On a Shoestring to Coorg

by Dervla Murphy

  A few days ago we were invited to accompany Uncle Machiah to this morning’s Aruva session – it apparently included some sort of ‘brunch’ meal – and, as we drove towards Virajpet, I noticed an unprecedented awkwardness in his manner which momentarily baffled me; luckily I recollected our polluted state in time to back out before our unfortunate friend was forced explicitly to cancel the invitation.

  We had walked home and I was preparing lunch when one of Dr Chengappa’s sisters-in-law (a widow who lives some six miles away, towards Vontiangadi) appeared in the compound to collect her share of this year’s paddy. She shouted a greeting to us, and I went to a window and asked her upstairs for coffee or a drink. But she declined. ‘I can’t come into the house’, she explained, ‘I’ve just been to Ponappa’s.’

  It is impossible to estimate how seriously each individual takes the pollution taboos, so I made some coffee and took it out to the compound, hoping Mrs Chengappa would drink it there. But no: she would neither eat nor drink until she had performed her purifying ceremonies.

  At three o’clock I set off for the cremation with Rachel’s instructions ringing in my ears: ‘Tell me what it smells like!’ In fact I was destined not to discover this, as women have to leave before the pyre is lit – a custom originating in the tendency of women mourners to become so unbalanced by grief (or fear of widowhood) that they impulsively throw themselves on the fire, even if they have not planned to become satis. However, this rule is not always enforced strictly enough to protect widows from self-immolation. In Rajasthan, during the past six months, at least four women have voluntarily joined their husband’s corpse on the pyre and been burned to death. Moreover, in one case there were some 70,000 witnesses, none of whom felt it necessary to intervene.

  Mrs Ponappa’s cremation was to take place not far from the Muslim settlement on the way to the Machiahs, under one of those extraordinary ‘double trees’ often seen in Coorg. It is an ancient local custom to plant two sacred trees together, encourage them to entwine as saplings and then ‘marry’ them, with much pomp and lavish entertainment, to symbolise the union of Eshwara and his consort Parvathi. This particular Devangeri couple must have been married centuries ago, for each partner has attained a prodigious height and girth and the red and green canopy of their mingled leaves shades an enormous area, including the spot chosen for the cremation.

  When I arrived there were only two young village men under the trees, tending the bonfire from which the pyre would be lit, but the usually so silent forest afternoon was throbbing with the slow beat of distant drums, accompanied by the melancholy wailing of Coorg horns, and when I peered through a tangle of scrub I could see, far away, the little funeral procession advancing across the pale gold stubble of a paddy-valley. No more beautiful setting for a poignant ceremony would it be possible to find, with royal blue mountains visible between the slender silver-grey trunks of areca palms, and the high poinsettia hedges around the Muslim settlement forming cascades of colour, and the dense burgundy-red leaves of the incense trees glistening above the countless shades of green in the undergrowth, and the purple-red earth, and the leafless, angular cotton trees bearing their blood-red blossoms like chalices against a cobalt sky.

  Many Coorg customs have been abandoned during the past fifty years, or made obsolete by Progress, yet most of those connected with the anthropologists’ ‘rites of passage’ are being maintained. Last night, just as I was falling asleep, I heard two distant gun shots and wondered if Uncle Machiah was still trying to pot that mongoose. But I have since learned that this was the announcement to the village of a bereavement; if those shots had been fired during the day, even at the height of the ploughing or reaping seasons, every Coorg would at once have stopped work and hastened to the house of mourning to offer not only sympathy but practical help. Also their servants would have been sent running to the other homesteads of the nad that were out of earshot, to spread the news and rally support. All the food needed in Ponappa’s house for the next eleven days will be provided and cooked by neighbouring women, all his farm work will be done by neighbouring men and all the valuable firewood for the pyre was presented to him today – a little from each village family – as an expression of sympathy and solidarity. On this point, however, discretion must be the better part of generosity; every branch specially cut for a cremation has to be used because, it is believed, the Gods would regard any surplus as an invitation to take another life from the family of the deceased.

