Extreme rituals in transition: Some reflections

I just returned from a turbulent five days in Phuket, Thailand. Although many people associate Phuket with beach, sand and holidays, it is also one of the biggest centres for a Buddhist religious festival, which in all likelihood is one of the most extreme rituals still existing in modern societies. The rituals have a long 5,000 year history, going back to pre-Chinese rituals (see work by Margaret Chan). The ceremonies arrived in Thailand with Chinese groups that worked in mines during the 19th century. I will share some brief impressions of my short visit. I could talk about what I saw for ages, so this is just a quick rambling of thoughts and observations. The purpose was to collect some data on the values and personality of participants in this fascinating ritual and to examine health and well-being effects of a ritual like this. Watch this space for the results coming soon...

The Processions

The festival lasts about 10 days and involves thousands of worshipers from Thailand and the region. It starts with the raising of a lantern pole which invites some Emperor Gods to descend from heaven.

In the following days, believers who act as mediums go into trance and impersonate various gods and warriors. These mediums will walk over heaps of glowing coal and climb bladed ladders (both events have specific religious significance and are performed on days before important events of the larger ritual). The most impressive show of these mediums are the processions though. Starting in the early hours of day, believers will go into trance at the temple which will sponsor and organize the procession of the day. Supporters will dress the mediums (once they are in trance) with the characteristic Chinese style garments and hand them artefacts that show their heavenly power (typically some flag with Chinese inscriptions and a whip with a snake-shaped grip).

Depending on the spirits that possess them, a good number of the believers will engage in piercings and acts of self-mortification. The piercings in some cases can be hard to stomach for outsiders. It ranged from needles and skewers to guns, beach umbrellas, metal saws, swords, tree branches, basket ball hops attached to a car tire, beads and any unimaginable object. I asked how people decide what objects to drive through their cheeks. The answer was that they dream it (the spirit telling them what to do). Apparently, the greater the pain, the more blessing for the individual and the community because this wards off evil spirits (many of the mediums are supposedly fierce warriors that battle evil).

There was blood, sometimes lots of it. Some were cutting their tongue on swords or hit their back with sharp objects. There were moments when I thought it went a bit too far (I remember one moment when I was wondering whether the weight of the object inserted into a person's cheek would rip off the skin completely from his face - well, it did not and I was glad about that. I spare you the photos...). The mediums parade through town in a procession that lasts several hours (covering up to 20 km in distance). They walk barefoot over hot asphalt in the tropical heat.

Onlookers invite them to bless them, their family and their house. In order to increase the torment, firecrackers are thrown on these mediums, with the belief that the more noise being made, the more fortune for the family. Despite all the goriness of the piercings, the throwing of the firecrackers leading to war-like scenes left probably the most impressions on me. I felt transported into a war zone between aliens from a different planet.

The smoke from the firecrackers made breathing difficult. Visibility was reduced to a few meters, only the light of the firecrackers able to break through the fog. The sound of the firecrackers echoing back and forth between the buildings in the narrow streets. Transported into an apocalyptic war zone, the best protection of my face was to hold my camera and shoot back (photos against firecrackers). It was hard to imagine how people were able to endure this for hours. Trying to shoot photos, I got a few hits from firecrackers. The physical sensation of a firecracker exploding on your back, in front of your face or your bare feet (call me well-prepared for venturing out in sandals) is not to be underestimated.

Once back at the temple, the piercings were removed by priests and other participants in the ritual and the spirits were asked to leave (ie. exorcised) in a small ceremony in front of the shrines inside the temple. Soon after the procession, there would be more rituals... a non-stop chain of religious rituals and a kaleidoscope of passion, devotion, shared food, blood and ritualistic suffering.

The other extreme: Silence

In addition to these spectacular extreme rituals, there are other ceremonies that oscillate to the other extreme of tedium and stillness. One of the rituals called Propitiation of Seven Stars involves the warrior mediums in trance guarding a platform structure where more mediums assembled. The temple community is crowded around in silent prayer. One individual beats a drum monotonously for about half an hour. There is not movement and no sound except the tiny dingdingdingding of this drum for the whole period. Unfortunately, I could not really got more information on what is happening during this ritual beyond some general vague stories. But the contrast between extremes could not have been stronger.

