Abstract
This chapter analyzes the practices of sending and receiving barrels, which are filled, for example, with clothing. These practices are joint actions of transnational families and religious communities. They (re)construct group identity as they require joint efforts and facilitate a means to ‘stay in touch.’ Particularly the sending of clothing (re)constructs closeness and intimacy, as clothes are often identified with the sender, recreate contact, and enable the continuity of tactile touch. As material objects and bodies are considered ‘dwelling structures’ for substances and energies, they have a special capacity to ‘take on’ former consumers. Body fluids highlight the interrelationship of clothing and bodies, on the basis of which worn or ‘touched’ clothing become a person’s material likeness, recreating the migrant’s presence and absence at home.
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Notes
- 1.
When I was young, and I was like 16 years and so, I did not have clothes! We were very poor! Very, very poor! And, when I got married and I left, I lived in a rented house, one neighbor gave me one jacket. That was the very first one. And I wore that jacket for what a long time?
- 2.
A long time ago people did not share so many clothes. They didn’t have!
- 3.
So, do you know how people are getting the clothes they share? Because of America! Yeah, when one barrel comes now, you grade your clothes. You are taking out what you do not want any more and you share it! Yeah! A long time ago people were poor! What they had, they tried to keep for themselves!
- 4.
The standard cardboard barrel has a volume of 14 cubic feet (396.43 liters or 104.72 US gallons). Mostly there are no weight restrictions for barrels (‘flat-rate barrels’), except for special offers.
- 5.
All the things that they are using are brought by this boy’s bauji [sister-in-law]. The camphor, the sambrany, a lot of things, man! [When] She comes, she does not come on her own. All of them, they have a suitcase, with items only for Mother. And they do not give it to one place only, they give it to Cumberland [mandir] too. They give it to Barrington [Kali Temple] too. A well-packed, big suitcase!
- 6.
Other shipping rates include door-to-door delivery, but these rates are usually considered too costly—the fare is almost doubled.
- 7.
For example, in a letter to the editor in Stabroek News a barrel-receiver complains about being taken advantage of by small shipping companies when picking up barrels and boxes: ‘Before you see your box/barrel, some of the porters would make an impressive show looking for it and would take a long time unless you offer a “top-up” ($1000); if there’s more than one they claim that it must have “automatically” separated and that takes longer and the “top-up” increases’ (Bates, Sahadeo. 2012. ‘Advantage is Being Taken of Those Who Receive Barrels.’ Stabroek News, January 27, np).
- 8.
I cannot handle/I don’t appreciate this barrel stuff! I cannot handle that thing! To go and clear the barrel! When you reach there, sometimes they have broken/unsealed your barrel! And they’ve stolen a whole lot of stuff!
- 9.
No, because you got to go shop, you got to go shop and then it’s you alone, then you got to go shop, it is a lot of things! And then, … you have to work, when you come home, you’re tired, then you got to shop every day, got to shop little by little, little by little. But if you find like ... have somebody to help me, … and, two people go and you shop, that means you can full up your barrel.
- 10.
One of the most popular shipping companies among Guyanese writes online that the busy times for barrel-sending are around Easter, Carnival, Independence, ‘Back to School,’ and ‘the busiest season of all, Christmas’ (http://www.laparkan.com; last access: March 25, 2014).
- 11.
It always takes a long [time to send a barrel]. … ... since I live here [in the basement apartment] I never sent a barrel home. But then as I was staying with my sister, because she has the garage, and I was buying and was just dropping the bags in the garage, just put it put it put it. And she said, ‘You know what, it looks like your barrel is going to full up now, stop shop.’ [laughs] Or stop collecting, you know, you collect you collect. And then one day, one nice bright, sunny day, then we would open up and then she would pack. She would pack it up.
- 12.
… their spirit is not good. They won’t bless you to have back another piece. You understand? They would keep you down! You won’t have a piece more! Then you are going to trace it to yourself. You will say, ‘Oh my god! I gave this person my clothes! And I can’t get back a piece of clothes as yet?’ They are not blessed! So you gotta know who you give your clothes to.
