Christian Ghasarian

Professeur d’ethnologie, Institue d’ethnologie,
Université de Neuchâtel, Suisse

“Interpreting a Hindu Rite:
A Critique of a Psychoanalytic Reading.”

In revue Berkeley Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 7, 1996, pp. 79-86.

Since its birth, psychoanalytic readings of beliefs and practices have somehow been taken for granted as a rationale for anthropological studies. Yet, at a time when anthropology is increasingly cautious with "master narratives," the biases of psychoanalytic tools arc more apparent than ever, especially when applied to non-western societies. To illustrate the problems of using an external paradigm to explain specific social and cultural practices, I present a critique of an article utilizing a psychoanalytic model to interpret a Hindu rite on the French island of La Reunion in the Indian Ocean.

My project in this case study is not to discredit the entire field of psychoanalysis nor to question the intelligence of the author involved, but rather to compare psychoanalytic and anthropological productions of knowledge. I would like to use anthropology's analytical disposition to examine the limitations of the psychoanalytic approach when it uses a Western frame of reference in non-Western contexts. The disclosure of the bias in the psychoanalyst's "authorized position" should strengthen anthropologists' attempts to be mindful of their own constructions. It should encourage them to question their methods and goals when interpreting social and cultural phenomena.

Anthropologists’ critiques of the problematic psycho-cultural analysis, produced by studies such as Freud's notorious Totem and Taboo, are not new. For the past few decades, ethnoscience has attempted to describe the "insider's view." The consideration of the textual production's prejudices, ethnomethodology, and other critical approaches, have also expressed anthropologists' concern to evoke what people experience as much as possible, as well as their doubts as to whether the project is fully realizable. Although they [80] pretend to offer an objective perspective, psychoanalytic explanations exhibit a very localized world-view, since individual and cultural practices are apprehended in reference to the cultural and authoritarian discourse of the "narrator" As the supposed "truth" lies in the unconscious and the invisible, the people who are studied are presented as not understanding the basis of their behavior. Consequently, there is no way to prove or contradict the analyst's interpretation. [1]

The text I examine here, entitled "Symbolic Function of the Cult of the Goddess Pétyaye in the Mentality of Hindu Women in La Reunion," was presented at an international conference and published a few years ago in an eclectic book concerning the multicultural society of La Reunion. [2] The author, Yolanda Govindama, is a psychoanalyst who presents her study as part of a larger project on children of Tamil descent in La Reunion. After a brief description of the deity and her attributes, Govindama undertakes a psychoanalytic interpretation of the relationship between women of Indian origin on the Island and the Goddess. Quoting Freud, Groddeck, Melanie Klein and other "authorities" in her field, she frames and categorizes the people whose behavior she seeks to understand in a highly constructed world. Although they also construct their own meanings in their own productions, anthropologists, in my opinion, can hardly agree with this world constructed by Govindama.

In the following section, I present the general context of the ritual and analyze its psychoanalytic interpretation. Instead of giving a detailed ethnographic description of the ritual, I will point out what this psychoanalytic construction silences or does not establish (for lack of ethnographic data or for lack of space), stressing that this missing material is actually highly relevant for anthropology.

People of Tamil origin have been living in the French Department of La Reunion since the second half of the nineteenth century when indentured immigrants replaced African slaves to work in the sugar cane plantations. South Indians brought numerous popular and regional Hindu beliefs and practices to the island. Although for many years their ancestral ways were not officially approved by the society at large, these traditions have nonetheless been maintained, primarily in the private familial space. These spaces permitted people to establish a stable representation of the world in a new and particularly Insecure social and cultural context. Among the Hindu beliefs and practices that have been preserved and transmitted from one generation to the next in La Reunion is the worship of the Goddess Pétyaye.