Transitions: Between Ancient Traditions and Modernity

Transitions and change were notable. For one, tablets, cell phones and cameras were everywhere to document the extremities. Often it appeared that friends and family of the medium were documenting every single step of the medium, as if to document the suffering to document for posterity. What are these people doing with these documents? Many of the mediums would stop and pose for photos - what is the purpose of this exhibitionism? 

There is a line of research that argues that costly rituals bring communities together and increase the status of individuals who engage in the most extreme forms (see for example work by my colleagues Joseph Bulbulia and Markus Frean). Are these documents used later to increase the status and prestige of the individuals who engage in these activities? Is the posing for pictures a mechanism to increase one's self-esteem? Is the greater shock value of extreme acts translated into social capital within the community?

The extreme nature of some of these piercings was striking. I had seen some postings of such piercings before on the internet, but seeing it in person is different from seeing it from the comfortable safety of your computer. There seems to have been a shift towards more extremes. We did some work on Thaipusam last year in Mauritius (a major field site for studying rituals in the field, directed and organized by Dimitris Xygalatas). In conversations with Temple leaders, they commented that piercings and size of the kavadees that believers carry has increased over the years. An interview with a medium from Phuket posted on the internet came to similar observations. The choice of piercings is supposedly dictated by spirits during dreams.... To me it nearly seemed like a ratcheting of extreme actions (think of the 'keeping up with Joneses' effect). To what extent is the posting of extreme piercings, sensational violence, and all sorts of other evidence of self-inflicted harm on internet and global media leading to a 'spiritual arms race'? 

Yet, at the same time, other changes led to changes in the rituals. Blade-walking and bladed ladder climbing used to be a significant part of the ritual. Yet, these practices in the times of HIV are dangerous and can infect a large number of participants. For this reason, a number of temples have abandoned this practice. 

Some changes were also quite cute. It was fun to see how kids and youngsters went through some of the more boring parts of the ritual by secretly using their cellphones and tablets for entertainment. Some of these folks had devised ingenious techniques for entertaining themselves while pretending to be good believers. 

In many ways, these simple observations of human reactions during a period that felt so extreme punctuated the humanness of it all. The pained expressions of bystanders, the open eyes in awe and disbelief of some of the suffering that was displayed, the innocent attempts to ward off both shock and boredom revealed the human aspect. It is these small observations that brought it home to me that through the extremity it actually shows the universality of what it means to be human. There will be people who go to extremes for all sorts of reasons in all cultures. There will be pain and boredom in all places. And it is the reaction to these universal elements that reveals our shared humanity.  

I am glad I went. Many thanks to Janpaphat Kruekaew for introducing and opening this fascinating world for me. Quite often when I was too tired to continue, she tirelessly continued asking people and getting interviews and responses from participants. It was a humbling experience working with her. I am looking forward to going back and getting a better understanding of the minds of some of these people, those who go to extremes and those who just stand by and watch the procession unfold in front of them.

Tales from the field: The last day on the African coast

Time is definitely a rare commodity. I touched down in Capetown, South Africa on a Friday, the 13. Although it feels it was only yesterday, I have one more day and I am back on my way to Europe. It has been a wild and tumultuous two months, stopping in 4 countries and covering thousands of kilometres while having hammered away on my laptop in many random places. I plunged straight into the IACCP winter school business, met 37 bright and eager young minds and had a pretty full-on 4 days of workshop discussions, debates, laughter and a few hours out and about Stellenbosch with this new crew of cross-cultural researchers. The winter school experience was amazing, mind-blowing and exceptionally tiring, mainly the little organizational details that cropped up here and there and everywhere. But it was very cool and emotional to see the presentations of the groups at the end. Even those that had not gone as far as some other projects showed clear signs of research in progress and those intellectual struggles that good research is all about. Sometimes the process is more educational than the polished outcome. So it was a brilliant couple of days. One point though for next time: I am not sure I would have really needed the fridge – sorry, my super luxuriously prized room in the brilliantly spartanic student hostel, but hey, it was good to have a place to change your clothes…

