I discuss the central metaphors
of body, dosh and the spirits, and link them to the local
landscape, healers lives, women's experiences and religious
meanings. They reveal not only aspects of spirit
possession, but also the relation between culture, narrative
and experience (Narayan 1989).

As an object of analysis, the "body" condenses a
network of meanings. The body is, first and foremost, the
locus of senses and feeling. This relates to the affective
dimension of experience. The body is also the locus of
personal, social and political strife (Scheper-Hughes 1994).
Symbolically, Jaunsari notions of the body help us in
understanding these meanings in revealing the person-body-
experience relationship (Low, 1994).

The "body," Csordas (1990) informs us, is the starting
point in the study of culture and self. It is the
"existential ground of culture." He directs us to ideas put

forward by Merleau-Ponty (1962), who considers the body as

197

198
the ultimate medium of experience and therefore an essential
consideration in describing and understanding the phenomenal
world. Scheper-Hughes and Lock, in their several articles
written together (1987, 1990) and separately (1980, 1994),
have suggested the body as the central object of analysis in
anthropology. The body is seen as the "ultimate medium" that
connects the personal, the social and the political, thus
creating a space where social truths are contested,
negotiated, invented or reproduced.

When the body (pind) in Jaunsari communities is
possessed by one or more spirit, it becomes a space for
interaction with the spirits. The body becomes the vehicle
for the spirit; it is under the control of the spirit. The
narratives of healers' lives and women's possession
experiences highlight how the body emerges as a locus where
issues of struggle and suffering are inscribed.

When one examines the body’s meanings and metaphors,
one observes a gender distinction related to the issues of
power and struggle implicated in spirit possession. I have
already pointed out, that while Malis evoke a gift from the
divine (vardan) as an essential part of spirit possession
and as a key to healing, narratives of.Matriyas and the
women possessed by spirits typically concern issues of
struggle.

While women healers were anxious about their ability to

fulfil their role as a mother, wife, and field laborer, the

199

narratives of Mali lacked such considerations. In her
narrative about her fainting spells, Usha (pg. 183-189)
expresses her understanding of this experience as a
"struggle" between matri and bhut-pret--a struggle between
good and evil. Rani vocalizes about her predicament as a
"tug-of—war" between her loyalty towards the family and her
desire to be a healer. Thus we see the experience of
possession and its consequences mirror the power
differential between the two genders in Jaunsari society.

This emphasis on the body draws our attention to the
cultural understanding of suffering. Suffering is often
seen as a divine experience in Hindu culture (Fuller, 1992).
In the case of possession, the body as possessed and
controlled by another spirit becomes the locus of suffering,
yet another prevalent theme. The healers were quick to
point out that becoming a Matriya or a Mali is not automatic
after having been "chosen" by a divine spirit. The
habituation process transforms the body as a locus of
suffering to a body which serves as a temple (as the spirit
resides in it) capable of healing people. This habituation
process can take months and sometimes years. During the
habituation process, I was told that the host loses a lot of
weight. Women healers also pointed out that considerable
labor time was lost as well. Recalling her memories of her
bawala state, Rani Devi (Kandoi ki Matriya) told me that she

would go into uncontrolled possession and when she came out

200
of it, she felt as if she had been beaten over her entire
body. Like most healers, Rani rationalizes her suffering as
a test given by the divine to judge her capabilities
(praman) as a healer. "One needs to be strong morally,
ritually, and physically to be a vehicle for the divine."
Here, she is alluding to suffering as a meaningful and
purposeful emotion, a significant part of religious
experience.

These notions of body and suffering draw on religious
metaphors rich in shared images and symbols from popular
Hinduism. For example: Roshni described her experience of
spirit possession and her physical symptoms (violent jerky
movements) as a consequence of the goddess battling with a
demon for her soul and winning. Here, she is referring to a
very popular legend wherein goddess Durga had waged a battle
against the buffalo demon (Mahisasura), vanquished him.and
saved the world from annihilation. Pratima, who "swallows
her pride" and returns to her affinal home to face
humiliation, wishes that the "earth should split open and
swallow me." Pratima is drawing from a popular episode from
Ramayana in which Sita, the heroine, humiliated by her
husband, calls upon the mother goddess to open up and give
her shelter.

