Are we creating culture or is culture creating us?

From the bizarre funeral, I attended.

It was my first month in the rural village of Sindupalchok as a Fellow teacher. I had just been to a few houses in the neighbourhood. One of the first things I intended to do before entering the school was to go for a community visit and get to know the people of Nawalpur. I was observing the people, their way of life, their nature of work and some cultures and traditions of the Tamang community. Coming from a different landscape and ethnic group, everything about the village seemed fascinating to me. I was experiencing and adapting to a different lifestyle for the first time and people were also excited to talk to me and my Co-Fellow. Schools had shortly opened after the first lockdown on an odd-even system so we were all set to go into our communities.

I remember it was a Tuesday morning. I woke up to a call from one of the school teachers. It was six in the morning, I and my Co-Fellow were still in bed. “Miss there’s a ‘Ghewa’ happening in our village right now, so if you both could come and see, it would be nice. You would be able to see some cultures and traditions of the Tamang community”, he said. He invited us to ‘Ghewa’ which I was completely unaware of. I didn’t know if I wanted to say okay immediately. I said I would call him back in a minute. I talked to my Co-Fellow and she told me that ‘Ghewa’ was a funeral ceremony. We both decided to attend the ceremony albeit we had no idea who had passed away. We thought it was important to pay respect to someone who had invited us. So, we quickly rushed toward the community.

The house was fifteen minutes away from Nawalpur Bazar. As we were getting nearer, the sound of mantras and other instruments was getting louder. For some reason, I was nervous and excited. I know it sounded weird when I said ‘I was excited’ about a funeral but it was my first time attending a different kind of funeral and the feeling of grief was just not coming to me. But obviously, I pretended to look serious as I got closer to the crowd. It seemed like the entire village had gathered there. Everyone was looking at us and I must say that it was kind of awkward at first. I figured a lot of our students were also present, some waving, some smiling and some even greeting — ‘Good Morning miss! Good to see you here!’ To that, I and my Co Fellow just responded with a nod. Then, we met the teacher who had invited us. He showed us around. There was a shamiana tent where the Buddhist priest(Lamas) was reciting the mantras and playing the instruments. Next to that, was another tent where women were preparing the feast.

The smell of strong local alcohol and meat was all over the place. I saw people drinking and laughing and this was entirely new for me. The picture of people crying miserably wearing white clothes, bald heads and not taking salt for thirteen days came into my mind. “This is something different!” — I thought to myself. It was after ten minutes of our arrival that I noticed everyone anticipating a Lakhey dance. I remember a man who was standing next to us asking us to capture a video of the upcoming dance. I was meticulously observing everyone. There was no crying, no weeping, no mourning and no sad faces. Suddenly, I could feel women and girls shying away while the men were getting ready with their smartphones to record something. Eventually, I and my Co Fellow became the only females to hold cameras there.

Finally, the lakhey dance began. It was like any other regular lakhey dance that I had seen in the past. It didn’t look any different in the beginning. It was only after about five minutes of the dance that I started to comprehend the actions that were being demonstrated there. Two ‘Lamas’ one kid and another adult, both dressed up as lakheys had their masks on. They both joined the other lamas in a circle. At first, it pretty much felt like an angel trying to tame a demon. At least that’s what I assumed and perceived it. I thought the adult was acting like a devil and the kid was acting like an angel or something. They looked like they were fighting because they were on top of each other.

It was only after a few minutes that I noticed that these two lamas had two small pieces of wood in their hands. The wood was cylindrical and pointed. For some reason, they were holding it right in front of their genitals. With my naive mind, I was trying my best to understand what was going on. Women were hiding, girls had suddenly disappeared from the vicinity, and it was just men and young boys along with us who were watching the act. As I watched further, it clicked with me that whatever they are trying to portray through the lama dance is “sex”. The piece of wood they were holding, apparently, symbolized the penis. They began demonstrating different sexual positions and acts. Stunned, I looked at my Co-Fellow and found that she was also looking at me. We both shared a look and exchanged our surprises without words and gestures. Incredulously, our reactions on the inside were like “What the hell is happening here?”

I looked around and there were children, there were students and some teachers from our school. Everyone was giggling and laughing sharing vulgar comments. I was wondering why they were performing something like that in a funeral ceremony. I was thinking what could be the significance of such acts in a ceremony such as a Funeral. I was thinking about all the notions and impressions these children and teenagers could have in their minds. Good or bad. “Sex Education”, unfortunately, still seems to be a taboo in our society and technically, it is the most skipped chapter from the HPE book too. But trust me, I was not disgusted, nor embarrassed. I was just curious.

After all, Culture is human-made. All these years, I have found myself following rituals blindly in the name of culture. Unaware and incredulous of the stories and logic behind some traditions and cultures, there are hundreds and thousands of people like me who never question and accept what they are told by parents and their community. For the longest time, I believed in the four days of untouchability ritual during periods without ever questioning it. I literally grew up in that conditioning and had been told or perhaps brainwashed on how I could have bad consequences or how God would punish me if I didn’t follow it. Can you imagine?

But I have realized lately that sometimes all it takes is one simple “WHY” in that sense of confusion, incredulousness and discomfort. And sometimes, it might take more than that. A deeper research, observation and contemplation into that matter perhaps. It won’t move mountains altogether but it does make a crack in it!

So, coming back to the funeral story, for a couple of months, I went around asking many villagers about Ghewa and how exactly it used to be performed before. Upon talking to some lamas, elderly people, teachers, neighbours and even students, I gathered that the sexual act or mimicry was only for entertainment purpose. It had primarily been started with some Tamang families trying to bring a distraction from the pain and agony of the gone ones and gradually the entire community picked it up as a part of their “Culture”. It's interesting to know how cultures get modified over time and how it starts running people.

This particular funeral incident and my curiously asked question ignited a thought-provoking discourse among my students and some local teachers to an extent that the teacher started collecting more information on this topic so he could work towards preserving the real culture and document it for the future. And wait, the next one is my favourite story to tell……………

One fine day, in one of the small houses of Lamathok, Nawalpur, a fifteen-year-old girl named Sopheeya asked a question to her mother why it was important to have such an insignificant, vulgar and uncomfortable dance at her own grandfather’s funeral. After questioning and somewhat convincing her mother, they both went to convince the priests and other Fellow villagers to have that particular “act” removed from their Ghewa. That day, the whole family religiously and traditionally performed the final rites of their grandfather without following a senseless act in the name of culture.

Interestingly, from all of this, I still haven’t drawn any conclusions yet. I am learning to dig deeper and ask questions about the things that bother me, worry me or that make me feel something while I am in a constant dilemma to understand how we are defining culture and how our culture is defining us.