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Paper short abstract:

This paper analyzes the technologies of insistence and resistance in rituals to return dead relatives to the world in Tamil Hinduism. Resisting broader sweetening trends, in possession performances the dead frequently insist on fiercer offerings/practices like alcohol, crematory ash, and piercings.

Paper long abstract:

Grounded in long-term ethnographic fieldwork conducted in non-brahmin Hindu communities in Tamil Nadu, this paper analyzes the technologies of insistence and resistance that are operative in the elaborate invitation ceremonies to call departed relatives back into the world. In these ceremonies ritual musicians summon the dead and encourage them to speak through their living kin in what are often dramatic and tense exchanges. These two-day rites aim to convince the dead to take up permanent residence in the family’s home shrine as a protective household deity and are part of a repertoire of little-known ritual relationships that some families maintain with their deceased kin. Theorizing from a 2019 ceremony performed to bring a dead man named Ganapathy back into his family’s midst, this paper considers how the dead make their desires known through speech acts and possession performances, wherein they demand specific offerings and practices such as alcohol, crematory ash, and tongue-piercing. In the ritual to return Ganapathy to the world as a pūvāṭaikkāri—a term which literally means “a woman who wears flowers” but may refer to any deceased relative who is worshiped as a family god—we see a dead patriarch unwilling to settle for fruits, sweets, and vegetarian delicacies, insisting instead on offerings more suited to his appetites and preferences. These exchanges vividly highlight the technologies of insistence and persistence manifest in dialogues with the dead, wherein the dead habitually refuse sweeter or more sanitized substitutions. Although in some cases ritual participants and the musicians work hard to persuade the deceased to reconsider their demands, these negotiations are rarely successful. This paper argues, therefore, that the dead’s steadfast refusal to be satisfied by anything but fierce tongue-piercing practices, ash, and alcohol signals a deliberate resistance to the sweetening trends visible in many contemporary Tamil ritual contexts.