Cremation, Caste, and Cosmogony in Karmic Traditions.

y putting faces on people who otherwise are mere
theoretical abstractions (structure, agency, society, etc), I
have illuminated that everything is just various types of
real human interaction. Secondly, it would have been
difficult to anonymise Sapkota although possible to give
Tyaginath and Hazera pseudonyms. Still, it would not
have been difficult to reveal the real names. Thirdly, if
both the names and the places were pseudonyms it
would be difficult to check the information if anyone
would like to do so. By being explicit one may argue
that the work is more scientific but with the danger that
this context of justification is made on the expanse of the
informants’ privacy. Fourthly, in a comparative research
perspective I have often been frustrated when I have
found studies which could have been useful for me if I
knew where they had been conducted, but the anonymity
of the community has reduced the research value for
later generations. Therefore, the use of the information
for others is a criteria that one should incorporate into
ethical discussions, which not only include researchers
but indigenous people’s revival of lost traditions as seen
for instance among the Australian Aborigines. Research
ethics should comprise both concerns for the informants
but also methods for evaluation and justification as well
as potential uses of the study. Finally, by illuminating
that Sapkota was cheated in the king’s funeral, but also
that he still works as a priest, and that Hazera is a female
Muslim undertaker cremating Hindus, such knowledge
may illuminate and decrease the actual power structures
at work in a society. It may dissolve part of the
categorical “-isms”. The high religion as presented by
the authorities is not the only reality that exists.
5) Pictures.
Since this is a material culture study, I have emphasised
materiality not only presented by words but also
visualised by pictures. Even though there has been a
paradigm in archaeology focusing on the transformation
from “things to texts”, words alone cannot describe the
artefacts and the materiality which are the subject for
discussion (Goldhahn 1997). Materiality matters, and
pictures emphasise the mattering. The obvious question
which follows is: have I received the informant’s
consent regarding taking and publishing pictures of the
dead? Before answering the question, and this is not
meant to be humoristic, but strictly a fact: the dead have
never objected. My point is only that we must never
forget that by asking the question in the way I did, it is a
third person who answers. If the deceased was alive, he
or she may not have objected to post-mortem pictures
but the descendants may do. Although one will never get
the deceased’s answer, the question has more to it than
being a mere excuse for taking pictures. Particularly the
kings’ funerals were widely published and broadcast on
television and in newspapers, and there are situations
that transcend the descendants’ sanctions. Still, I have
often asked for permission to take pictures (I am not sure
that they were aware that they might be published,
although I presented myself as a researcher, with
everything that includes in that); sometimes I have not
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asked. Therefore, I will briefly relate my practice to
general attitudes towards death. As a result of the Maoist
insurgent a number of both policemen and military
officers have been killed and given official or state
funerals at Pashupatinath. For instance the VDC
Chairman Ram Mani Gyawali of Kerunga Village,
Arghakkanchi – a member of the Nepali Congress Party
– was cremated with a huge delegation witnessing the
dagbatti, and among them was former prime minister
and then current president of the party, Mr. Koirala. The
deceased had the Nepali Congress Party’s flag on his
chest, which was thrown into the river before the pyre
was lit. His torso was bandaged where the knife strokes
had killed him, and he was cremated at the 2 nd platform
at Ram ghat. Pictures of Naraharinath and Ram Mani
Gyawali were published on the first page of Kathmandu
Post and The Rising Nepal (figs. 18.1-18.3), and in fact,
I stood next to the professional photographer who took
the picture of the dead congressman, and in all modesty I
have to say that as a photographer he made quite a lot
more of himself than I did. What is important is that
many of the funerals at Pashupatinath are public
funerals, and within the Nepali society taking such
photos are accepted. The degree of interference by
taking a photo is also a matter of being discrete, some
are interfering more than others, and researchers are not
the worst.
I will therefore follow Hammersley & Atkinson when
they say that it is our view “that the most effective
strategies for pursuing research should be adopted unless
there is clear evidence that these are ethically
unacceptable. In other words, indeterminacy and
uncertainty should for the most part be resolved by
ethnographers in favour of the interest of research, since
that is their primary task” (Hammersley & Atkinson
1995:285).
Despite all these considerations and attempts to navigate
in muddy waters, there are other difficulties and
limitations with the data and the interpretation in this
dissertation, which I will try to give an account for. As
Rosalie Wax says, “the most valuable thing any
fieldworker can take with him into fields is good luck”
(Wax 1985[1971]:268), and to some extent I have been
lucky, particularly in Faridpur in Bangladesh, which was
an extraordinary case study, and despite the national
tragedy (and without sounding like a vulture), the royal
massacre in Nepal and the subsequent cremations were,
from a strictly academic point of view, an important
source of knowledge.
Nevertheless, the limitations and objections that may
challenge my data and the interpretations can be
summed up in these broad categories:
Time limitation. Due to the comparative approach and
political circumstances I have not spent as long a time at
each location as I would have preferred.