The Five Ms

Among India's many primitive sects, one of the strangest is the orgiastic Shakta. The five elements of Shakta worship are madya (liquor), mamsa (meat), matsya (fish), mudra (grain), and maithuna (sexual intercourse), and it has long been their custom to worship the Hindu goddess Shakti by seeking unity of body and soul in communal sex rites. Such is kanchalia dharam, the ceremony of the blouse.

In kanchalia dharam, the women place their upper garments in a large earthenware jar and, after all have feasted and drunk, each man draws out a garment and goes off with its owner, regardless of her marital ties.

The Old Way. Nehru's modern India would like to change Shakta customs. The government has sent community development officers into the villages to instruct the Shaktas in modern farming and hygiene and to teach them to read and write. The government men noted that the ancient stone pillars embedded in stone rings --phallic symbols worshiped by the Shaktas--were gathering moss in some villages, and the officials concluded confidently that the old practices were on the way out.

One day last week a 28-year-old Shakta named Odia Patel, clad only in a loincloth, walked into a magistrate's office in Bali, a district of Rajasthan in Northwest-Central India. In his hand he held a severed human nose and a bloodstained knife. Said he: "This is my wife's nose. I cut it off because she was unfaithful to me. And this is the knife I used."

The Wedding Costume. Inquiry revealed that Odia's wife was a young woman named Naji, who came from another village and was not herself a Shakta. One night Odia told her to put on her wedding costume, a black kanchalia and a billowing scarlet skirt, scarlet headshawl, heavy silver bangles, toe rings and silver nose ring. Odia then placed on her forehead a silver lingam, a highly stylized phallic symbol hung from a silver chain, and led her to a place where, at the behest of a guru (priest), 84 Shaktas and their wives had assembled in a secluded place for the ceremony of kanchalia dharam.

Under the intoning guru's direction, the Shakta women and Naji took off their blouses and put them in a large earthenware jar, and the group drank liquor and feasted on goat flesh. But when Naji discovered the meaning of the ceremony, she refused to participate further. "You must take part in our sacrament," said the guru. Husband Odia also insisted. When her blouse was drawn from the jar, Naji ran off into the darkness.

Shamed by her performance, Odia followed her. "After I cut off her nose," he told the police, "she begged forgiveness and asked me not to report the matter to the police, but I refused to listen." When the police reached Odia's hut, they found that Naji had hanged herself. She had been faithful, after her own fashion.

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