Attacks by soni rau
My last example is a prophylactic ritual directed chiefly against soni rau. Even when no acute illness is present, rituals are performed before birth for the prophylactic protection of mother and child. In the first months of pregnancy, vows (mansik) related to the child’s sex may be combined with these rituals. If the pregnancy is already advanced, however, such vows are no longer effective, one woman explained. Doimoti Sisa was roughly three months pregnant, and the ritual performed for her and her child was intended to have both functions. She and her husband already had a daughter, and “only” five girls had so far survived among his elder brother’s children; the boy had died young. Both brothers feared that they would have no male heirs and so would have to either leave their fields to one of their future sons-in-law or watch as the other brothers in their local sub-line took the fields over for themselves. The ritual was led by the gurumai of the village. The preparations began long after midnight on the night of the full moon, and the ritual ended around five o’clock in the morning. The preliminary activities, such as the adjuring of the medicine and the making of the needed implements,[1] were conducted at the house, after which the small group of participants[2] [3] moved to a fork in the river, several kilometers downstream from the village.
On the riverbank, a platform was prepared, on which the gurumai drew a three-colored pattern and spread out the ritual items. In the center, she planted the shoot of a banana tree and a mango branch. A small figurine, easily identifiable as masculine by its phallus, was formed from clay. Doimoti Sisa sat behind the platform, looking downstream, with her back to the gurumai. After an invocation lasting twenty minutes, in which the gurumai, among other things, promised the offering of a goat in the event of the birth of a son, and after the feeding of the sacrificial animals with rice, the offerings were made and the animals killed one by one, starting with the coconuts, fruit, eggs, catfish, and various chicks, the bodies of which were thrown into the river.59 After this first phase of the sacrifices, the helpers warmed some bloody rice (chaul) and meat (from the chicks’ gullets) in a folded leaf (purunge) with salt and chili over a small fire and offered it on the platform.
The gurumai next lit the heads of small arrows on fire and shot them in different directions; one shot hit the clay figure, and the bow was then broken. She found on the sacrificial platform the head of the speckled (chitra) chick, the offering for soni, and placed it on the cords (suta) that were soon to be tied around the woman. A young pig was then sacrificed, and in quick succession the guru- mai poured medicine previously collected in a small clay pot, liquor, and blood over the woman’s head, hammered iron nails into the ground between her toes, and placed one of the cords around her upper body. The gurumai placed a smaller cord around the branches in the center of the platform, then cut the clay figure. She placed the head of soni’s sacrificial animal (the speckled chick) and a lock of the woman’s hair on a leaf plate (toti), had the woman spit on it, and disposed of it in the river.
After that, the group left the river and, following an act of spatial transition on the path (stepping over thorns), went to the house's threshing floor to cook the sacrificial animals. The food was consumed at the threshing floor; none of it was supposed to reach the village, and none was brought back to the sacrificial site along the river as betisong. The other people present at the sacrifice ate alongside the members of the kutum.
Almost seven months later, when the labor pains began, the gurumai was called to Doimoti’s house and cut the cord previously tied, intended to protect mother and child. A girl was born on the same day, and the parents made clear their disappointment. The vow thus did not have to be redeemed on the day of the name-giving, and a duck was sacrificed instead of a he-goat. A few days after the birth string was tied, the newborn died of a fever.
- [1] In terms of implements, it was a relatively demanding ritual, even if not comparable to abato biba in this regard. Along with the widest possible variety of flowers, fruits, and thorns, theobligatory iron nails, and murat, a miniature bow, arrows, boat, and toys were made, in the wayalready familiar from sutok sorani. Small banners and wooden constructions strung with string,similar to small umbrellas, served to ward off nosto.
- [2] Along with the gurumai, the husband of the woman concerned and her parents from aneighboring village were present, as well as the husband’s brother, another man from the localline, and the pujari, although not in his sacrificial function.
- [3] After this gesture of casting them away, the helpers were at pains to retrieve them from theshallow river as quickly as possible.
