Exchange with the Spirits : Customary Law, Modern Law and Social Agency in a South Indian Bhuta Shrine

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  • 神霊との交換 : 南インドのブータ祭祀における慣習的制度、近代法、社会的エイジェンシー
  • シンレイ ト ノ コウカン ミナミインド ノ ブータサイシ ニ オケル カンシュウテキ セイド キンダイホウ シャカイテキ エイジェンシー

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Abstract

<p>The aim of this article is to investigate the relationship between customary law and modern law in Bhuta rituals in South India, focusing on litigations over shrine management as well as on the mutual communication between the divine spirits and the devotees in the ritual practices. Bhutas are divine spirits widely worshiped in the coastal areas of Karnataka, and the worship of them constitutes part of one of the ancient indigenous rituals in the region. Since the 1970s, foreign and indigenous folklorists and anthropologists have begun to study the ritual in detail. Most of those studies have mainly aimed at recording oral epics and analyzing ritual performances synchronically. Relatively few students of the ritual, however, have inquired deeply into its transformation in the wider social and political contexts. Contrary to the synchronic trend of the studies on Bhuta rituals, anthropologists studying Hindu temples in South India have focused on the institutional changes in the temples caused by bureaucratic centralization under colonial rule. From the early 19c, Bhuta shrines have also been transformed in various ways, and the development of the administrative bureaucracy and judiciary has caused conflicts and disputes among the devotees. However, when we shift our gaze to the mutual communication between the divine spirits and the worshippers involved in the ritual practices, we should realize that we cannot presuppose a transition of the Bhuta rituals from the realm of customary law and traditional institutions to the realm of modern law and state administration. On the one hand, the devotees, patrons and priests at Bhuta shrines participate in the realm of the modern judiciary and administration through their litigations over the management and trusteeship of the shrine. On the other hand, they frequently turn back to the realm of the traditional ritual practices governed by the sovereign agency of the divine spirits, an agency that emerges through possession and oracles. Through the mutual communication of such actors as the patrons, priests, other devotees and Bhutas in the ritual, their interrelationships-regulated by modern law-are converted into those arranged by customary law, or kattu, which is authorized by the Bhutas' divine agency. Based on the above theoretical perspective, this article deals with the Bhuta ritual in the village of Perar in Mangalore Taluk, Karnataka. The village has a Bhuta shrine (daivastaana) in which three Bhutas (namely, Barandi, Arasu and Pilichamundi) and a highly-placed Bhuta called Brahma, are enshrined. Chapter 2 considers the traditional institution ruled by customary law (kattu) in the Bhuta shrine in Perar. The shrine is administered by the guttu, that is, the manor houses of the village. There are 16 guttu in Perar, 12 of which belong to those of the Okkelaklu caste. Priests called mukkaldi from the Okkelaklu caste are in charge of the rituals at the shrine, and they also work as mediums for the Bhutas. On the occasion of a yearly festival (neema) organized by the guttu, impersonators belonging to the Pambada caste are possessed by the Bhutas, and they dance and sing oral epics while wearing magnificent make-up and costumes. Focusing on the Bhuta festival in Perar, Chapter 3 deals with the relations among the main actors involved in the event: the heads of the guttu, priests, Pambada impersonators, and the Bhutas. Through their mutual communication, exchanges, and enchantments in the ritual process, each actor becomes a social agent with power over and responsibility (adikaara) for the other actors, while at the same time receiving power from them. In that process, the sovereign agency of the Bhutas is approved by the actors. Chapter 4 investigates the interrelation between modern and customary law in the Bhuta shrine in Perar. First, I deal with a court case from the early 1930s dealing with the trusteeship of the shrine.</p><p>(View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)</p>

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