- 13.
Sinah: I sometimes hear, people say that if you cut your nails, you cut your hair, like if you take it somewhere, people can do something with it.
Seeram: Yeah!
Sinah: People say that, right?
Seeram: Yeah, yeah, yeah! The truth, the truth! Because similar to how we are here now, somebody may come and sit down and you are chatting for some time. ‘Sinah, your hair is nice, man! Your hair is nice!’ And then he pulls your hair and so on. Takes out two strains of hair, and go and do.
Sinah: What are they going…
Seeram: They are going to go to do things with it.
Sinah: Like?
Seeram: Like they harm you! But the people who do those types of things there, they are born back as toads and ants.
Sinah: Uh-huh. So, but do you know about that?
Seeram: No! I don’t know about that! As I told you, I do not indulge myself in wrong things.
Sinah: But people do that?
Seeram: Well, when I used to work at the Berbice River, well, I was a young man at that time, young and strong! I worked like a big man. And, any climb and work in the height and thing, they, “Man, you go up there, man!” And I used to go and do it …. So we used to see that the men were washing out their cutlasses and the ox-handles and things, and were putting them [down]. But I was [usually just] throwing mine and just like that left it. When we came back, they had washed out the cutlass …. So I said, ‘What was that for, man?’ The man said, ‘You make it in this life [You make it, despite the circumstances and hardships which confront you].’ The man had taken the handle of the cutlass and brushed it, and took off the perspiration, because wasn’t it my sweat? ‘And they are going to do bad things with it, bhai!’ He said.—‘You lie.’ [finding it unbelievable] … So people are sooo much, god gave man so much of knowledge in this world, that men take this knowledge which god has given them to do wrong things! But they don’t worry/think about it, they know it! That from death is birth, right? From death is birth, from birth is death. And they know it! And still they do this type of nonsense! Right.
- 14.
For the purpose of analysis I define the act of dressing as a phase in which contact between entities is created, for example, as in putting clothes on the body, and the act of wearing as a processual state, in the sense of having or leaving clothes on the body.
- 15.
Agency is a concept that developed to highlight the ability of an individual to act his/her will (in society). It is opposed in a conceptual dichotomy to ‘structure,’ which refers to the influences of society on an individual (Giddens and Sutton 2014). According to Gell, agency is ‘attributable’ not only to persons but also to things ‘which are seen as initiating causal sequences of a particular type, that is, events caused by acts of mind or will or intention, rather than the mere concatenation of physical events. An agent is one who “causes events to happen” in their vicinity. (...) An agent is the source, the origin, of causal events, independently of the state of the physical universe’ (1998, 16). The effect an agent causes through actions may be social or material.
- 16.
Latour illustrates this with the example of a gun(man) in charge of killing a person. He demonstrates that it is neither only the gun nor simply the person that has conducted the act of shooting. It has rather been a combination of both—the gun and the man, the man-with-gun or the gun-with-man (Latour 1999).
- 17.
This raises the following questions; is a murti affected by this process of being looked at? Does a deity consume and touch devotees? My informants frequently state that a deity does not need anything and thus is not dependent on consumption. Usually they state that the deity is pleased when it conceives of morally correct and devotional behavior expressed through, for example, offering. This is then reciprocated in blessings. For instance, Pandit Rudra describes: ‘So charhaway means we make an offering to god, base upon our wealth or resources or money, and also we make offerings to please god that he does not need these things, but when we offered them, it becomes sanctified’ (emphasis added). The deity is touched, as it is affected by being pleased.
- 18.
In this context I have to reflect my status as ‘author’ with regard to my access to the field and my ascribed role in society. My Guyanese friends often summed up my research when introducing me to new acquaintances with the words: ‘She is writing a book on Hinduism.’ Although this seemed like an oversimplification to me at first, in the course of my fieldwork I learned about the important meaning of writing books on religion and the status a person acquires due to these books’ authority. Accordingly, I reflect that my informants’ motivation to partake in my study may have been influenced by this perception of creating such authority.