After the winter school, there was one short day to breathe, which I spent with an excursion to the amazing cape peninsula. The weather was stunningly beautiful (as were the prices that we were charged, but only found out later for what kind of ride we were taken).  Then we went straight on with the IACCP conference. One lesson that I still not have learned is how to say ‘NO’. As a consequence of this minor learning deficiency of mine, I was giving non-stop talks most days or was in sessions to attend friends’, colleagues’ or students’ work, and still missed out on so many other interesting looking papers. I am a conference junky, I openly admit and plead happily guilty on this charge, I had a ball and intellectual feast to last me a while. But my sleep deprivation was also quite severe, so at the end of it I was a little nervous wreck. I apologise to everyone who may have thought I was a strange weirdo (well… ). All in all, the conference passed way too quickly and I wished I had more time to talk to friends and colleagues that I had not seen in a long time.

From there things got a bit more complicated. The whole itinerary of the trip was abruptly changed shortly after it started. My plan was to make it from South Africa to Kenya overland through Mozambique and Tanzania. Unfortunately, a few days into this adventure my right eye decided to develop a fairly painful inflammation. Finding an ophthalmologist in semi-rural Mozambique turned into an anthropological field study on the health care system in one of the poorest countries in the world. We finally found a doctor who had some adequate equipment. The original diagnose was scary enough for me to change my schedule and return to South Africa. When I got back there 4 days later, the local eye specialist could not find any evidence of the ulcer that was supposedly and permanently threatening my eye sight.  It was still to be treated with care, but nowhere as serious as it seemed originally. I was devastated. I do not like to lose, especially not against your own body. The medical retreat to Kenya via airplane and a necessary stopover in Dar El Salaam were psychologically painful.

Instead of exploring one of the last frontiers of Africa, I pretty immediately got my nose into the work we were supposed to be doing here in Kenya. Yet, things never quite work out as you had planned them. In addition to all the usual chaos in places like this, we also had some minor political upheavals (luckily I was always a bit far from the action) and the teacher strike right now made a big cross through our field work plans. Instead I was given some sessions on research on field staff and students and beyond that was stuck behind my laptop crunching tons of health related data that we had collected already. Once you get beyond the abstractness of numbers and start connecting the immaterial statistical facts to the images of poverty and inequality that surround you on a daily basis, it can become a pretty heart-breaking and depressing reality. The colourful cloths of women carrying huge loads on their head and little kids on their back, the exotic mud houses with their dark single inner room and picturesque little villages wane when you get closer.

Poverty is only beautiful from a distance.

I am not sure how much of this reality is really being noticed by the European and North American tourists in their flash resorts. At some stage, I could not stand anymore some of the comments and conversations I overheard from fellow Western travellers when I had breakfast at some of the hotels I was staying at (yes, I am damn lucky, this time I was mainly staying in pretty amazing and flash places – thanks to sugar mammi Amina ;). This disparity between what you see outside the bubble of western consumerism in the villages and the streets of the Kenyan coast and what you perceive when being at your tourist hotel, with limited excursions into the harsh reality through well-organized and expensive safaris was probably equally depressing.