Finally, concepts of dosh form a primary organizing
feature in Jaunsari understanding of affliction and

suffering. In fact, many of the spirit possession

201

narratives explicitly ordered their experience in this form.
Dosh is particularly a significant metaphor around which the
people's narratives were built and-gained coherence.

Jaunsaris perceive and classify affliction in terms of
its causes. Affliction refers to a disorder or disruption
in the relation of the sufferer to his or her overall
context. According to the ancient Indian Medicinal
tradition--Ayurveda (also mentioned in Charaka and Susrata
Samhita, 1,800 years B.P.), the tridosha theory (humoral
theory) is based on the basic tenet that ill-health is
caused by an imbalance of certain elements in the body.
According to this theory, the body is made up of five gross
elements (dhatus): ether (Mahabhuta-Akasa), wind (vayu),
fire (Agni), water (Jala), and earth (prithvi). For the
well-being of the body, these elements must be kept in
balance. The food we take in generates dhatus and refuse.
The dhatus are invested with subtle qualities (gunas), and
their imbalence effects the dhatus. Clearly then,
disruption is caused by inappropriate intake. In order to
bring the person back to his or her initial state of
balance, counterbalanced intakes are prescribed. Balance,
then, characterizes the logic underlying the healing
approach in Ayurveda.

The logic of the maintenance of balance, and hence of
carefully guarding what one "takes in", is extended to

include interactions between an individual and his or her

202

group. A disharmony between the individual and his or her
group will, it is believed, cause suffering. This logic
reflects, McKim Marriott has suggested, the dominant theory
of personhood in Hindu India. The Hindu person is said to be
dividual, open, more or less fluid, and to derive his or her
nature from interpersonal interactions. Kakar sees Ayurveda
as "the principle repository of the cultural image of the
body and the concept of person" (1982:220). This type of
cultural imagining of the body and the person is clearly
seen in the Jaunsari conceptualization of suffering.
The Jaunsaris recognize several causes of suffering (pira):
(a) Eimari - an imbalance in the elements of the body.
(b) Dosh - an imbalance in the body's relationship

with the "behavioral environment" resulting in

divine punishment.
(c) Sorcery (jadu-tona) and witchcraft (daag ki

shakti).
In this research, I have focused on dosh as a central
organizing metaphor in shaping experience and making sense
of the world. Both bimari and dosh reflect the disruptive
relations of the sufferer to his or her overall context.
However, dbsh and bimari are not mutually exclusive
categories. Eimari, if it is persistent and fails to
respond to biomedicine, is attributed to dash. Dosh has
multiple meanings. The Jaunsaris consider dosh to be a

"curse" that is "given" or "attached" by supernatural forces

203
when an individual fails to maintain certain cosmological
prescriptions. Dosh brings suffering (pira), the symptoms
of which are evaluated by the sufferer, his or her therapy
management group and the healers.

The healing process primarily involves identifying the
cause of the suffering at various levels:

(1) If the cause of the suffering is natural or
supernatural
(2) If supernatural, which particular force or spirit

is causing the suffering
(3) The reason for possession by the spirit
(4) If any humans were involved in this process
Then, through a process of transaction and transformation,
the causes are addressed.

Dosh as a diagnostic category reflects how Jaunsaris
tend to explain or understand the problematic of everyday
life and suffering. It reflects and symbolizes the change
in the "behavioral environment" and in the individual's body
and manifests itself in the transformations that are
internal and external. A change in the behavioral
environment or the proportions of dhatus that form a body
has a tremendous impact on the constitution of the self and
personhood. That is to say, dosh is the central metaphor
that is related to the Jaunsari understanding of spirit
possession, self and personhood.

