Abstract
Analyzing two women’s rituals in which verbal art on family and kinship is prominent, this article explores situations in which tales and songs in Assamese are staged by newly married and about-to-be-married young women. Active participation in stories and song sessions, under the guidance of older storytellers or singers, imparts practical knowledge to young women about the possible ways by which to retaliate against male domination and domestic tensions with one’s mother-in-law. The young women who participate are not merely engaged in the performance but are also encouraged to place themselves in the story. This performance study, based on the ecology of Assam and the annual calendar of festivals at the great temple of the goddess Kāmākhyā, combines the exploration of these narratives with the observation of rituals. It also seeks to question whether social language practices endow women with the power to affirm themselves and with the knowledge, through ritual performance, to deal with conflict. Finally, it shows how the use of an original ritual object—a small house—can be put into perspective with the concept of “house” as understood in particular by Lévi-Strauss.
Highlights
The goddess Kāmākhyā, whose name is love (Kāma), holds a special place among the worshippers of Tantric Hinduism
At Kāmākhyā, where more than 200 families associated with the temple service reside, the women who gather at nightfall for devotional singing have developed their own oral tradition in kamrupi, the dialect of Assamese spoken in Lower Assam
My main argument was that the verbal arts, translated here in performance, are used by women to resist or retaliate against male domination and negotiate domestic tensions
Summary
The goddess Kāmākhyā, whose name (ākhyā) is love (Kāma), holds a special place among the worshippers of Tantric Hinduism. The theatrical performance of the audience is the other significant common feature To understand how these two rituals engage the women themselves, I will discuss each of them by studying the stories that the women embody through their voices and actions. My work on these rituals, and on lived religion at Kāmākhyā more broadly, is grounded in field data—mainly from verbal arts recorded in the field since 2005 and translated by me with detailed attention to the live performances in which these verbal arts were expressed Throughout my translations, contextualizations, and interpretations, particular attention is paid to sound effects, both in terms of voice and rhyme modulation, to ensure that the translation retains the poetry and the flavor of the original language
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