  By four o’clock quite a crowd had gathered in the shade of the double tree, including Uncle Machiah and Colonel Ayyappa, and at last the funeral band appeared through the thick scrub. It was followed by two men bearing a split bamboo stick designed to serve as a holder for half a coconut shell; this had been filled with oil to form a lamp which had to be kept alight throughout the ceremony. Next came the bier – that same wicker chaise-longue – carried by Ponappa and three other male relatives. The chief mourners included about a dozen women, clad in that unrelieved white which is the equivalent of our unrelieved black. One of them, who belonged to the family of the Ponappas’ Aruva, was carrying on a section of plantain leaf the Sameya, a mixture of coconut, puffed rice, rice with mutton or egg curry, rice seasoned with turmeric and vegetables fried in oil. This meal has to be provided by a deceased woman’s natal family, or by a deceased man’s mother’s family, and before the ashes are left alone to cool during the night the Sameya is placed beside them, to sustain the spirit on its journey.

  When the corpse had been borne three times around the framework for the pyre – a square construction of rough-hewn, leaf-decorated logs — it was laid on the ground near by, with the head pointing to the south, and Ponappa stripped himself to the waist. The white cotton robe in which he had been clad was now used as a canopy, under which he and his father’s brother’s wife led the chief mourners three times around the pyre, the elderly women scattering rice and small coins from a flat wicker basket. Next the widower and his daughter and elder son again thrice circled the pyre in single file, each wearing a finger ring of sacred Kusha grass. Ponappa was carrying on his head an earthen vessel of water from which he sprinkled the ground, his daughter was carrying a small brass pot with a spout, a kindi, which would have been carried by her husband had she been married, and the boy was holding a coconut on his head. After the first circuit their family Aruva stepped forward and with the sharp point of his heavy knife punctured Ponappa’s vessel so that the water trickled down his face as he continued to walk, symbolising that inexorable flow of time which is every moment bringing each of us closer to death. It might be thought that these elaborate rituals impose an unnecessary strain on a grief-stricken family, but the therapeutic effect of having to concentrate on so much activity and detail is considerable.

  Next Ponappa stood at the corpse’s head, his son at its feet and his daughter by its right side. Then Ponappa took the pot off his head and twice made as though to break it against the leg of the chair. The third time he did break it, and pushed the pieces under the chair, and then his son cracked the coconut and pushed the two halves under the chair, and his daughter emptied her kindi and pushed it under the chair. Meanwhile the dead woman lay looking quite beautiful and very young, with a small mirror on her folded hands, many fresh forest blossoms tossed on her shroud and an elderly aunt devotedly fanning to keep the flies off.

  Next Ponappa put a coin in a tiny bag and tied it to a corner of his wife’s sari, which was the signal for everybody present to pay their last respects to the deceased and leave a little money on a near-by plate to help with the funeral expenses. Most people moistened the dead woman’s lips with water before touching her breast in a last gesture of grief and farewell. Then the women mourners began to withdraw, as all jewellery, and every garment apart from a flimsy sari, were removed from the corpse. The clothes and the bloodied shroud were given to the Harijan bandsmen, who would not consider them polluting. Finally, a new white cotton sheet was spread over the body, covering even
the face, and was smeared by Ponappa with the juice of mango leaves.

  Thus far the ceremony had been conducted with great dignity, in a silence broken only by the traditional music. But when the face was covered, by which time the women had all withdrawn to a little distance, the unfortunate daughter suddenly broke down, burst into loud lamentations and shook off her restraining relatives to rush back to the corpse and pull down the sheet that she might look once more upon her mother.

