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ABSTRACT
Thimithi – the Tamil Hindu fire-walking ceremony has always attracted the attention of the curious and the thrill seeker and remains a tourist attraction as well as the performance of a solemn vow in many parts of the world where it continues to be enacted. A source of much speculation as to the participants’ apparent ability to withstand the pain of walking over hot coals, travellers’ often exaggerated accounts of eye witness attendance at such events regularly graced the columns of western journals in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This article focusses on an unusual investigation carried out in colonial Mauritius in mid-1874. The enquiry resulted from a published description of thimithi written by Nicolas Pike, former American consul on the island which caused concern at the colonial office in London, who asked for an explanation. This produced a set of reports, firstly by British police officers, and secondly, but more remarkably, by leading members of the Tamil community on Mauritius. Their detailed and occasionally humorous responses to the western orientalist gaze deftly unpick the absurdities and hypocrisies of the so-called ruling caste whilst their very involvement serves to complicate our understanding of the relationship between white settler and Indian ‘subject’ in the mid-Victorian colonial empire.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Oddie, Popular Religion, Elites and Reform; Dirks, “The Policing of Tradition”; Bates, “Human Sacrifice in Colonial Central India.”
2 Anon, “Nicolas Pike Naturalist”; Barnwell, “Pike, Nicolas [1818-1905],” 151–2; Gudger, “Nicolas Pike and his Unpublished Paintings.”
3 Anon, Transactions of the Royal Society of Arts and Sciences of Mauritius, 113.
4 “Sub-Tropical Rambles,” Harpers Weekly Book Review 8 Nov 1873, 1005–6.
5 Cheke, “The Maverick and the Bureaucrat.”
6 The whaling controversy is recounted in Busch, Whaling Will Never Do for Me, 69. and the alternative reasons for leaving Mauritius are discussed in Cheke, “The Maverick and the Bureaucrat.” and Dittberner and Dalais-Dittberner, “Col. Nicolas Pike.”
7 Anon, “Literature of the Day,” 749.
8 The investigation is detailed in the governor’s despatch and enclosures in NA CO 167/560.
9 Barnwell, “O’Brien, Sir John Terence Nicolls [1830-1903].”
10 J.N. Shellam to Inspector General O’Brien, 29 June 1874 in NA CO 167/560.
11 F. Timperley to Inspector General O’Brien, undated, in NA CO 167/560. The term jugglery had by the nineteenth century come to describe any form of Indian magic. See Lamont and Bates, “Conjuring images of India.”
12 V. Sinnatambou to Inspector General O’Brien, 17 July 1874, in NA CO 167/560.
13 F. Ayavou to Inspector General O’Brien 16 July 1874 in NA CO 167/560. The text is the authors’ translation from the French version provided in the original.
14 Mr E. Sandapa to Inspector General O’Brien, undated commentary in NA CO 167/560.
15 Police Inspector General O’Brien to the Colonial Secretary, 21 July 1874 in NA CO 167/560.
16 Governor of Mauritius, despatch 225 to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 30th July 1874 in NA CO 167/560.
17 Carter, “Slaves, Servants and Sugar Barons in Mauritius.”
18 Suriamoorthy, “Temples Over the Years,” 258.
19 MA HA3A the signatures of several hundred members of the Malabar community were recorded in this document as signatories to the oath of allegiance on 24th December 1810.
20 The original text in French is as follows: ‘Article 8 Que les habitans conserveront leurs religion, lois et coutumes.’ The full text was transmitted in a despatch from Abercromby to Minto, 7 Dec 1810 NA CO 167/4.
21 Sooriamoorthy, Les Tamouls a l'Ile Maurice, 120.
22 Hindoos of Madras to Governor, 22 Nov 1854, MA RA 1276.
23 Acting Superintendent to Mayor of Port Louis 11 March 1858 MA Z2A 243.
24 Le Cerneen 16 Jan 1865and 4 Feb 1865.
25 Mr V. Sinnatambou to Edward Newton, 29th September 1874 MA RA 2220.
26 Minutes on petition of Inspector General of Police 3 Oct 1874 and of JC, 10 Oct 1874.
27 Chapman, The Career of Arthur Hamilton Gordon, 109.
28 Gordon, Mauritius. Records of Private and Public Life, Vol. 1, 30.
29 Barnwell, “Gordon, Sir Arthur Charles Hamilton,” 241–3.
30 Brown, “Inter-Colonial Migration and the Refashioning of Indentured Labour,” 217.
31 Kristnaya et al. to Major General, Sir Arthur P. Phayre, 17th April 1876 MA RA 2338.
32 Minutes of AP, 18 April 1876 and JC, of same date, MA RA 2338.
33 Casaven, Velaydon and others to Governor Phayre, 24th January 1877 RA 2394.
34 Sooriamoorthy, Les Tamouls a l'Ile Maurice, 158.
35 Barnwell, “Robley, Hoatio Gordon 1840-1930.”
36 Anon, “Fire Walk in Mauritius.”
37 V. Moonsamy Pillay to Protector of Immigrants 30 Jan 1899, MA PA 201.
38 Note of JF Trotter, 23 Feb 1899; Owen L O’Connor Inspector of Immgrants, to Protector, 25 Feb 1899 MA PA 201.
39 JF Trotter to V Moonsamy Pillay, 8 March 1899 MA PA 201.
40 Amrith, “Tamil Diasporas across the Bay of Bengal,” 555.
41 Ponder, “Kling Fire-Walk.”
42 See Inden, Imagining India; Dirks, Castes of Mind; Pennington, Was Hinduism Invented?.
43 Desai and Vahed, Inside Indian Indenture, 245–50.
44 Prorok, “The Materiality of Diasporic Identity,” 272.
45 Younger, New Homelands Hindu Communities in Mauritius, 258.
46 Alagirisamy, “The Self-Respect Movement,” 1550.
47 Anon, “Fire-Walking in Fiji,” 188–96.
48 Anon, “The Mauritius Miracle.”
49 Davey, “Fire Walking,” 268.
50 Schwabe, “The Fire Walk in Mauritius,” 296–8.
51 Lewis, “The Fire-Walking Hindus of Singapore.”
52 Benedict, Indians in a Plural Society, 44.
53 Diesel, “The Tradition of Hindu Firewalking,” 37–8.
54 Ramhota and Govinden, “Cavadee and Kalimai,” 146–8.
55 Fischer et al., “The Fire-Walker’s High,” 1–6.
56 Mr E. Sandapa to Inspector General O’Brien, undated commentary in NA CO 167/560.