Paper short abstract:

Can sacred or animated objects ever be considered garbage? Based on fieldwork in 2012/13, this paper focuses on the ritual disposal of the difficult to get rid of category of puppets and stuffed animals and explores how their disposal is conceptualized in terms of ambivalent, two-way attachments.

Paper long abstract:

Can sacred or animated objects ever be considered garbage? The strict division between the sacred and the profane that is held up in discourse often proves permeable in practice. Charms who function as "seeds of luck" (Komatsu 1998) are bought as commercial paraphernalia but then become "terminal commodities" (Kopytoff 1986) that cannot be circulated any further. In order to recreate cyclical rhythms of consumption and to avoid excessive accumulation, religious institutions are increasingly involved in finding ways of disposing such objects with proper decorum. Based on fieldwork in 2012/13, this paper focuses on the ritual disposal of the difficult to get rid of category of puppets and stuffed animals and explores how their disposal is conceptualized in terms of ambivalent, two-way attachments: the attachment of the owners to their possessions as well as the attachment the puppets form with their owners. While sentimental attachment to possessions is certainly important, the ownership of puppets and stuffed animals is often characterized by participants as a "duty of care", a care that would be neglected if the puppets were simply given away to an anonymous receiver. One possibility to deal with this conundrum is the sacrificial destruction by fire which is equivalent to the social death of the object. The other possibility is to undertake rituals during which the once personal, intimate relationship with an inalienable possession is severed so the object returns to its former status as commodity. Sacrificial disposal and re-commodification then are discussed as two ways of escaping the seeming one-way-street of "terminal" commodities.