  Immediately, as though some lever had been touched, all the women, and quite a number of the men, gave way to their emotion and the ensuing harrowing scene could not possibly be mistaken for a ritual ‘funeral display’. However, order was at last restored, the women withdrew again – out of sight, this time – and the macabre business of the day began. For some extraordinary reason custom requires the corpse to recline straight-legged up to this point, when it has to be made to sit cross-legged on the pyre. Almost twenty-four hours after death, this naturally presents a problem. Then the corpse is held in a sitting position while the pyre is built up around it until only the head is visible, at which point the chief male mourner has to come forward to add the final lengths of wood that obscure the head. The eldest son then carries a burning brand from the bonfire, which itself has been lit from the domestic hearth of the deceased, and inserts it into the space left between the bottom of the pyre and the ground. At this moment I, as a woman, had to withdraw, to avoid seriously offending local susceptibilities.

  For hours pale blue smoke was visible all over Devangeri, rising through the majestic branches of that double tree, and I knew that at least one representative of each village family was sitting by the pyre to make sure the body was completely burned before the night. Tomorrow, at dawn, the ashes will be removed for immersion in the sacred Cauvery river, and the site of the cremation will be lavishly watered and planted with paddy. If these seeds germinate, it is believed the departed spirit is happy and at peace.

  I have always been pro-burial (without a coffin) but this afternoon’s ceremony has almost converted me to cremation – if one could arrange to be cremated in a Coorg forest. Aesthetically, being consumed by flames is certainly preferable to being consumed by worms. Fire is so beautiful, and fierce, and final.

  15

  A Naming Ceremony and a Wedding

  7 February.

  Today we lunched with Aunty Machiah’s sister-in-law, whose elder daughter had her first baby three weeks ago in Dr Chengappa’s Virajpet maternity home. Like all Hindu brides, Coorg girls return to their parental home, however long the journey may be, for what is regarded as the ordeal of their first confinement – a custom based on the reasonable assumption that a baby will arrive before the bride has had time to settle into an unfamiliar household.

  In Coorg, however, the new mother is excessively pampered. She remains with her own family for the sixty days of birth-pollution, following delivery, and during that time is confined to one room with her baby and is not allowed out of bed. Carefully chosen strength-restoring foods are provided and she is given a vigorous daily oil massage and hot bath by specially trained servants – which Uncle assures me has the same effect as normal exercise. But I still feel that such paranoid cosseting must be dreadfully deleterious. We last visited this young mother in hospital, within hours of her confinement, and I thought she looked a lot healthier then than she does today. Yet she seemed perfectly content just to lie there being entertained by her mother, younger sister, servants and a stream of callers. Most of the household’s entertaining is now done in the new mother’s room, to alleviate her boredom, which means that the baby, throughout each of its waking moments, is being cuddled and fussed over and talked to. In this family the infant’s aunt – whose marriage Uncle was arranging today, following her graduation from Madras University with First-Class Honours in economics and political science – is the Spoiler-in-Chief. She also set about spoiling Rachel and when we were leaving presented her with a magnificent hand-embroidered dress and a silver necklace.

  10 February.

  I woke this morning feeling more than slightly peculiar, having lunched yesterday with a gentleman whose hospitality far outstrips his judgement. Our party began at 11 a.m., with beer, and continued through whisky and Arak to a long afternoon spent on the veranda absorbing small coffees and large (genuine) cognacs. At 5 p.m., when my host and I could no longer convince even ourselves that it was ‘just after lunch’, and when an hour remained to sun-downer time, the Murphys got up to go. I therefore deserved no sympathy this morning, nor was any available. Rachel took one look at me when I became perpendicular and asked shrewdly, ‘Are you hung-over?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I said crossly, groping for the Alka-Seltzer.

  ‘Then why do you look so ghastly and dopey?’ challenged Rachel – a combination of adjectives which so took my fancy that I was at once restored to cheerfulness. Daughters have their uses.

  My restoration needed to be pretty rapid this morning as we were invited to a Naming Ceremony at Byrambada, about six miles away, quite close to the scene of yesterday’s debauchery.