Goddess Pétyaye is worshipped once a year by Hindu women for procreation and progeny. She is perceived as having the power to help sterile women and women who have had still born babies, as well as to protect children from illnesses. The mythology of Pétyaye is not well known by devotees in La Reunion, especially not by women who are the prime worshippers. [3] Yet the absence of a clear idea of the mythology does not prevent women of Tamil descent from having strong feelings about the importance of the Goddess. They continue to make vows to the Goddess since the continuity, prosperity, and legacy of the family are dependent on these women. [4] In La Réunion, the Goddess has no particular representation or image, but is associated with the color black. An altar with specific symbols, such as a black cloth, is hung up for the ritual. The name of the Goddess, Pétyaye, is almost never mentioned by devotees who refer to both the deity and the ritual by its main offering : a black hen (poule noire in Creole). [5]

[81]

After a brief presentation of the Goddess’ attributes, Govindama presents an argument founded on Petyaye's ambivalence. The deity can only be protective if she is worshipped. If she is not venerated, she can become deadly. Dwelling on the "manifest cleavage between the good and the bad in Indian mentality,” [6] she portrays the Goddess as being more feared for her perniciousness than worshipped for her beneficence. Govindama points out women's avoidance of pronouncing the Goddess’ name and their compulsion to celebrate the ritual every year. Without providing any more detail about the "bad" side of the deity, Govindama depends on her structural foundation by referring to what she calls the “sacred and demonic aspects" of the Goddess who is presented as having power over the birth and death of children. Throughout her analysis, Govindama refers to the Goddess’ "anger" and the "fear" she creates among the women who invoke her. With the deity's ambivalence (cursorily) "established," the author presents her complementary point, according to which this ambivalence engenders equally "ambivalent feelings among women confronted with maternity." [7] Govindama then offers the two following hypotheses :

a) The ritual "allows the future mother to reconcile herself with her own mother inside," and permits her "to canalize her hostile feelings as a little girl by projecting them toward the Goddess." She thus "identifies herself with the image of a good mother and, in the presence of her own mother, accedes at the same time to the status of woman and mother." b) The ritual "allows the future mother to canalize the ambivalent maternal feelings engendered by maternity and delivery." [8]

To corroborate the first hypothesis (the ritual "allows the future mother to reconcile herself with her own mother inside"), the author asserts that "maternity reactivates the oedipal problematic inside the future mother". [9] Quoting Melanie Klein, Groddeck and Bydlowski, she describes maternity as a "homosexual experience that creates a rapprochement between the future mother an her own mother," [10] that reconciliation and identification being for the future mother the "necessary condition to be able to procreate." [11] The assumption here is that giving birth is for the mother to "acknowledge her own mother inside." [12] The author then affirms that the ambivalent feelings engendered by maternity are expressed and managed by "Indian culture" through the worship of Pétyaye. She presents the ritual, the "cult" in her own terms, as a "trial" allowing the Indian woman to identify "with her own mother, and thus to renounce her 'oedipal vow' through the projection of her hostile feelings toward the Goddess." [13] Hence, "through a mechanism of projection and introjection, the future mother expels her hostile feelings as a little girl, the 'bad mother in her,' onto the deity who incarnates the bad, the archaic mother, and does so in the presence of the mother who is in turn deified as the good mother." [14] This demonstration allows Govindama to claim that, although different cultures manifest and resolve the oedipal complex in specific ways, the phenomenon is universal.

Regarding the second hypothesis (the worship of the Goddess Pétyaye "allows the future mothers to canalize the ambivalent maternal feelings engendered by maternity and delivery"), the author refers to Freud and Lemoine-Luccioni who define pregnancy as a "narcissistic crisis" creating "important psychological transformations inside the woman as it confronts her with loss and separation." [15] Govindama presents "the desire to murder from the future mother toward her child as an alternative to the post-partum depression related to the loss during her delivery." [16] She then applies this interpretive framework to the worship of the Goddess, which Govindama considers as supporting a young mother's [82] desire to kill her child. What she calls the "deadly aspect incarnated by the Goddess is supposed to allow the future mother to project onto the Goddess, that is onto her bad mother's side, her hostile feelings toward the baby." [17] The author presents the woman's will to separate the "bad mother" from the "good mother," through the Goddess, as a way to protect her "narcissism" while conforming to a cultural ideal. In this theory, the Goddess assures the function of "renarcissisation." [18]

