Abstract
Guyanese Hindus conceptualize both giving and wearing as modes of consumption and using, implying the notion of touch. This chapter proposes that in a Hindu context touch and pollution are related. Pollution is defined as a relational concept, indicative of hierarchy, which emphasizes human-divine relations. Consumption does not necessarily imply pollution, as, for example, items partially consumed by deities are shared as ‘prasadam,’ auspicious leftover, transforming these touched clothes into textile blessings. The giving away of touched clothing recreates relationships, but also reinstates hierarchy. Discussing wasteful and thrifty disposal, the chapter emphasizes the notion of thrift as an important aspect in the recreation of Guyanese Indian identity. In this context the handing on of clothing is perceived as the only means of thrifty disposal.
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Notes
- 1.
Okay, well, … if I have four pairs of shoes, and if you wear them, and … you don’t wanna wear them any more, you see a new [pair], you want to buy a next one. What are you going to do with it? So you just send it to them! Yeah. You send it to them. They also ask you for it!
- 2.
Sinah: How about the puja sarjam? Do you have to buy them anew every time? Or do you use them again?
Pt. Sandeep: Well, the point is that if you have bought it, and there are certain things that haven’t been used, they can be used back! Because, in stores, that is what they will do [too], if they’re selling it. So I would tell people, you can use it as long as it was never used before! You can.
Sinah: And ‘use’ means? In that way?
Pt. Sandeep: Well…
Sinah: Let’s imagine, you have a pack of sindoor.
Pt. Sandeep: Use would mean that you don’t put your finger inside, using it. But if you throw out some of it, then the portion that remains, the portion is regarded as not used.
- 3.
The plastic foil often indicates that the garment or puja sarjam has come from foreign, displaying and recreating the giver’s social and cultural capital. For example, Pandit Shree states that ‘now you have it in plastic, it come from abroad.’
- 4.
The Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage acknowledges that in Guyana and Trinidad the term ‘nation’ is used as a translation for caste, defining it as a ‘kind, class and race’ (Allsopp and Allsopp 2003, 400). It describes that ‘nation’ refers to the Hindi term jati (‘jaat’) but does not differentiate the concepts of varna and jati.
- 5.
It is sometimes discussed that only Brahmins receive gifts such as sidha that are offered during some pujas.
- 6.
In this context, the collection of donations at the end of every Sanatan service becomes relevant, during which children approach every devotee in the congregation with a small basket (into which the devotee puts monetary donations), a thari with a flame (which the devotee touches to then direct the energies at his or her head with cupped hands), and a brass container of sanctified milk (few drips are poured from a leaf into the hand of the devotee, who then drinks it directly from the hand).
- 7.
No, you leave it [the offering] there. You loosen it, carry it to the water, the running water, that leads to the ocean. Now the prashadam, in Ganga Puja you loosen that. … You put that in the sense that it goes to the seven seas. It will be seven shares of parsad. But the other ones, whatever you offer, you have to share it. That is the grace of god. So, after you do puja on it, and god blesses this prashadam, you eat it, you have the blessing. You know, it is to purify your body.
- 8.
In the Trinidadian context jutha refers to something that signifies egalitarian relations among people involved in ritual or exchange. People have a choice of sharing jutha, a practice through which they, for example, may ‘establish bonds’ (Khan 1994, 262).
- 9.
Cleaning rites also maintain the boundaries of the divine and the profane, and thus sustain social order (Douglas 2005[1966]).
- 10.
Certainly, there are other approaches; for example, barrels may also be analyzed in terms of conspicuous consumption.
- 11.
Once I sent home in one of the barrels, I think I sent about three times, no two times, three times, three times! Because you know why, you know the grass cutter? The thing you slash the grass with in Guyana? I bought one of these and loosened it up, in two well three pieces and put it in the barrel. I wrapped it up with towels, towel. And I put it in the barrel and I sent it to them. Because it is so expensive there, and I pay like a hundred and thirty dollars for it here, and that is like twenty-five thousand Guyana dollars and there it costs like, over fifty, sixty thousand dollars in Guyana. So I mailed the barrel and I put one for them. And until now, because when you see the yard in the front, they cut the grass with it.