  About one hundred guests had already assembled when we arrived at nine-thirty – seventy or so women within the house, and twenty-five or thirty men on the outer veranda. Naming Ceremonies are not normally attended by many males, apart from close relatives, and only women participate in the Ganga Puja (water worshipping). Formerly children were named and cradled twelve days after birth, at the end of the first stage of the birth-pollution period, during which family members are debarred from taking part in village festivals or pujas. Now, however, it is more usual to combine the Naming Ceremony with the Ganga Puja, which takes place sixty days after a birth to mark the mother’s resumption of normal life. Having bathed, she dresses as a bride, and the enormous vessel in which her bath water has been heated for the past two months is removed from the wash-room and filled with cold water by a woman who intones ‘May your stomach be cool like this copper pot’.

  Our first duty, privilege and pleasure was to admire the cause of today’s excitement – a dainty baby girl who, since she had not yet been cradled, lay asleep on a double bed under a muslin net in a wicker basket. She cared nothing for the procession of proudly beaming female relatives, ranging in age from two to eighty-eight, who were passing through the room. Under the cradle I glimpsed the knife that had cut the umbilical cord, a formidable weapon on which all Coorg babies sleep until they have been named. Soon after our arrival the child had to be roused, but she retained her oriental calm even when Rachel helped to change her nappy with more zeal than skill. (The nappy was of course dry, since nicely brought-up Indian babies, however young, seem to perform only on their pots.)

  The brief naming and cradling ceremony – attended only by women – took place in the main room of the house. Her paternal grandmother held the infant over a vessel of burning incense while Aunty Machiah, acting on behalf of her dead maternal grandmother, tied black threads around her wrists and ankles. (Had she been a boy, a thread would also have been tied round the waist.) Then, before cradling her, Aunty and two other women three times placed a grinding stone in the cradle and lifted it out again while chanting, ‘Live long like a stone!’ – for the first time addressing the child by name. This little girl was simply named Cauvery, after Coorg’s most sacred river. But many Coorg names are more colourful: Belliappa (Silver Father), Ponappa (Gold Father), Maiddanna (Brother of the Village Green), Puvakka (Flower Sister), Muttakka (Pearl Sister), Chinnava (Gold Mother) – and so on in this rather ornate vein.

  Next the paternal grandmother called, ‘Cauvery, get up and eat rice mixed with milk!’ And, to Cauvery’s very evident distaste, a minute particle of curds, rice and honey was forcibly fed to her off the edge of a gold coin. She at once spat this mixture out with the well-known decisiveness of Coorg females, yet she did not disgrace her warrior ancestors by crying or even whimpering.

  When the men had joined us everybody formally saluted Cauvery and dropp
ed an envelope containing a few rupees into the cradle. Then, to drink her health, the women were given glasses of extremely potent home-made wine and every woman emptied her glass in one, as is the custom here. I noticed, too, that not all were averse to a refill, though in most regions a high-caste Hindu woman would as soon go out naked as drink alcohol.

  At noon, for the Ganga Puja, Chinnava – the baby’s mother – appeared in a shimmering, pale pink, gold-spangled sari, wearing glittering gold and silver ornaments. She beckoned me to follow her to the well, where Aunty again had a central role to play, she and the paternal grandmother handing Chinnava the ritual coconut, three betel leaves, three pieces of areca nut and some rice. First Chinnava offered prayers while breaking the coconut over the well and throwing it into the water, followed by the leaves and nuts. Then she drew a vessel of water and drank three gulps out of the palm of her hand before filling two small, antique silver pitchers. These she placed one above the other on her head, and meanwhile Aunty had filled two other pitchers which were carried by a couple of Chinnava’s nieces, aged six and ten. Very slowly, in an atmosphere of joyful solemnity, the little procession moved back to the house through a garden brilliant with saris and flowers – yellow, scarlet, deep blue, white, pale pink. When the water had been left in the kitchen Chinnava went to the central hall, where the sacred wall-lamp had been lit, and quietly offered prayers while sprinkling rice on the flame. Finally, she turned to take the blessings of the older women, bowing low before them and touching their feet three times while they gently laid their hands on her glossy raven hair. And an old lady beside me exclaimed – ‘What a wonderful girl! Did you know she is one of India’s best nuclear scientists?’ Of such shocks is life in modern Coorg compounded.