The Jaunsari believe that possession by a spirit can

204

also be symptomatic of the "divine call" or "divine
selection". In either case, intrusion by a spirit into the
body of a human entails transformations in the life of the
host. In the former case, depending on the context, there
are 2 contrasting responses:
(1) Exorcism (jharfiphunk) - which involves "driving

out" the spirit
(2) Adoricism (bonth) - which involves "accommodating

or integrating" (bonth) the spirit and cultivating

a viable and enduring relationship between the

host and the spirit.
In reality, not all cases of spirit possession fall into one
or the other category, and in situations where more than one
spirit enters the human body, both of the strategies are
implemented. The healing process is a continuous and
persistent attempt at providing meaning to the experience of
possession. It involved making sense of the individual’s
experience in the everyday world. And in the Bakhtinian
sense, possession reveals the subversive and latent meanings
inherent in the shared experience of routine life and
everyday activities. I see the recourse of patients to
healers as an example of what James Scott (1986) calls
"everyday forms of resistance."

Spirit possession is not just a Culturally meaningful
construction of suffering but also the focus of remedial and

redressive action. By using this concept, Jaunsaris are not

205
merely struggling to give a clinical name to a person’s pain
and misfortune, they are drawing our attention to a complex
network of metaphorical association to which the terms are
meaningfully connected. Condensed in the concept of spirit
possession is a semantic network that links individual
distress to a social world where inequality and injustice
are an integral part of social relationships. Spirit
possession aims not just to alleviate symptoms but to
address the vulnerability of women--a core experience. As
Bijma so poignantly articulates this experience: "This is
our fate as women, everyone controls (vas) us, we (our body)
do not belong to ourselves.”

The social-structural forces supported by a cultural
ethos of polyandry create tension between the genders and
sustain a gender hierarchy. And this manifests itself in
the healing seances. The narratives poignantly express the
centrality of gender conflict to their suffering. I see the
healing rituals as providing women with a strategic means by
which they hold members of their family responsible for any
injustices or abusive behavior. This interpretation of
spirit possession in the context of gender politics permits
an analysis that accommodates the creative aspect of spirit
possession. .

Spirit possession explicitly questions the very essence
of identity, self and personhood in any society. What

happens to the person who is de-possessed of herself and

206
controlled by another spirit? How does one attain a new
identity? Does it challenge the notion of Indian self as
socio-centric, as constituted by social interactions and the
environment?

By taking into consideration the process of spirit
possession, I have chartered the recasting of identity of
the healers and the recasting of reality in the lives of the
sufferers.

Spirit possession can be comprehended analytically as
an example of embodiment through which everyday life and
action become subjectively meaningful to actors themselves.
It is also a critical commentary and evaluation of the
trials and tribulations, frustrations and desires,
sentiments and feelings of the people concerned. This
commentary is an objective evaluation which is articulated
and mused through language. As Boddy has pointed out,
spirit possession, like anthropology, is a reflexive
discourse (1988:22). It is a medium through which one can
step outside of one's life world and gain a perspective on
it. In this sense, spirit possession is a metacommentary
about society, disclosing, orchestrating, revealing what is

implicit in it.

APPENDIX

207

Table 1.1

POPULATION OF RAJPUT DOMINA'I'ED VILLAGE BY CASTES AND HOUSEHOLDS
VILLAGE BISOE

 

CASTE HOUSEHOLD N M F
Rajput 14 74 87
Married 34 43
Unmarried 40 44
Bajgi 6 34 36
Married 15 19
Unmarried 19 17
Dom/Kolta 3 I9 16
Married 10 7
Unmarried 9 9
Total 23 127 139
Married 23 59 69

Unmarried 68 7O

208

Table 1.2

HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITION BY GENERATIONS, VILLAGE BISOE IN 1993

 

 

No. of generations % N
in households
one generation - -
two generations 30.4
three generations 60.9 14
four generations 8.6 2