- 12.
Owning private Internet facilities at home was a rare luxury in rural Berbice at the time of my fieldwork. Internet is usually accessed in Internet cafes, or, if they can be afforded, via smartphones.
- 13.
Basmattie: Sometimes you look you have your shoes, but you have so many pairs of shoes here, and you would send it, they will be glad for it, and in Guyana things get done so fast! The shoe that I have here for four years, and you would not see a scratch on it, and you send it back home, by the next [time you travel to Guyana]… you look, where is the shoe? It is done! [laughs and claps her hands]
Sinah: Really? What do they do with it? [laughs]
Basmattie: Because of the road! There are no, you know, you have seen, if you spent a little time in the country, cause the road is not good to walk, and then you don’t have like, sometimes you got to walk in the mud, and the rain. Those things, you know.
- 14.
‘No, you shouldn’t burn clothing! A lot of people burn their clothes. That’s not good. It’s not good to burn clothes.’
- 15.
‘It is not good to burn clothes, so I do not burn any of my clothes. When they are very old, I take them and throw them into a corner, where they will be/remain, and you cover them with dirt or something. You do not burn clothes.’
- 16.
Iconoclasm is the deliberate and often politically motivated act of destroying religious icons and images.
- 17.
Sinah: … I always wondered, when you have the jhandis, for example, and every time you do another jhandi, what do you do with the old flags?
Bhavani: You throw it into the river! All the old stuff! You throw it into the river.
Sinah: So every year you would put all that you have, you would put it and throw it?
Bhavani: Throw and you go.
Sinah: Even the bamboo?
Bhavani: Yes, you take it out with the bamboo. Once it is getting old, you carry it and you tell Mother.
Sinah: You throw even the bamboo, everything?
Bhavani: Yes. You tell Mother, these things are old. You are not taking her as a garbage [dump], but that you are putting it there for her to sail it away. If you have a photography, a godly picture, for example you have Mother Durga, and it is getting old, you put a flower on it, and you offer your prayer to Ganga Mai, and tell her that you are not throwing it away, you’re not done and you put it, but it’s old and you cannot keep it. You have a new one, you bought a new one, and you kindly ask her to take it away.
Sinah: You do that with all blessed things...?
Bhavani: Flower... Uh-huh! Like when the things get old!
Sinah: Like pictures...
Bhavani: Take it to the river. You take it to the river. You don’t throw it away and rubbish it! Burn it, it curses you! That’s not good! It is not good!
- 18.
Because if you throw it [clothes] to the side of the street, somebody is going to pick it up and burn it. But if you throw it into the water, it dissolves on the earth. Left on the earth and rottens. And deteriorates and gone. Or, you can dig a hole and bury it. But it is preferable as I tell you, that all the goddesses from the Mahabharat war, they go back into the ocean. Ram goes back, Krishna goes back, Sita goes back, Durga goes back, Kali goes back—everybody goes back into the ocean!
- 19.
Dolnick, Sam. 2011. ‘Hindus Find a Ganges in Queens, to Park Rangers’ Dismay.’ New York Times, April 21, np.
- 20.
The article further states the dismay of Hindus who have to take back their offering: ‘Normally, Ms. Prasad would leave the pastries in the water for Mother Ganga. But because of the fines and the park rules, she packed them back into a plastic bag to take home. “In your heart, you feel like your offering is not accepted,” she said. “But we have to obey the rules.” ’
- 21.
Bisram, Vishnu. 2011. ‘Hindu Leaders in New York Must Come Together and Lobby for Space to Conduct Shore Rituals.’ Stabroek News, April 24, np.
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Kloß, S.T. (2016). Touched Clothes and Thrifty Barrels. In: Fabrics of Indianness. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56541-9_7
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