The Saint of Kathmandu: and Other Tales of the Sacred in Distant Lands

257 Pages·2008·1.04 MB·English

by  Sarah LeVine

The Saint of Kathmandu

The Saint of
K athm a ndu
and Other Tales of the
Sacred in Distant Lands
Sarah LeVine
Beacon Press
Boston
Beacon Press
25Beacon Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02108-2892
www.beacon.org
Beacon Press books are published under the auspices of
the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.
© 2008by Sarah LeVine
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
11 10 09 08 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the uncoated paper
ANSI/NISO specifications for permanence as revised in 1992.
Text design and composition by Susan E. Kelly
at Wilsted & Taylor Publishing Services
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
LeVine, Sarah
The Saint of Kathmandu : and other tales of the sacred in distant
lands / Sarah LeVine.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-8070-1312-0
1. Women—Religious life. 2. Religions. I. Title.
BL625.7.L482008
203—dc22 2007045465
Jacket art
Top left:Young pilgrims dressed in Aztec costume on procession
through the cathedral square on a festival day. San Juan de Los Lagos,
Mexico, 1994. Photo by Anna Winger
Top center:Members of the Bori spirit possession cult in trance.
Northern Nigeria, 1969. Photo by Sarah LeVine
Top right:A Muslim chief’s wives with the senior wife’s five-year-old
ward. Northern Nigeria, 1969. Photo by Sarah LeVine
Bottom:Nepalese nuns circumambulating the tree under which the
Buddha was born. Lumbini, Nepal, 1998. Photo by Sarah LeVine
Back cover:Looking toward Lake Victoria, western Kenya, 1976.
Photo by Sarah LeVine
This book is for Nina Murray,
and in memory of Judy Gardner,
with affection and gratitude.

Contents
Preface ix
[ i] Bori
Spirit Possession in a Muslim Town 1
[ ii] Las Tres Marías
The Cult of the Virgin in Mexico 43
[ iii] Oborogi
Witchcraft in a Kenyan Village 81
[ iv] The Saint of Kathmandu
Treading Where the Buddha Trod 119
[ v] El Shaddai
Charismatic Christianity in Hong Kong 167
[ vi] Just Sitting
Zen in America 203

Preface
As an anthropologist, I ask a lot of questions; and I get asked a
lot of questions too. In November 2006, I spent a whole day in
the house of Jayalakshmi, a South Indian village woman be-
longing to a low Hindu caste. I chatted with her, her husband,
her mother-in-law, and her five best friends, watched her chil-
dren play, quarrel, and make peace, asked everyone questions,
wrote many pages of notes, nodded off in the afternoon heat,
woke up again, and asked more questions. When evening came,
I closed my notebook and said to Jayalakshmi, “I’ve been grill-
ing you. Now it’s your turn to grill me,” which she was delighted
to do.
“How did you get married?” was her first question, and when
I explained that no, my parents didn’t arrange my marriage, I
chose my husband myself, she frowned. “So you had a love mar-
riage. That can happen here too, unfortunately. If a Muslim boy
and a girl from our community fall in love, they cannot marry
properly so then they elope, and when the girl comes to her hus-
band’s house empty-handed her in-laws call her an infidel and
treat her badly.”
I said that even though my parents hadn’t arranged my mar-
riage, I’d had a very nice wedding. I added that though I hadn’t
brought them a dowry, my in-laws had treated me well. But Jay-
a lakshmi’s expression showed that she didn’t believe me.
“Do you and your husband own the house you live in, or do
you rent, just as we do?” was her second question. When I re-
plied that we owned our house, quick as a whip she said, “If
you’re rich, why don’t you wear more gold?” Picking up my left
hand, she examined my wedding ring, which had cost ten dol-
lars in a cut-rate jewelry store almost forty years ago. “It’s too
ix