Ritual songs and folksongs of the Hindus of Surinam

Religion and Social Conditions

Although the religion of the songs generally conforms to the Hindu attitudes and doctrines - such as the recognition of a personal God, His incarnations, mukti, re-incarnation, worship through images as well as mysticism and yoga, transience of the world etc. - there are some songs which either bring the previously known points into greater focus or add a new detail.

As among the Surinam Hindus there are no distinctly separate Shivaite or Vishnuite cults, so there are no such distinctions in the songs either. Śiva, however, is offered worship together with Pārvatī (song No. 20), but usually she is the more important of the two, especially as women - apart from men's own Kālī-pūjā (vide p. 25) - naturally adhere to the cult of the mother goddess in their ceremonies. The men also sing of her as Ādi Bhavānī, the First Power of Śiva, and Mahāmāyā, with powers to give eyes to the blind man and a healthy body to the leper (song No. 62). She is throughout referred to as Bhavānī: the name Pārvatī occurs only as Gaurā Pārvatī, perhaps because she is the goddess of the girls, whom they worship (as Girijā also, see song No. 42) and who are referred to as gaurī, when they are given away in the wedding ceremony (vide Saṁskāra-dīpaka II: 125). In the maṭkor she is worshipped as the earth. In song No. 19 she has been linked with Rāma; ‘First I worship Rāma and then Earth (which is) Bhavānī’. Together with this, the name of the design drawn as ‘Sītājī kā cauk’ (vide p. 15) leads us to her identification with Sītā, which also means the furrow¹ In song No. 67 Sarasvatī, through the

1 For further details on the identity of Sītā and Kālī, see Bulke ('62: 98). On Sītā as the deity of agriculture ibid. 12 ff. On the identification of Rāma and Śiva ibid. 736 etc.

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motif of a red flag, seems to have been identified as an aspect of Pārvatī; she has a platform, cautrā (S. catvara), for her worship at Dhaulgiri, one of the highest Himalayan peaks. Perhaps the singer had in mind the nearby peak of Gaurī-Śaṅkara or Kailāsa, for Dhaulgiri itself has no traditional connection with Pārvatī. On the other hand, the kumharavā song No. 71 states that the forehead is Dhaulgiri in the human body. In that case it may be called the cautrā of Devī, the vital energy, in accordance with the yoga tradition, as well as the seat of Sarasvatī, wisdom.

The term Gaṅgājī kā cauk (vide p. 15) at the maṭkor also suggests the oneness of Gaṅgā with other aspects of the mother goddess, Sītā, Pārvatī, or mother earth. The song (No. 18) sung by women in procession towards the maṭkor spot confirms this view as it alludes to a journey towards Gaṅgā. An ojhā informant, asked about pacrās, stated that once in a dream he had received a pacrā from Durgā who wished to be worshipped as Gaṅgā. She gave him only one line of a song: karo mili ārati saba gaṅgā maiyā kī (Everyone, join together and perform āratī of mother Gaṅgā). Not only that all waters of Surinam, as of any other place,¹ are Gaṅgā in the general belief of the singers but they are representatives of the mother goddess. The singer of song No. 85 places her foot in the water and begs the mother goddess of the water, whom she calls Kālī, to let a crocodile grab her old husband; in return the singer would sacrifice to her a goat as a thanks-offering. In that song and in song No. 57 she is malevolent. There we see a worship through fear, and then from an object of terror she becomes a saviour, a giver of life, and in song No. 3 she is also perhaps a fertility goddess, giving a child. Vide also Kosambi's discussion ('62: 59) on Gaṅgā killing her seven sons, and then as the mother of Devavrata Bhīṣma see MB., Ādiparvan, Ch. 91 ff.

Song 81 mentions Kālī in another aspect: it is she who speaks from inside a drum, perhaps a nagāṛā, so that all thirty-six tunes, rāgas, arise out of it.² Perhaps that is also a reason for the worship of the ḍholak in the mą̄dar-pūjā.

1 The Indian immigrants in the island of Mauritius go for a pilgrimage to a local lake which they regard as a manifestation of Gaṅgā. Similar examples are found elsewhere among overseas Indian communities.

2 This idea has its parallel in the legend that the fourteen alphabetical Śivasūtras of Pāṇini were revealed by Śiva beating his little drum, ḍamaru, fourteen times: nṛttāvasāne naṭa-rāja-rājo nanāda ḍhakkāṁ nava-pañcavāram uddhartu-kāmaḥ sanakādi-siddhān etad-vimarśe śiva-sūtra-jālam. (Vide Bālamanoramā p. 4).
The sound of trumpets as an indication of the presence of the goddess is also mentioned by Whitehead ('21: 20) as well as the use of the skin of the sacrificial animal, offered to the goddess, for making a drum to be beaten at her worship (ibid. 75).

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There are also minor cults, apart from those already mentioned (vide Ḍīh, p. 25), such as that of Bhüiyą̄ or Bhūmiyā and Ṭhaiyą̄ (song Nos. 21, 80E) the godlings of village land and of a spot.¹ Deified persons like Lonā Camārin² are also invoked in a magic context (song No. 65).

Regarding the position of women and the general social, family, caste and kinship relations, the findings of Speckmann coincide with the situations described or to be inferred from our own songs except that the songs bring certain points into a greater focus, for example, premarital love in the traditional society,³ undersirable pregnancies (song No. 76), an incestuous interest (song No. 78), the reluctance of a woman to go to her husband's home in gaunā farewell because of other amorous attractions (Song No. 84), the attitudes towards a co-wife, saut, a woman's wish for the death of an old and incapable husband (song No. 85) and the theme of a woman's suicide (song No. 77) on which alone five songs have been recorded.

1 See also Crooke (1894: 44, 57, 65 etc.). Lewis ('58: 248, fig. 39) has a photograph of a Bhūmiyā shrine. Meyer ('37: II.170) relates it to Vedic kṣetrasya patiḥ.

2 Re. the cult of the Lonā Camārin, see Briggs ('20: 27, 179, 183, 185).

3 Recorded but not printed in this collection.