- 19.
Well, individually all of us, this here is the body, this is the physical body. And this spiritual body, which nobody sees, is the life. Which men cannot discover yet. What is life? So when, we believe in reincarnation. The Hindus believe in reincarnation. If I die today, tomorrow or the next day or whenever, you call this [points at his body] waste, the material is waste. It doesn’t have life any more. Just like this [points at the table]. This is from a tree. But he doesn’t have life any more. So when he is old now, you burn it. Or you throw it away.
- 20.
Because, what happened, this spiritual one now comes off of you, that is the life, and goes into some-body else. Somebody else! Then, when this comes off, it goes to somebody who takes birth. So it is born back. It might be born … the spiritual life, the life, which is the spiritual one, it can be born to a dog. It can be born to a cow. It can be born as a mosquito. It can be born as a snake. A toad. That is the life. But we believe in this thing that while you are living in this material as a human being, you have to do good things! Like serve humanity, pray to god, do a lot of good things that you or me, the individual, when this soul has left this body, and goes back, and comes back as a good fruit, a good fruit means that you come back as a human being again.
- 21.
The term ‘to dwell’ is often used in translations of the Sanskrit Bhagavadgita when it refers to souls and bodies. For example, verse 30 of chapter 2 is often translated as follows: ‘Arjuna, this soul dwelling in the bodies of all can never be slain; therefore, you should not mourn for anyone’ (The Bhagavadgītā or the Song Divine 2007, 19).
- 22.
Seeram: … That’s why, when you manifest there now, this soul… it is just like when you have gone to sleep, you know—when you sleep your soul is gone. Gone all about. Like when you’re dreaming. It comes back, and comes back into the body. You dream, say, ‘Hey, man, I dreamt I was in New York!’ I was in Germany, I was in South Africa! It goes all over, but it comes back. When you gotta wake up, it comes back. God’s creation. The almighty god, he makes those things. Now, with the manifestation, this soul has come out, the Mother has taken the soul out and put it into her body. Take the soul and put it into her body. And her body, becomes the soul, to say what she has to say in this.
Sinah: That other body.
Seeram: Yes yes yes yes [quiet]. That’s why you see, when you are there, and you are standing up and… she takes time and she goes. Then you see that her eyes and thing start to turn. In the other direction. Turn. When she takes form, she takes the soul out of you, and puts the soul into her body. Remember, she is the creator of the universe! She has prepared all these things. And she takes out your soul and puts it in her body, and puts her soul into this body.
- 23.
So there are for example dutchmen. Muni Spiren takes care of them.
- 24.
Yes! There are things like those. I take your clothes, I do something bad. I am putting one bad spirit on you. Nasty spirit. Because in my case, my own body, spirits have come onto me. All kinds want to come onto me, but not Mother. That’s what they call bottomhouse! The bottomhouse! Not the church!
- 25.
Sinah: [repeats] Throw something onto your clothes.
Deomati: Yes, but you don’t know that! So aren’t you going to wear it?
Sinah: Oh, oh! You mean, they are not just going to take it and put something, and you are going to catch it, but they are going to throw something, and when you wear it…
Deomati: Yes! You don’t know about it! All of us put our clothes right here [on the line to dry]. Right? And now, you take yours, you take yours, but onto whose clothes he wants to put this thing [the spirit]—will the person not take it? And then I go, take it, and put it back on.
- 26.
I hypothesize that my informants perceive of ‘relative materiality,’ a term discussed by Daniel Miller to express ‘the degree to which some persons and things may be seen as more material than others’ (2005b, 16). In this context, deities, humans, animals, and objects are considered to be gross or subtle to varying degrees.
- 27.
This practice of tying and giving knots as ‘cloth talisman’ has also been mentioned by Bayly (1986, 289).
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Kloß, S.T. (2016). Staying in Touch, Dwelling in Clothes: Barrels, Gift-Giving, and Migration. In: Fabrics of Indianness. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56541-9_6
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