The festival of Thaipusam in Singapore
Jul. 6th, 2009 04:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sienamysticIn 1988, our family was living in Singapore. I was attending the Singapore American school, and our class got the opportunity to go see (not really participate, although we did pay our respects at several temples) a festival called Thaipusam, which features a three mile parade of people carrying portable altars called kavidi, after being pierced with skewers through the cheeks, or into the torso, or, alternately, with hooks into the flesh. The rite honors Shiva's son Lord Muruga and, according to a family friend (whose son participated one year) is penitential in nature. The participants are in a trance state that keeps the pain at bay. In fact, far from showing pain, most of them dance and sing as they walk.
I recently found some of my photographs from our class visit. If you're concerned about seeing images of piercings, I don't think these are very graphic - they're from enough of a distance that you can see what's going on but not exactly what's going on.
The festival was incredibly...well, festive. Small children ran around, most of them with newly shaven heads. The head-shaving was done inside various temples, a few passes with the razor and voila, no more hair. Limes were everywhere, as part of the piercings, cut in half and stuck onto the ends of skewers, or just being held in baskets, and the smell of them was sharp and lovely. The atmosphere seemed to be a combination of focused and sociable. People walked with the family member that was undergoing the piercings but also stopped to chat with friends and shoo the children out from underfoot.
The kavadis ranged from very simple to very elaborate. Many of them featured peacock feathers in tiers, and as the man carrying it walked, they would flutter and bob in the wind.
The colors were amazing. My poor little camera couldn't capture a fraction of it.
Here is an article about the festival and the custom of piercing from Hindu-blog.com
For more images, here's the Flickr page for photos tagged with Thaipusam. Many of these photos are more graphic, but they're also much more beautiful than mine.
I recently found some of my photographs from our class visit. If you're concerned about seeing images of piercings, I don't think these are very graphic - they're from enough of a distance that you can see what's going on but not exactly what's going on.
The festival was incredibly...well, festive. Small children ran around, most of them with newly shaven heads. The head-shaving was done inside various temples, a few passes with the razor and voila, no more hair. Limes were everywhere, as part of the piercings, cut in half and stuck onto the ends of skewers, or just being held in baskets, and the smell of them was sharp and lovely. The atmosphere seemed to be a combination of focused and sociable. People walked with the family member that was undergoing the piercings but also stopped to chat with friends and shoo the children out from underfoot.
The kavadis ranged from very simple to very elaborate. Many of them featured peacock feathers in tiers, and as the man carrying it walked, they would flutter and bob in the wind.
The colors were amazing. My poor little camera couldn't capture a fraction of it.
Here is an article about the festival and the custom of piercing from Hindu-blog.com
For more images, here's the Flickr page for photos tagged with Thaipusam. Many of these photos are more graphic, but they're also much more beautiful than mine.