99.9 23
Table 1.3

DISTRIBUTION OF MARITAL ARRANGEMENTS IN 1993

Monogamy

. Simple fraternal
polyandry

Fraternal Polygynandry

Polygyny

VILLAGE BISOE

% N of marriages
39 ' 15
7 3
38 I4
15 6

 

Total number of couples == 38

 

209

Table 1.4

MEN'S AND WOMEN'S EXPERIENCE OF MARRIAGE

VILLAGE BISOE

M

MONOGAMY

N 15

% 25.4
SIMPLE FRATERNAL
POLYANDRY

N 8

% 13.6
FRATERN AL POL YGYNANDRY

N 30

% 50.09
POLYGYNY

N 6

% 10.2

15

21.7

4.4

37
53.6

14
20.3

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bibliography

Asad, Talal
1973 Anthropology and the colonial encounter. New
Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Babb, L.
1975 The Divine Hierarchy; New York: Columbia
University Press.

Bakhtin, M.
1984 Rabelais and the world. Translated by Helene
Iswolsky. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Blakey, M.

1995 The New York African Burial Ground Project:
Anthropology for whom and what. Anthropology
Colloquim Lecture Series. Michigan State
University.

Berreman, G
1972 Hindus of the Himalayas: Ethnography and Change.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
1975 Himalayan Polyandry and Domestic Cycle. American
Ethnologist 2:127-38.

Boddy, J.

1988 Spirits and Selves in northern Sudan:
the cultural therapeutics of possession
and trance. American Ethnologist 15(1):
4-27

1989 wombs and.Alien Spirits: women, Men, and
the Zar Cult in Northern Sudan. Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press

1994 Spirit Possession Revisited. Annual Review of
Anthropology 23:417-434.

Bourdieu P.

1990 The Logic of Practice. Stanford CA: Stanford
University Press.

210

211

Bourguignon E.

1965 The self, the behavioral environment,and the
theory of spirit possession. In context and
.Meaning in Cultural Anthropology, ed. M.E. Spiro,
pp. 39-60. New York: Free Press

1973 Religion, Altered States of Cbnsciousness and
Social Change. Columbus: Ohio State Univ. Press

1976 Possession. San Francisco: Chandler & Sharp

Brown, K. M.
1991 Mama Lola: A Vbdou Priestess in Brooklyn.
Berkeley: University of California Press.

Carstairs, G. Morris

1961 Patterns of Religious Observances in Three
Villages of Rajasthan. In Aspects of Religion in
Indian Society, ed. L. P. Vidyarthi. Meerut: Kedar
Nath Ram Nath.

1967 The TWice Born: A Study of a community of High
Caste Hindus. Bloomington:Indiana University
Press.

Carstairs, G. Morris & R.L. Kapur
1976 The Great universe of Kbta: Stress, Change and
Mental disorder in an Indian Village. London: The
Hogarth Press.

Claus P. J.
1984 Medical anthropology and the ethnography
of spirit possession. contributions to
Asian Studies 18(1):60-72

Clifford, J.
1988 The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth century
Ethnography,.Art and Literature. Cambridge, Mass:
Harvard University Press.

Clifford, J. a G. E. Marcus
1986 writting Culture: The Poetics and Politics of
Ethnography; Berkeley: University of California
Press.

Cohn, B
1955 The Changing Status of a depressed Caste. In
Village India, ed. McKim Marriott. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.

212

Comaroff J.

1980 Healing and the Cultural Order: The Case of the
Barolong boo Ratshidi. American Ethnologist
7(4):367-78.

1982 Medicine and Ideology. In The Problem of Medical
Knowledge. ed. P. Write and A. Teacher. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University.

1985 Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance: The Culture
and History of a South African People. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.

Corin, E.

1994 The Dynamics of Affect and Symbols in African
Spirit Possession Cults. Paper presented at the
93rd Annual Meeting of the American
Anthropological Association, Atlanta, Georgia.

