Holiday House Arrest

DISCLAIMER: Some of the following images may be disturbing and are not intended for young eyes.

The people group among which we’re currently living recently celebrated their New Year, which proved to be quite a cultural experience for us as a family!

For this people group, the new year means making a fresh start–driving out the evil spirits that have wreaked havoc the past year and purifying yourself from sin. The way they do it is pretty fascinating.

First, weeks before the actual New Year, each local community begins creating their paper mache effigies of evil spirits, which they call ogoh-ogoh, like this one…

Then they begin painting them. Like this one…

Two weeks before the holiday, we happened to drive past this particular one. He had just finished painting a green ogoh-ogoh…

Then, we later drove past it and saw the finished product.

Many of the ogoh-ogoh represent either the evil spirits themselves, or the struggle that humans have against the evil spirits. In this one, the green effigy represents the evil spirit, whose doom seems to be imminent as the human on top prepares to wield his sword on the beast. However, the human’s triumph is not without cost as the beast has the human in his jaws.

Each ogoh-ogoh affords the viewer a glimpse into the religious worldview of the local people. Like this one,

The evil spirit is attacking a woman, because, I am told, women are more sensitive to the spiritual realm in this culture.

Or this one, where quiet meditation seems to be sufficient to keep the evil spirits at bay.

Or this one, where three humans are trying to escape the fiery flames, yet are being kept there and even stabbed by the evil spirit.

Or this one, an evil spirit tormenting a man.

Other ogoh-ogoh even have scenes of evil spirits attacking babies. I’m told that the representation of the ogoh-ogoh attracts the type of spirit it exemplifies. So if spirits that harm women, men, children or babies are hoped to be chased off they island, that is how they design their ogoh-ogoh.

Then there are others that just seem… scary. Like this one.

Or this one…

Or this one…

Then, the night before the New Year, the cleansing of the island begins.

It starts in their homes as people bang pots and pans, making as much of a clamor as they can. They believe that by making noise, they startle any evil spirits in their homes and chase them out into the streets. Then, at dusk, the people gather and carry their ogoh-ogoh from their local community building out into the major streets.

They parade them around for hours and hours, shouting, dancing, playing loud music, an all-out effort to scare and disorient the evil spirits. (I had hoped to be able to sneak out and snap pictures of the wild festivities, but alas, my duties as a breastfeeding mother kept me contained to a rocking chair while people partied in the streets.)

Once the spirits are disoriented, the ogoh-ogoh are burned or their heads are chopped off, symbolizing the defeat of the evil spirits. The night is full of loud music, feasting and revelry. Quiet an extreme opposite of what happens the following day: Complete silence.

After the burning of the ogoh-ogoh, everyone retreats to their home for the Day of Silence. For a full 24 hours, no one is allowed to make any noise, use any lights or leave their homes. No one. Not a single light is turned on or a single noise is made–nothing that could signal to the evil spirits that humans are present. The goal is to trick any remaining spirits into thinking that the humans are gone so that they’ll leave, and not come back.

For expats, that can prove a bit precarious. Especially for expats with small children! So there are a few hotels that have special holiday packages for people who want to hang out at their hotel and not fully participate in the Day of Silence.

Last year we went to a hotel, which was such a treat while Sara was experiencing the sickness that comes from pregnancy. But this year we opted to save a few hundred bucks and spend the day of silence… in silence!

So, the day before, Josh covered all of our windows… to contain any lights we would use or noise we would make.

… and I cooked a bunch of meals, because you’re not allowed to cook on the Day of Silence since the aroma of cooked food could attract the spirits.

And for a whole 24 hours, the island became absolutely silent. What’s normally a bustling city with peddlers calling and motorbikes roaring, neighbors chatting and car horns honking, children playing and dogs barking, became eerily silent.

If you’re a devout Hindu in this culture, you’ll fast the whole day, sit in silence and not talk to anyone, while thinking pensively and meditating. Individuals in complete silence. Whole families, communities, cities–the whole island in silence. Everything shuts down and gets powered off. Even the airport! No flights are allowed in or out for the whole day.

It seemed so bizarre to sneak out that night and peer into the street. The ghost town that our neighborhood became was unnatural in a creepy way.

(I’m sure an introvert must’ve come up with this holiday–it’s an introvert’s dream come true! A whole day when no one is even allowed to interact with another person.)

After the Day of Silence is over, life goes back to normal, though it’s believed that through all of the dancing and shouting, the disorientation and burning of the spirits, that the sin slate has been wiped clean… at least for that day. Until you sin again. So of course, throughout the year many other sin offerings must be made until the following year when the whole people group makes another rigorous attempt to chase away the Tempter and purge themselves of sin.

Living overseas means planting yourself in the midst of people who think differently, believe differently and live differently. It can be entertaining, challenging, fascinating, and disturbing. Sometimes all at the same time!

And with every holiday that we observe and experience–even if in silence–we become more and more fascinated with these people, this culture and this country!