Invoking the supernatural and the supranational: Tappu, trance and Tamil recordings in Indo-Guyanese ’Madras Religion’ and the politics of

Abstract

The sonic dimensions of Indo-Guyanese Madrasi music -both acoustic "live" performances at temples and the consumption and playback of recordings -mediate forms of power, authority, and verity on the basis of cultural ideals and historically contingent modes of listening. One's ability to access knowledge about the otherwise ambiguous and fraught origins of Madrasi ecstatic practices primarily occurs through people's embodiment of the sonic presence of the goddess Mariamman. Madrasi sonic practices have become ever more prestigious and valorised, particularly in the North American context. A crucial catalyst for this growing prestige has been the emergence of a discourse promulgated by Indo-Guyanese/ Americans which emphasises Madrasi sonic practices as having "ancient Tamil" origins. I argue throughout that Madrasi music, though marginalised, offers people a compelling sonic modality that produces feelings or "vibrations" of "power," "proof," and presence as political acts amid inter-and intragroup tensions. I suggest that people are drawn to the sonic dimensions of Madrasi music because they mediate and assert cultural authenticity, religious authority, and verity as they seek forms of belonging in the context of South Asian American diaspora culture. I analyse how the sonic-somatic embodiment of Madrasi music invokes tactile sensations of "Tamil" diasporic sounds.