Crapanzano, V. & V. Garrison
1977 case Stusies in Spirit possession. New York: John
Wiley & Sons.

Crapanzano, V.
1980 Tuhami: Portrait of a Moroccan. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press

Crooke, W.
1896 The Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern
India. Westminister: Archibald Constable & Co.

Csordas, T. J.

1983 The Rhetoric of Transformation in Ritual Healing.
Culture, Medicine, And Psychiatry 7:333-75

1987 Health and the Holy in African and Afro—American
Spirit Possession. Social Science &.Medicine
24(1):1-11

1988 Elements of Charismatic Persuasion and Healing.
Medical Anthropology Quarterly 2(2):121—42

1990 Embodiment as a Paradigm for Anthropology. Ethos
18:5-47

David, K.
1973 Uhtil Marriage Do Us Part: A Cultural Account of
Jaffna Tamil Categories for Kinsman. Man 8:521-
535.

Daniel, V.
1984 Fluid Signs: Being a Person The Tamil way.
Berkeley: University of California Press.

De Beauvoir, S.
1952 The Second Sex. New York: Vintage Press.

213

De Certeau, M.
1984 The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley:
University of California Press.

Desjarlais, R.
1992 Body and Emotion: The Aesthetics of Illness and
Healing in the Nepal Himalayas. Philadelphia:
Univ. Penn. Press

Douglas M.
1966 Purity and danger: An Analysis of the concepts of
Pollution and Taboo. Boston: Ark Paperbacks.
1970 Natural symbols. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin

Dumont, L.
1970 Hemo Hierarchicus. Mark Salisbury, Trans. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.

Egnor, M.
1978 The Sacred Spell and other conceptions of life in
Tamil Culture. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of
Anthropology, university of Chicago.

Erndl, Kathleen
1984 The Play of the Goddess: Possession and
Performance in the Punjabi Cult of Seranvali.
Paper Presented at the conference on South Asia,
Madison, Wisconsin.

Firestone, S.
1970 The Dialectic of Sex: The case for Feminist
Revolution. New York: William Morrow.

Foucault M.
1979 Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of a Prison.
New York: Vintage.
1980 Power/Knowledge, ed. C Gordon. Transl. C Gordon, L
Marshall, J Mepham, K Soper. New York: Pantheon

Frake, C.
1961 The Diagnosis of Disease among the Subanun of
Minadano. American Anthropologist 63:11-132.

Freed, R. & S. Freed
1990 Ghost Illness in a North Indian village. Social
Science & Medicine 30(5):617-23

Garrison V, & V. Crapanzano
1978 Comment on Leacock's review of case Studies in
Spirit Possession. Reviews in Anthropology 5:420-5

214

Geertz C.
1983 Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive
Anthropology; New York: Basic Books.

Ghadially, R.
1988 Nemen in Indian Society; New Delhi: Sage
Publications.

Gold, A. Grodzins ~
1988 Fruitful Jeurneys: The ways of Rajasthani
Pilgrims. Berkeley: UNiversity of California
Press.

Good Byron J.
1977 The Heart of What's the Matter: The semantics of
Illness in Iran. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry
1:25-58.
1994 Medicine, Rationality; and Experience: An
Anthropological Perspective. New York: Cambridge
University Press.

Good, Byron and Mary-Jo Delveecchio Good
1981 The Meaning of Symptoms: A Cultural Hermeneutic
Model for Clinical Practice. In The Relevance of
Social science for Medicine, ed. Leon Eisenberg
and Arthur Kleinman. Dordrecht, Holland: D.
Reidel.

Hahn, Robert
1984 Rethinking "Illness" and "Disease." In south Asian
Systems of Healing: Cbntributions to Asian
Studies, ed. Valentine Daniel and Judy Pugh Vol.
18. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

Hallowell, A. Irving
1955 Culture and Experience. Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press.

Harding, Sandra
1987 Feminism and Methodology. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press.