So it was a lot of work, full on days and long nights, but with widely ranging schedules. Often I would start working around 8am and only finish at 10 or 11pm, sometimes it could also be 2am before the computer was switched off. Internet was mainly through USB modems and access could be described as patchy at best. I was amazed though how smooth the skype connection worked for the Postgrad Committee meeting. There would be breaks for lunch or dinner (well, first it was Ramadan, so food and lunch breaks were fairly random and hard to come by). Sometimes we would go to a fancy hotel (thanks Jackie), more often though in one of the few local eateries. It was really funny to see how quickly you adapt, a colleague from Zambia is just visiting and he was commenting on the things that I do not notice anymore, how dirty some of these places were, with lots of flies and mosquitos and a dark, crammed atmosphere. A funny incidence happened at lunch today, when a big mama sat down behind me and squeezed me into the table that I was sitting at. As this opulent woman also had a very animated eating and conversation style, my chair also bounced up and down with each wiggle of her impressive body. As I was firmly squeezed into the chair and pressed against the table, I moved in unison with my chair directed by that lady. The extraction process – this is me trying to get up and out – was equally funny. The waitress had to intervene and help the lady move so that I could get out.

A trip full of experiences, smells, colours, impressions and learnings. Some of the things I learned are pretty random, like that you should avoid crossing land borders after night fall, even if it is friendly territory. We again had to oil the wheels of informal markets dressed in neat uniforms – well, this is actually a bit of a lie, the main recipients of unaccounted amounts of cash were well-fed plain clothes officers in nice leather jackets with big plastic ID cards hanging around their neck. Or that most of the staple on the coast (cassava, pineapple, maize) were all introduced from South America by the Portuguese. Or that the East African coast had sophisticated civilizations and extensive trade connections all the way to India and China when Europeans had only a vague idea what was behind the horizon of the Mediterranean. African ivory was a prized possession in China and was carved into the most exquisite sculptures. Chinese porcelain needed African raw materials. In turn, the traders and town folk among the Swahili were sipping their spice tea from elegant Chinese tea cups.

Globalization was long here before we knew it…

I also learned a new appreciation for washing machines and street lights. The former because it would not force me to wash my clothes every second day or so by hand. I got some good instructions from one of the cleaning ladies and demonstrated them by publicly washing my underwear, to the amusement of the department. The latter because it is pitch black without the moon as a street light substitute. Try walking on a path when you are not a cat or forgot to bring your magic battery-powered torch. A few days ago I wandered straight into a half metre deep hole and nose dived into the sand. Just at that moment a guy had to pass and witness my blind struggles with the African soil. Speaking of moving on roads, I will definitely miss the traffic here and its fluid interpretation of a few basic road rules. I have the perception that people consensually agree to drive on the left (being obedient ex-colonial subjects). Speed limits are not a major worry because of the state of the roads – as a digression, I actually wonder whether speed bumps are the more regular inverse of  random pot holes. But this mathematical law may only apply to the rare occurrence of paved roads. -  However, beyond that it is a country of infinite freedom of driving. This is refreshing after our experiences in Mozambique where we had to contribute to African development (a.k.a police officers’ salaries) on an unpleasantly regular basis. But this state of ultimate freedom (and lack of well maintained roads) also meant for example that an excursion along the Kenyan coast that was supposed to last about 30min turned into a 4 hour odyssey, with the car stuck in sand, random smooth talking politicians hitching rides and us ditching the car in the end because it got stuck on some hug slab of coral stone in the middle of the well-worn sand track.

I should be packing now, but instead are procrastinating writing down these random observations as I am trying to squeeze too much stuff into my little back. Looking back to two eventful and busy months, I wish I had slept less, gone out more and met more people. But then hey… can somebody genetically engineer my body to not feel tired? We got lots of projects done, but still there is so much more to do.

I will miss the amazing tropical fruit, the heat, the sun and the fresh breeze off the Indian Ocean. I will miss the sleepy hectic, the tranquil everyday chaos of cars, motorbikes and people, smells, noises and shy gazes towards that strange muzungu. But I also look forward to seeing familiar friends and family. Next stop is Germany, will be nice to see my folks and friends I have not seen in ages. Will be good to have a clean table, clean cloths, home-cooked food and a clean house with no power cuts and no dust and sand covering your body in the evening.

I think I need a proper holiday… But work is not stopping, I need to finish our book with Peter, Viv and Michael and need to write that chapter for the Advances series. Also look forward to the talks and workshop in Bremen and seeing Diana and Katja and their new academic environment.

May the adventure continue….