Govindama argues that, through a mechanism of projection and interjection, Indian women canalize their ambivalent feelings engendered by maternity onto the Goddess Pétyaye. The projection of their hostile feelings allows them to reconcile themselves with their own mothers, to give birth, and to sustain their narcissistic image. At the end of the article, the author claims that this projection onto the Goddess "can be experienced as persecution by women who have identity problems and who cannot work on the mechanism in question." [19] She believes that this mechanism is culturally amplified among Indian women in La Reunion, notably in cases of presumed delirium associated with childbirth, and can blur the frontier between neurosis and psychosis, leading practitioners to diagnose a psychosis. Govindama therefore recommends distinguishing "in this case as in all traditional societies that cultivate the mechanism of projection, simply an apparent delirium that is related to cultural and religious beliefs, from what would otherwise be pathological delirium." [20]

I will now offer an interpretation that challenges this psychoanalytic reading. Ethnographic investigations, focusing on what people think and experience, actually show a more nuanced perception of the Goddess, notably that she is not worshipped with 'fear,' but rather with devotion and respect. The devotees' avoidance of pronouncing the Goddess' name is not specific to Pétyaye but is in fact similar to how one would regard any deity of the Hindu pantheon (this name avoidance also operates between husband and wife and is motivated by the same concern of expressing respect). To be closer to the deity, devotees purify themselves through a fast of several days before the ritual. Field-work interviews show that this purifying fast is not experienced as a painful activity since it allows a passage to enter into a sacred and auspicious state of being. The sacrifice preceding the worship and the worship itself are acts of propitiation : to stop doing them means to cease being under the Goddess’ protection, not to awake her "anger". [21]

Pétyaye holds a special domestic sphere among Hindu deities, as she is worshipped generally in the backyard of the home, close to the domestic temple. [22] The ritual is a private one that, like the annual rituals addressed to the ancestors, only includes family members. In contrast to other Hindu ceremonies (but similar to the ritual for the ancestors), food offerings are not distributed after the ceremony and are solely consumed by members of the nuclear family. This private nature of the ritual has led the non-Indian population of La Réunion to develop a rather negative perception toward the deity and her worship. Although Govindama docs not mention this fact, there is indeed a certain fear of the ritual among the non-Hindu natives. This perception arises from misrepresentations created in a global society whose dominant religion is Christianity. [23] One may speculate that Govindama adopted this world-view when she constructed her analysis of the "fearsome aspect" of the Goddess. As stated previously, the worship of Pétyaye is performed without fear since fear is not an appropriate feeling to entertain vis-à-vis the gods.

Although she acknowledges that Tamil women on the island make vows, sacrifices, and also pray to the Goddess Petyaye "because their mothers have done it," [24] [83] Govindama emphasizes what she considers a more problematic involvement. Women who are "westernized or in conflict with their mothers" [25] present a difficult situation to interpret vis-à-vis this psychoanalytic approach. Also problematic are mothers who address the vow to worship Pétyaye only when they are either anguished by childbirth or concerned after a dream of a woman dressed in black, representing the Goddess. It is true that not all women of Tamil descent continue to worship Pétyaye once they become adults. However, it may be misleading to believe that these women stop praying to Pétyaye simply because they are in conflict with their mothers or want "to negate" or "repudiate their mother[s] inside." [26] This psychoanalytic explanation ignores social and cultural factors, notably the facts that French models pervades the larger La Reunion society and younger generations unavoidably tend to aspire for new ways of life exempted from the constraints of numerous Hindu restrictions. Ethnographic work shows that women who try to demarcate themselves from Hindu beliefs and practices ultimately make a vow to Pétyaye. They do this more to act auspiciously than out of anguish, fear of being punished, or guilt toward the "demonic" deity.

To reinforce her presentation of the Goddess as the "bad mother," Govindama minimizes the fact that Pétyaye also protects children from illness. Govindama also ignores the fact that the Goddess is worshipped not only by future mothers but also by mothers themselves. That omission permits her to avoid addressing issues that do not corroborate her point. Among these is the fact that the mother — not the daughter — is actually the main actor of the ritual. As long as she is alive, the ritual will take place in her home in the presence and the help of her daughters, notably by the future mothers if any, and their respective husbands. The mother of the household is the one who offers the black hen and an uneven number of its eggs to the Goddess. She is also the only authorized person to prepare a special cake (called bonbon kolgaté) made with the eggs of the hen which is a part of the sacrificial offering. It is only after her death that the daughters will reproduce this ceremony in their own homes and in turn initiate their own daughters to the importance of carrying out the ritual every year. Yet, if women are the most concerned with the ritual and are very active in it, the father, or in his absence a son, offers prayers and sacrifices the hen. Without his presence, the ritual cannot take place. This crucial male figure of the ritual is simply ignored by the author.