Harris, Grace
1989 Concept of Individual, Self and Person in
Description and Analysis. American Anthropologist
91:599-612.

Harrison,
1992

1993

1995

Harraway,
1985

Harstock,
1983

hooks, b
1995

Jackson,
1989

1990

215

Faye

writing Against the Grain: Cultural Politics of
Difference in the work of Alice walker. London:
Sage Publications.

The Du Boisian Legacy in Anthropology. critique of
Anthropology 12(3)239-260 (special issue on W.E.B.
Du Bois and Anthropology).

Unburying Theory, Repositioning Practice:
Anthropological Praxix in Subjugated Predicaments.
Anthropology Colloquim Lecture series. Michigan
State University.

Donna

A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology and
Socialist Feminism in the 1980's. Socialist Review
15(80):65-107.

Nancy

Money, Sex and Power: waards a Feminist
Historical Materialism. Boston: Northeastern
University Press.

cultural Imperialism and Popular Media. Paper
presented at the Women Studies Colloquim lecture
Series, Michigan State University.

M.

Paths waard a Clearing: Radical Empiricism and
Ethnographic Enquiry. Bloomington: University of
Indiana Press.

The Man Who Could Turn into an Elephant: Shape
Shifting among the Kuranko of Sierra Leone. In
Personhood and Agency: The Experience of Self and
Other in African Cultures, ed. Michael Jackson &
Ivan Karp. Distributed by the Smithsonian
Institute press: Washington.

Jackson, M & Ivan Karp

1990

Jain, S.C.

1948

Personhood and Agency: The Experience of Self and
Other in African Cultures. Distributed by the
Smithsonian Institute press: Washington. D.C.

Some Features of Fraternal Polyandry in Jaunsar-
Bawar. The Eastern Anthropologist 1(3):27-33.

Jones, Delmos

1970

Towards a Native Anthropology. Human Organization

29(4):251-259. Reprited in Johnnetta B. Cole (ed.)
(1988) Anthropology for the Nineties: Introductory
Readings, pp 30-41. New York: The Free press.

216

Kakar, S.
1982 Shamans,.Mystics and Doctors: A Psychological
Inquiry into India and its Healing Traditions. New
York: Knopf.

Kapferer B.

1986 Performance and the Structure of Meaning and
Experience. In The Anthropology of Experience, ed.
V. Turner, E. Bruner, pp. 188-206. Chicago:
University of Illinois Press.

1991 A Celebration of Demons: Exorcism and Healing in
sri Lanka. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institute
Press. 2nd ed.

Karp I.
1989 Power and Capacity in Rituals of Possession.
Creativity of Power: cosmology and Action in
African Societies, ed. W Arens & I. Karp, pp.91-
109. Washington , DC: Smithsonian Inst. Press

Kleinman A.
1980 Patients and Healers in the context of Culture.
Berkeley: University of California press.
1988 The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing and the
Human Condition. New York: Basic Books.

Kleinman, A & J. Kleinman
1991 Suffering and Its Professional Transformation:
Toward an Ethnography of experience. Culture,
Medicine and Psychiatry 15:275-301.

Krengel, M.
1990 Communication and Gift Exchange between Wife-
givers and Wife-takers in Kumaon Himalaya. In
.Himalaya: Past and Present, Vol.1, ed. M. Joshi,
A.Fanger and C. Brown. pp 173-191. Almora: Shri
Almora Book Depot.

Lambek, M.

1980 Spirits and spouses: possession as a system of
communication among Malagasy speakers of Mayotte.
American Ethnologist 7(2):318-31

1981 HUman Spirits: A Cultural Account of Trance in
Mayotte. Cambridge Uhiv. Press

1989 From disease to discourse: remarks on the
conceptualization of trance and spirit possession.
In Altered States of consciousness and Mental
health: A Gross-Cultural Perspective, ed. C. A.
Ward pp. 36-61. Newbury park, CA: Sage
Publications.

Lambek, M.

1993

Levine, N.

