著者

田中 雅一 Masakazu Tanaka

出版者

国立民族学博物館

雑誌

国立民族学博物館研究報告 = Bulletin of the National Museum of Ethnology (ISSN:0385180X)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.13, no.3, pp.445-516, 1989-01-27

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The aim of this article is to understand a Hindu villagefestival in terms of cosmological meanings and politicalfunctions. In the "Introduction" anthropological works on Hinduvillage festivals are reviewed first, and then a Kali goddess villagefestival, held at a Hindu fishing village on the western coast ofSri Lanka, is described and its rituals are interpreted. Finallythree themes are considered in order to understand the villagefestival as a whole. These themes are, first, the construction ofspatial categories such as the sea, village and forest; second, thecosmological opposition between Kali and evil spirits; and, last,the political domination of the village net-owners.The recent development of anthropological studies ofHindu village festivals is characterized by a shift from a structuralfunctionalistapproach to symbolic analysis. In the formerapproach social functions of the festival are emphasized and"village solidarity" is considered to be realized through theparticipation of the villagers in the festival, whereas in the latterthe cosmological dimension of the village festival is investigatedand more attention is paid to symbols such as sound, color,images, and the like. It is said that the village festival providesa rare occasion on which a village is renewed through the intrusionof the sacred. However, both approaches tend to ignore themulti-dimensional character of the festival, especially its politicalfunctions, and explain it in terms of either group-solidarity orsymbolism. It is argued that with some modifications Turner'sconcepts of "structure" and "anti-structure" are useful to theunderstanding of the political functions.The Kali goddess festival is held at her temple for ten days inthe month of avani (September-October). This is the time whenthe goddess originally appeared in the village, which had beensuffering from an epidemic, and saved the villagers. As it wasKali herself who had caused the epidemic, when she was properlyworshipped and given due respect, the fatal disease was controlled.On the first day, a medium, who is possessed by Kali duringthe festival, makes three ritual pots, one karakam and two kumpampots.The karakam-pot is used for a village procession, while thekumpam-pots are placed in the sanctum sanctorum of the Kalitemple. On the third, fifth and seventh day of the festival themedium goes into a trance in the sanctum sanctorum, places thekarakam-pot on his head, and starts going around the village withhis followers. Along the way villagers throw water to cool themedium's body. In exchange they receive margosa leaves andhang them on the fence around their houses. Hanging margosaleaves on the fence indicates that a household member is sufferingfrom small-pox, whose pustule is, it is believed, visual evidence ofpossession by a small-pox goddess. Therefore, the karakam-potprocession is interpreted as the intrusion of an epidemic. Thefestival re-acts the original event in which Kali first appeared tothe villagers and saved them from the epidemic. Kali representedas the karakam-pot is a goddess of epidemic. Accordinglythe village is described as "a community of suffering" (Turner).On the tenth day a goat is sacrificed in front of the Kaligoddess temple. With this sacrifice Kali is propitiated and herviolent and feverish character is transformed into a calm andbenevolent one. Then the ritual pots made on the first day areall thrown into the sea.Finally, Kali's brass-image is heavily decorated and is takenout from the temple for a village procession. Unlike the karakamprocession,it shows no reference to an epidemic disease. Rather,it symbolizes a joyful and triumphant occasion after the epidemiccum-divine has disappeared. When the brass-image comes backto the temple, puja (worship) is performed and pracada (sacralizedofferings) are distributed to festival patrons. They are villagenet-owners and some wealthy men.From a structural-functionalist point of view the villagefestival enforces "village solidarity" by representing it as a communityof suffering at the beginning and as a community oftriumph over the epidemic at the end. During the festival thevillage is clearly demarcated by a series of processions.Symbolically, the village festival shows the transformation ofKali from a violent, epidemic-causing goddess into a benevolent,grace-conferring one. The villagers make every effort to cooldown the goddess and propitiate her. Accordingly the villageis renewed, as are the villagers.From a political point of view the festival legitimizes andconstructs the politico-economic domination of a wealthy sectorof the fishing village, especially the net-owners. The villagersare divided into two classes; net-owners and their employees.All the fishermen contribute to the village festival as villagepatrons, but it is only the net-owners (and wealthy persons) whoare allowed to make additional contributions and, in exchangefor these, they have exclusive rights in receiving prasada at the endof the festival. In a sense they only support the non-ecstatic(structural) phase characterized by the brass-image of Kali,and not the ecstatic (anti-structural) phase, which is to be deniedat the end of the festival. They take over the collective effortof the villagers to transform Kali, and seem to say that, withouttheir financial support, neither the village festival nor thetransformation of the goddess would ever be possible. Thus itis through their contributions that the village is saved from theepidemic.