Several terms purposely used in the psychoanalytic interpretation contribute to the presentation of the ritual as a fearful event. The author defines, for instance, the hen as a "sacrificial victim." The term "victim" refers to ideas of violence and killing, which do not reflect the feelings of those who offer the hen to the deity. Anthropological attempts to understand what people have in their minds during the sacrifice indicate that the animal is not considered a "victim" but rather a sacred symbolic vehicle that mediates communication with the divine. From the sacrificer’s words, the animal is not "killed" but is "offered" to the deity, who will in turn protect the devotees and bring them luck. The definition of the ceremony as a "trial" reveals another outward effort to evoke a particular state of mind for both the participant and the reader. From a participant's perspective, the ritual is not a "trial" but an act of devotion and propitiation. The continual reference to the notion of "cult" in the article, instead of "ceremony" or "ritual," is also problematic, as it allows extrapolations to assert specific points — a practice already well recognized by critical anthropologists. Likewise, the term "mentality," used by the author, suggests an attempt to objectify the psychoanalyst's subject. [27]

[84]

The concept of canalization used by this psychoanalytic approach is undoubtedly important. The problem is that it is too convenient, as it can be used for explaining the ritual in a global system of representation of reality in reference to the norms and Values of the people who are involved in it. The worship of Pétyaye to ensure birth and protect children actually carries important symbols that speak for themselves. The deity  invoked is a Goddess, the main actor of the ritual is the mother, and the offerings — vital to any Hindu sacrifice — are healthy hens that lay eggs. The offerings also include some of the hen's eggs and a pastry made with her eggs. [28] Since the event concerns the perpetuation of the family, this food offering will be eaten (a physical integration of the symbolic substance) by the family members exclusively. Finally, the animal sacrifice, which produces blood, the symbol of fertility, is performed by the father.

To conclude, I would like to stress a fundamental distinction between psychoanalytic and anthropological approaches. In the first sentence of the article, Govindama It ales that her project is to seek to understand "the impact of the ritual on the way Indian women think." [29] In many ways, this behaviorist approach mistakes the effect for the cause. Anthropology would instead focus on the system of values that underlies people's practices and see how these practices express and contribute to a general world-view. In the psychoanalytic analysis presented here, the theoretical framework is forced upon the facts and nourished with hasty generalizations. We have seen that to fulfill her project (i.e. to Explain how the so-called "narcissistic crisis" and the desire to kill one's children are Managed by Indian mothers), despite having mentioned the fact that the Goddess is feared as well as venerated, the author focuses on the idea of fear, without referring further to the benign side of the deity. [30] This allows her to make her point by producing a partial view of Pétyaye. Neglecting the fact that women worship the Goddess to favor birth and protect children, the author argues that the worship is above all a way to conjure up Pétyaye’s "deadly power." This reversion of people's relation to the Goddess is made in reference to authorities in the field of psychoanalysis. The ensuing construction then incarcerates people in a paradigm with concepts alien to their own system of representation ("pathology," ⁽'narcissistic crisis," "oedipal problematic," oedipal vow, "persecution," "projection," "introjection," maternity as a "homosexual experience," etc.). Attempting to grasp the etic perspective, anthropology rather emphasizes people's own construction of reality : in this case, love of the divinity, a desire for protection, propitiation, auspiciousness, reproduction of practices, etc...

The psychoanalytic approach analyzed here, because of its relationship to pathology (the conclusion of the article is specifically addressed to doctors [31]), constitutes a monologue on the subjects' relationships with their unconscious. The persons studied are presented as being unaware of the psychological mechanisms that animate them. This top-down perspective imprisons other's difference in an unchanging frame that has nothing to do with her or his life-world. According to Said's formulation of orientalism, we have here a typical example of a work that seeks to put aside the knowledge and experience of the people studied almost as irrelevant From an anthropological standpoint, this psychoanalytic perspective of the ritual provides interesting ethnographic material in itself : it speaks more about the "psychoanalytic culture" than about the people studied.