1988

217

(cont.)
Knowledge and Practice in Mayotte: Local
Discourses of Islam, Sorcery and Spirit
Possession. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

The Dynamics of Polyandry: Kinship, Domesticity,
and Population on the Tibetan Border. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.

Lewis I. M.

1986

1988
Low, S

1994
Majumdar,

1962

Marcus, G.

1987

Marriott,
1968

1976

1980

1989

Marriott,
1977

Religion in Context: Cults and Charisma.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ectatic Religion: A Study of Spirit Possession and
Shamanism. London: Routledge.

Protest of the Body. Medical Anthropological
Quarterly 8(40:476-478.

D. N.
Himalayan Polyandry; New York: Asia Publishing
House.

and M. Fischer
Anthropology as a Cultural critique: An
Experiemntal.Mbment in the Human sciences.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

M.

Caste Ranking and Food Transactions: A Matrix
Analysis. In Structure and Change in Indian
Society, ed. M. Singer and B.S. Cohn. pp 133-171.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Hindu Transactions: Diversity Without Dualism. In
Transaction and.Meaning: Directions in the
Anthropology of Exchange and Symbolic Behavior,
ed. Bruce Kapferer. Philadelphia: Institute for
the study of Human Issues. pp 109-142.

The Open Hindu Person and Interpersonal Fluidity.
Unpublished article: The University of Chicago.
Constructing an Indian Ethnosociology.
Cbntributions to Indian Sbciology (n.s.) 23(1):1-
39.

M. & R. Inden

Towards an Ethnosociology of South Asian Caste
System. In The New Wind, ed. by Kenneth David. The
Hague: Mouton.

 

218

Marsella,A., G. Devos & F.L.K. Hsu
1985 Culture and Self: Asian and western Perspectives.
New York: Tavistock Publication.

Martin E.
1990 Toward an Anthropology of Immunology:
the Body as Nation State. Medical
Anthropological Quarterly 4(4):410-26.

Mascia-Lees F, P. Sharpe & C.B. Cohen
1989 The Postmodernist Turn in Anthropology: Cautions
from a Feminist Perspective. Signs 15(11):7-33.

Merleau-Ponty, M
1962 Sinais. Lisboa, Editorial Minotauro Lda.

Morsy S.

1991 Spirit possession in Egyptian ethnomedicine:
origins, comparison and historical specificity. In
Nemen’s.Medicine: The Zar-Bori Cult in Africa and
Beyond. ed. I.M. Lewis, A. Al-Safi, & S. Hurreiz.
pp 189-208. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Munshi, R
1954 Forward to social Economy of a Polyandrous People
by R. M. Saksena. Bombay: Asia Publishing House.

Narayan, K.
1992 Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels: Folk
Narrative in Hindu Religious Teaching.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Nichter, M.
1981 Idioms of Distress: Alternatives in the Expression
of Psychological Distress: A Case Study from South
India. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 5:379-408.

Nuckolls, C. W.
1991 Becoming a Possession-medium in South
India: a psychocultural account. Medical
Anthropological Quarterly 5(1);63-77

Obeyesekere G.

1970 The idiom of demonic possession. Sbcial
Science and.Medicine 4:97-111.

1977 Pyschological Exegesis of a Case of Spirit
Possession in Sri Lanka. In case Studies in
Spirit Possession, ed. V. Crapanzano and V.
Garrison. New York: John Wiley and Sons.

1981.Medusa’s Hair: An Easay on Personal
symbols and Religious Experience.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

 

219

Ortner, S & H. Whitehead
1981 Sexual Meanings: The Cultural construction of
Gender and Sexuality; Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Rosaldo, R.
1989 Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social
Analysis. Boston: Beacon press.

Rubin, G
1975 The Traffic in Women: Notes on the "Political
Economy" of Sex. In waards an Anthropology of
Nemen, ed. Rayna R. Reiter. pp 157-210. Monthly
Review Press.

Saksena, R.M.

