babble home
rabble.ca - news for the rest of us
today's active topics


Post New Topic  Post A Reply
FAQ | Forum Home
  next oldest topic   next newest topic
» babble   » right brain babble   » humanities & science   » The Hijras of India: neither man nor woman

Email this thread to someone!    
Author Topic: The Hijras of India: neither man nor woman
Trespasser
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1204

posted 21 June 2002 02:09 PM      Profile for Trespasser   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Paging rasmus_raven...

I am reading this book by the feminist anthropologist Serena Nanda about the Indian hijras - my interest in gray areas of gender always hooks me up with cool books. I had no previous knowledge of existence of hijras, nor did I know that several other 'cultures' have their own versions of quasi-institutional third gender. That is what the hijras are, it seems - they are also a sub-culture, a caste, a vocation, a religious sect that legitimately claims an important chunk of Hindu mythology. They are widespread in North India (I read Gujarat is important in that constellation) where they attend to the temples of the goddess Bahuchara Mata, a variant of the Mother Goddess, which endows them with special powers over fertility and conception during the rite of passage that each hijra goes through and that includes their own castration. I am just reading the chapter about the procedure (which is officially illegal in India but the incidence has only gone up in recent years) - after emasculation, the prospective hijra is left to bleed and with the blood her own masculinity is leaving her for good, as well as the immediate, physical procreative powers in order for her to become a kind of a divine inseminator.

Men who become hijras may happen to previously be - in Western terminology - hermaphrodites, transsexuals, transvestites, gay, or plain ol' straight but it looks like many of them share a state of acknowledged 'immediate' impotence that after becoming hijras might turn them into real masters over the forces of procreation. They often perform as dancers on weddings and after a son is born to family; they also work as prostitutes to men, though, and they really are both marginalized and feared/respected at the same time.

There are photos of hijras in this book, long hair, bindis on their foreheads, dressed in saris, gorgeous creatures. Neither men nor women - or maybe both men and women. Or more accurately, something completely third.


From: maritimes | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
Victor Von Mediaboy
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 554

posted 21 June 2002 02:11 PM      Profile for Victor Von Mediaboy   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I borrowed a feminist anthropology book from my buddy once (knowing him, he MUST have taken the course to meet chicks), and I think there was a chapter that mentioned this group.
From: A thread has merit only if I post to it. So sayeth VVMB! | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
'lance
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1064

posted 21 June 2002 06:51 PM      Profile for 'lance     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Men who become hijras may happen to previously be - in Western terminology - hermaphrodites, transsexuals, transvestites, gay, or plain ol' straight but it looks like many of them share a state of acknowledged 'immediate' impotence that after becoming hijras might turn them into real masters over the forces of procreation. They often perform as dancers on weddings and after a son is born to family; they also work as prostitutes to men, though, and they really are both marginalized and feared/respected at the same time.

William Dalrymple, an excellent English travel writer, mentions them in his book City of Djinns, which is about a year he and his wife spent in Delhi. He doesn't go into a whole lot of detail about them, for space reasons partly, but his discussion is sensitive and intriguing.

Actually, I recommend this book just on general principles. He writes very well.

Edited to add:

Whoops! He's Scottish! Sorry, skdadl!

[ June 21, 2002: Message edited by: 'lance ]


From: that enchanted place on the top of the Forest | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged
rasmus
malcontent
Babbler # 621

posted 22 June 2002 01:39 AM      Profile for rasmus   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
For some reason, perhaps because I was cute and fresh-faced, hijras always used to like to grab and grope and fondle me as I passed in the street, and then cackle in amusement. I'm not very charitably inclined to the caste as a result.

Aside from all that other stuff, the new hijra has only a 50% chance of surviving. The ceremony is not always voluntary.

My most shocking encounter was not with a hijra but with a nonetheless fully castrated beggar who was begging from me when I sat on the train. Although he was completely naked, except for a thread tied around his waist, it was not until I looked directly at him that I saw, to my surprise, that he was completely emasculated.

As I understood it, hijras, once castrated, live as women -- although really they live as hijras -- and then are cremated as men. They dress as women. They do perform at weddings, but this is a form of extortion. If you don't give them money, they have the power to curse you and bring ill luck to the newlyweds.

Dalrymple is related to some earl with lots of blood on his hands. The hijra chapter was pretty much stock for Indian literature. I mean everyone is a bit overdrawn on that particular folklore account.

My next door neighbour, the tailor, used to dress up in a sari and make-up, and wander the streets looking for action I guess, but he was not a hijra... he was just unusual. He was not allowed to sleep in the same room as his nephew. (Which in such small houses would otherwise have been normal.)


OK Tresp I am not giving you high-falutin' anthropology, but I am a little stressed now.


From: Fortune favours the bold | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Trespasser
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1204

posted 22 June 2002 01:56 AM      Profile for Trespasser   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Hijras do that to people

When I asked a friend from India about her thoughts on the subject, she said she had a whole range of associations starting with her earliest childhood fears (her family taught her to avoid the noisy bunch) and ending with the most recent, the efforts of the transgendered members of the South Asian diaspora in the West to reclaim the term for themselves.


From: maritimes | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
lagatta
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2534

posted 22 June 2002 02:06 AM      Profile for lagatta     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
You needn't go to India. Many Aboriginal cultures in the Americas had the tradition known as the "two-spirit people" or the "Berdache" - a term of European and originally Arabic origin but that has an anthropological meaning about the important role these people played in many peoples.

http://www.geocities.com/westhollywood/stonewall/3044/berdache.html

"Le Berdache" was the newspaper of the Association of Gays and Lesbians in Quebec, in the 1980s.


From: Se non ora, quando? | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
'lance
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1064

posted 22 June 2002 02:13 PM      Profile for 'lance     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Dalrymple is related to some earl with lots of blood on his hands. The hijra chapter was pretty much stock for Indian literature. I mean everyone is a bit overdrawn on that particular folklore account.

I daresay, but what's the relevance of Dalrymple's blood relations?


From: that enchanted place on the top of the Forest | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged

All times are Pacific Time  

Post New Topic  Post A Reply Close Topic    Move Topic    Delete Topic next oldest topic   next newest topic
Hop To:

Contact Us | rabble.ca | Policy Statement

Copyright 2001-2008 rabble.ca