Return of the Spirits to their Birthplace (Bhooth-Badha)

Return of the Spirits to their Birthplace # 0218 An Egyptian version

When I was a child there was always a tremendous amount of magical and spiritual goings on that we younger generation would talk about endlessly. What was available in reality was a dreamland of experiences like a partially opened or tightly closed Pandora's box. Nobody dared to open the unconscious Pandora's box yet from a safe distance one could stand fearlessly along with other friends and witness a voodoo ritual or the Indian brand of it.

As a young man with friends we were often drawn to the sound of a crude but very rhythmical loud drumming and spiritual chanting addressing one or more dancing women. The bodies of these dancers were supposedly taken hold of by the unsatisfied souls of dead persons. Some older relatives, knowing these people when they were alive, would question the dancers to discover what wishes these dead persons had that needed to be fulfilled. This allows the souls to be freed from the cycle of rebirth or from becoming the lingering spirit of a ghost.

In an educated Brahmin household, like ours, the procedure was given a different twist and turn. The unfulfilled soul of the dead member of the family was always there, of course. But the ceremony involved a ritual offering of rice balls and sweets to the dead man's spirit. This spirit would then enter the family in the form of a black crow who would come down to savour the beautifully prepared cooked food. This offering was kept outside on the verandah and all the family members would sit around and wait until a black crow came down to eat it or touch it or grab it. The crow would only come down if the souls were given a vast range of promises to fulfill his unsatisfied wishes or desires. For instance, if a dead man had wished an unmarried daughter to be married, the family members would promise to find her a husband. The wishes usually referred to the social context of the family. As a young child, hungry, looking at this great festival food waiting for the crow was a spiritual experience itself. As a grown man this experience of a great family gathering is very difficult to forget.

Voodoo Spirituals #0214 A Caribbean version.

On one occasion the two souls for whom the offerings were made were my paternal and maternalgrandfathers. One was a provincial court judge and the other a money lender. The latter was quite a handsome man even at his old age who loved the fishing village women. He would ask his servants to bring in a large banana leaf on which he sprinkled cow urine in order to turn the woman into a temporary Brahmin for his desires to be fulfilled. Usually the fisher women thought he was a great fancy joke but were not unkind to him. We could not eat that day until the crow came down to the offering laid out for him. We hungry children were wishing the crow would come down and eat it fast. After waiting for a long time and hungry as we were and after one hundred and one promises made and the crow would not come I made an offering of dragging a young fisher woman to his bed. This greatly annoyed my family members, particularly my mother who pinched my ear harshly and gave me a slap across my head. However, two crows did come down and ate the offering. I thought the soul of this dead man was like the evil vermins in the Pandora's box and not the black crow.

There was the phenomena, (stradhyam), which I doubted, that the transparency of the soul of a dead man can be seen as if it is made of glass. However, it is not a ghost but an invocation of the soul of a family member who has passed away. People feared ghosts but not the dead man's spirit.