1954 Social Economy of a Polyandrous People. Bombay:
Asia Publishing House.

Sax, W.

1992 The Pandav Lila in Garhwal: Ritual, Theatre,
Politics. Paper presented at the 9lst annual
meetings of the American Anthropological
Association. San Franscisco, California.

Scheper-Hughes, N.

1990 Three Propositions for a Critically Applied
Medical Anthropology. Sbcial Science and medicine
30:187-197.

1994 Embodied Knowledge: Thinking with Body in Critical
Medical Anthropology. In Assessing Cultural
Anthropology, ed. Robert Borofsky. New York:
McGraw-Hill, Inc.

Scheper-Hughes, N & M. Lock

1986 Speaking "truth" to Illness: Metaphors,
Reification and a Pedagogy for Patients. Medical
Anthropology Quarterly 17:137-140.

1987 The Mindful Body: A Prolegomenon to Future Work in
Medical Anthropology. Medical Anthropology
Quarterly NS 1(1):6-41.

1990 A Critical-Interpretive Approach in Medical
Anthropology: Ritual and Routines of Discipline
and Dissent. In Medical Anthropology: centemporary
Theory and Method, ed. T.M. Johnson and C.F.
Sargent. New York: Praegar.

Scott, J.
1986 Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance in South-East
Asia. Journal of Peasant Studies (special Issue)
13(2).

 

220

Sen, D.K.
1956 Some Notes on the Fertility of Jaunsari Women. The
Eastern Anthropologist 10(1):60-69.

Skultans, V.
1987 The Management of Mental Illness among
Maharashtrian Families: a Case Study of a
Mahanubhav Healing Temple. Man 22:661-79

Steedly, M.
1993 Hanging Without a Rope: Narrative Experience in
colonial and Posthlonial Karoland. Princeton, NJ.
Princeton University Press

Stoller, P.
1989 Fusion of the worlds: An Ethnography of Possession
among the Songhay of Niger. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press

Taussig, M.
1980 Reification and the Consciousness of the Patient.
Social, Science and Medicine 14B:3-13
1987 Shamanism, colonialism, and the Wild Man: A Study
in Terror and Healing Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press

Teja, J., Khanna, S and Subramanyan, T.
1970 Possession Trance in Indian Patients. Indian
Journal of Psychiatry 1:71-87.

Turner, T.
1980 The Social Skin. In Not work Alone, ed. J. Cherfas
& R. Lewin, pp 112-140. London: Temple Smith.

Varma, L., D.K. Srivastava and R.n. Sahay
1970 Possession Syndrome. Indian Journal of Psychiatry
1:58-70.

Wadley, S.

1975 Shakti: Power in the Conceptual Structure of
Karimpur Religion. The University of Chicago
Studies in Anthropology Series, #2. Department of
Anthropology, University of Chicago.

1980 Hindu Women’s Family and Houshold Rites in a North
Indian Village. In unspoken worlds: Nemen’s
Religious Lives in Non-western Cultures, edited by
S. Falk, N. Auer and R.M. Gross. pp 94-109. New
York: Harper and Row.

Wadley, S. & D. Jacobson
1986 women In India: Two Perspectives. Delhi: Manohar
Publications.

 

Ward, C.
1980

1989

Williams,
1874

Wolf, M.
1992

Worsley,
1982

Young A.
1982

221

P.

Spirit posssessiopn and Mental Health: a Psycho-
Anthropological Perspective. Haman Relations
33(3):149-63

Altered States of Cbnsciousness and Mental Helath
: A cross-Cultural Perspective. Newbury Park, CA:
Sage Publications.

G.R.C.

Memoir of Dehra Doon. Dehra Dun: Natraj
Publications.

A Thrice Told Tale: Feminism, Postmodernism and
Ethnographic Responsibility. Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press.

Non-Western Medical Systems. Annual Review of
Anthropology 11:315-348.

The Anthropologies of Illness and Sickness. Annual

Review of Anthropology 11:257-85