@article{oai:minpaku.repo.nii.ac.jp:00004324,
 author = {田中, 雅一 and Tanaka, Masakazu},
 issue = {3},
 journal = {国立民族学博物館研究報告, Bulletin of the National Museum of Ethnology},
 month = {Jan},
 note = {The aim of this article is to understand a Hindu village
festival in terms of cosmological meanings and political
functions. In the "Introduction" anthropological works on Hindu
village festivals are reviewed first, and then a Kali goddess village
festival, held at a Hindu fishing village on the western coast of
Sri Lanka, is described and its rituals are interpreted. Finally
three themes are considered in order to understand the village
festival as a whole. These themes are, first, the construction of
spatial categories such as the sea, village and forest; second, the
cosmological opposition between Kali and evil spirits; and, last,
the political domination of the village net-owners.
The recent development of anthropological studies of
Hindu village festivals is characterized by a shift from a structuralfunctionalist
approach to symbolic analysis. In the former
approach social functions of the festival are emphasized and
"village solidarity" is considered to be realized through the
participation of the villagers in the festival, whereas in the latter
the cosmological dimension of the village festival is investigated
and more attention is paid to symbols such as sound, color,
images, and the like. It is said that the village festival provides
a rare occasion on which a village is renewed through the intrusion
of the sacred. However, both approaches tend to ignore the
multi-dimensional character of the festival, especially its political
functions, and explain it in terms of either group-solidarity or
symbolism. It is argued that with some modifications Turner's
concepts of "structure" and "anti-structure" are useful to the
understanding of the political functions.
The Kali goddess festival is held at her temple for ten days in
the month of avani (September-October). This is the time when
the goddess originally appeared in the village, which had been
suffering from an epidemic, and saved the villagers. As it was
Kali herself who had caused the epidemic, when she was properly
worshipped and given due respect, the fatal disease was controlled.
On the first day, a medium, who is possessed by Kali during
the festival, makes three ritual pots, one karakam and two kumpampots.
The karakam-pot is used for a village procession, while the
kumpam-pots are placed in the sanctum sanctorum of the Kali
temple. On the third, fifth and seventh day of the festival the
medium goes into a trance in the sanctum sanctorum, places the
karakam-pot on his head, and starts going around the village with
his followers. Along the way villagers throw water to cool the
medium's body. In exchange they receive margosa leaves and
hang them on the fence around their houses. Hanging margosa
leaves on the fence indicates that a household member is suffering
from small-pox, whose pustule is, it is believed, visual evidence of
possession by a small-pox goddess. Therefore, the karakam-pot
procession is interpreted as the intrusion of an epidemic. The
festival re-acts the original event in which Kali first appeared to
the villagers and saved them from the epidemic. Kali represented
as the karakam-pot is a goddess of epidemic. Accordingly
the village is described as "a community of suffering" (Turner).
On the tenth day a goat is sacrificed in front of the Kali
goddess temple. With this sacrifice Kali is propitiated and her
violent and feverish character is transformed into a calm and
benevolent one. Then the ritual pots made on the first day are
all thrown into the sea.
Finally, Kali's brass-image is heavily decorated and is taken
out 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 back
to the temple, puja (worship) is performed and pracada (sacralized
offerings) are distributed to festival patrons. They are village
net-owners and some wealthy men.
From a structural-functionalist point of view the village
festival enforces "village solidarity" by representing it as a community
of suffering at the beginning and as a community of
triumph over the epidemic at the end. During the festival the
village is clearly demarcated by a series of processions.
Symbolically, the village festival shows the transformation of
Kali from a violent, epidemic-causing goddess into a benevolent,
grace-conferring one. The villagers make every effort to cool
down the goddess and propitiate her. Accordingly the village
is renewed, as are the villagers.
From a political point of view the festival legitimizes and
constructs the politico-economic domination of a wealthy sector
of the fishing village, especially the net-owners. The villagers
are divided into two classes; net-owners and their employees.
All the fishermen contribute to the village festival as village
patrons, but it is only the net-owners (and wealthy persons) who
are allowed to make additional contributions and, in exchange
for these, they have exclusive rights in receiving prasada at the end
of 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 denied
at the end of the festival. They take over the collective effort
of the villagers to transform Kali, and seem to say that, without
their financial support, neither the village festival nor the
transformation of the goddess would ever be possible. Thus it
is through their contributions that the village is saved from the
epidemic.},
 pages = {445--516},
 title = {カーリー女神の変貌 : スリランカ・タミル漁村における村落祭祀の研究},
 volume = {13},
 year = {1989},
 yomi = {タナカ, マサカズ}
}