Continuity and change in Guyana

DEAREDITOR, Last Thursday evening I attendedapre-Phagwaevent ataMandir Sucheventsare very common but this one was special for several reasons.

The Mandir is dedicated to the worship in the Shakti tradition brought by Indian indentured labourers from the then Madras Presidency in South India. In that tradition the Divine is worshipped in the female form; more specifically as Mariamman (“Amman” means mother) a village deity that was later syncretizedwithotherdivine female forms like Kali and her incarnations. In Guyana the tradition is called “Kali Mai”worship.

Since only 6% of the 239,000 Indian immigrants originatedfromMadras,itis remarkablethatthetradition continued and even expanded; including from otherraces.InthisMandirat Cornelia Ida, from the iconographyaloneonecould alsoseemanyotherchanges signaled in the practices as the community adapted to the new circumstances in Guyana. Unlike the older “Kali Mai” Mandirs, the G o d d e s s i n h e r manifestations, along with her consorts, were not housedinseparatestructures butinonebuildingasdothe widerSanaataniHindus.The worship also incorporated many of the “Sanaatani practices” that itself had incorporated western elements such as discourses by the Pujari (priest). The celebration of Phagwa itself is an adaptation since if the spring festival were celebrated in South India it would be dedicated to Kaamadeva,thegodoflove.

The centerpiece of the pre-Phagwa program was theperformanceofaChautal group from Suriname Chautal is a folk musical genre associated with Phagwa. It originated from the Eastern Uttar Pradesh and Western Bihar part of North India, called the “Bhojpuri”belt, from where