Cremation Ceremony Performance

Well after all that nervousness and whining the performance was a lot of fun. And while we didn't sound perfect by any means, we didn't too badly, especially considering our 2 weeks of prep time. The palace was beautiful, though I didn't see much of it. Since we were such a large group, Emiko asked us not to wander from our designated courtyards because we might accidentally go to one of the more private areas where more ceremonial things were happening. There were some ugly tourist stereotypes who were really annoying me, wearing tank tops and shorts and continuing to stand when everyone else was sitting. Did they not notice they were the only ones behaving that way? Some people are oblivous I guess. But I mean would you wear tank tops and flip flops to a funeral back home and get in peoples' way taking photos when they are walking in a procession in front of a casket? I think not. One woman was being very intrusive and even bumped into one of the caskets as it was being carried, I was shocked that one of the coordinators didn't say something to her but he had his hands full directing. There were press photographers with badges, but she didn't have one, and was improperly dressed too. Anyway as you can tell I was peeved. As it says on the things white people like blog, we tend to be offended for other people, and I definitely was for that part.

We had an interesting perspective (sort of a cross section of emic and etic, for my grad student readers out there) as we were part of the performance but still very much outsiders. Pre-performance we were all fed by the coordinators. It is customary that performers are fed a meal by whichever family is in charge of the ceremony, so as you can imagine it can be quite expensive. To perform at a cremation is to give an offering to the spirits, and in turn it is believed they will watch over you. Since this is a special occasion being a royal ceremony, many people wanted to make an offering. So now I have royal spirits watching over me, maybe it will help me be less accident prone.

We were playing in front of one of the doors the bodies were carried through, that led to the ornately decorated casket platforms in which they are placed until Wednesday night when (I think) the actual cremation is happening. This area was also our backstage prep area, where we had our meal and finished getting ready. Some tourists wandered into this area too, perhaps they saw us other foreigners in there and thought it was ok. I think it was for they weren't stopped, at least they had the sense not to climb up on anything. The performance went by really fast and I didn't feel nervous anymore once I got out there, and managed to enjoy it. Cudamani played while the bodies were being carried through, it took quite a long time, all the family members carried different offerings, food, bedding, many different things before the caskets came through, it was very nice. I'll save the rest of my narrative for photo captions, this was definitely a once in a lifetime experience.