Scholarlink

<p>This article discusses a Tamil Hindu ritual to invite a deceased woman named Hemavati to return to the world and be installed as a protective family goddess called a <i>pūvāṭaikkāri</i> (“the woman who wears flowers”) in her family’s home shrine. Hemavati’s decision to commit suicide in response to the upheaval and shame she experienced due to her husband’s alcohol abuse can be interpreted as an ethic of refusal. Where <i>pūvāṭaikkāri</i> invitations are traditionally performed for auspicious wives who died “good” deaths, alcohol abuse and suicide have figured prominently in these rites in recent years. The ritual performance to summon Hemavati—and especially the emotionally charged dialogues with the dead that form its centerpiece—illuminate how the troublingly pervasive phenomenon of male alcoholism leading to female suicide can function as a site for ethical contestation and protest. In these exchanges both living and deceased women bring their testimony into the record, powerfully if fleetingly giving voice to injustice and demanding an accounting of harms suffered. Against the backdrop of everyday gender pressures and precarity, <i>pūvāṭaikkāri</i> investiture rites offer living relatives a pathway to secure the favor and support of their dead kin and cultivate the conditions for future prosperity.</p>

错误：搜索内容不能为空，请输入英文关键词
错误：关键词超出字数限制，请精简
高级检索

Alcohol, Suicide, and Gendered Protest in Tamil Hindu Invitations to the Dead

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年7月23日

查看全文
  • Amy L. Allocco

摘要

This article discusses a Tamil Hindu ritual to invite a deceased woman named Hemavati to return to the world and be installed as a protective family goddess called a pūvāṭaikkāri (“the woman who wears flowers”) in her family’s home shrine. Hemavati’s decision to commit suicide in response to the upheaval and shame she experienced due to her husband’s alcohol abuse can be interpreted as an ethic of refusal. Where pūvāṭaikkāri invitations are traditionally performed for auspicious wives who died “good” deaths, alcohol abuse and suicide have figured prominently in these rites in recent years. The ritual performance to summon Hemavati—and especially the emotionally charged dialogues with the dead that form its centerpiece—illuminate how the troublingly pervasive phenomenon of male alcoholism leading to female suicide can function as a site for ethical contestation and protest. In these exchanges both living and deceased women bring their testimony into the record, powerfully if fleetingly giving voice to injustice and demanding an accounting of harms suffered. Against the backdrop of everyday gender pressures and precarity, pūvāṭaikkāri investiture rites offer living relatives a pathway to secure the favor and support of their dead kin and cultivate the conditions for future prosperity.