possession by durga. 159
class family in the company of about fifty festively dressed people—women, men,
and children. It was about two in the morning. We were attending a Devijagrata,
an all-night ritual performance in which the Goddess is worshipped with devotional
songs and stories of her exploits. The performers, joined by the congregation, were
singing a devotional song to the lively beat of a drum. The Goddess was present that
night in the form of a flame that had been lit and consecrated, and then surrounded
by offerings of fruit and flowers and placed on a platform at the front of the room.
She was also present in the form of a sixteen-year-old girl called the “Little Mother,”
who was seated on another platform, next to the flame. The Goddess had entered
her body and was “playing” within her. Her long black hair flew out from her face
as though charged with electricity as her head whirled about in rhythmic circles.
From time to time, members of the congregation would go up and make offerings
to her.
I was tired and, frankly, a little bored, since I had seen all this before—and I found
myself wishing that I had chosen to do research on something that took place at a
more reasonable hour. Then for some reason I glanced at the woman sitting next to
me. She was probably in her mid-fifties, plump, well-dressed, and matronly look-
ing. I had not spoken with her, although earlier we had nodded to each other in
greeting. Suddenly, the woman’s head began to move from side to side, her eyes
glazed over, and she started to shake. Standing up, she began to dance frenetically,
her tightly bound hair loosening, then fanning out from her face. I was frozen with
fear. The other people were moving away from her and pulling me along with them.
Later—I do not remember how much later—she calmed down and sat quietly, but
her eyes remained unfocused. I was left wondering whether this could happen to me.
The second event took place in Madison, Wisconsin, in November 1983. Having
just returned from India, I had presented a paper at the annual Conference on South
Asia on the Devijagrataas a ritual performance. Although only a small portion of
my presentation dealt with the phenomenon of Goddess possession, it was this part
that evoked the most comment during the question-and-answer period. Afterward,
a senior colleague asked me if I had ever believed that it really was the Goddess pos-
sessing those women. I answered impulsively, “Yes.” Upon reflection I realized that
it was the experience of observing possession, of coming face-to-face with this im-
pressive manifestation of the Goddess’s power (fakti), that brought home to me in
a very concrete fashion the immediacy with which devotees experience the God-
dess’s presence. This in turn led me to take seriously the notion of the Goddess as
an agent herself, rather than simply a symbol or projection.
Much scholarship on various kinds of spirit possession has assumed (usually tac-