Pongal Rite in Martinique
Pongal or Pongol, Tamul harvest festival.
I had the chance and honor to be invited in January to the Pongal ceremony, a harvest festival from Tamil Nadu in India. It is one of the most important celebrations, named after the dish of boiled rice cooked to overflowing on the fire. Their ancestors came from rural communities where animal sacrifices were practiced, this tradition has continued here among Indo-descendants even though it was banned in India since 1947. With Divali, the festival of lights, these are the two most celebrated Hindu festivals in the Caribbean.
Various offering
A unique form of Hinduism
However, just like its followers, Hinduism has become "creolized", all the offerings come from Martinique: rum and local lemonade, bananas, sugar cane and many others. The chickens used for the sacrifices are then served in colombo, an iconic West Indian dish, originating from Sri Lanka and adapted to the spices found locally, adding Indian wood, turmeric and many others.
Floral ornaments are of great importance
Part of the West Indies legacy
It is not the first thing that comes to mind when one speaks of Martinique or the West Indies, and yet it is one of the oldest communities on the island. It has had a significant impact on the identity of the region, as evidenced by the colombo or madras, a fabric from the city of the same name in India, now called Chennai, which is today the traditional fabric par excellence of Creole dress.
Of course they brought with them a number of garments, jewelry, spices and traditions that have had a lasting influence on society and the construction of a Martinican identity. Today, the Indian community is experiencing a renewed interest from the public but also from the Indo-descendants themselves. Today, this community still keeps alive the Hindu rites and honors the memory of their ancestors for 167 years. But how did they get to the other side of the world?
Hindu priest leading the ceremony
The long journey and struggle of their ancestors
After the abolition of slavery in 1848, former slaves deserted the plantations, refusing to work for those who had exploited them. A labor shortage ensued, which the government attempted to fill through immigration. At first, 10,000 indentured workers came from the Congo, but the working conditions and the origin of the indentured workers were too reminiscent of slavery, which shocked public opinion. One thousand workers from Canton, China, were brought to Martinique, but they left the fields for other activities. France turned to India, following the example of the British who sent Indian workers to the British Empire (Fiji, Jamaica, South Africa...).
Five-year contracts are planned with repatriation at the end and guarantees on working conditions. Unfortunately, the reality is quite different with Indians sometimes taken by force in boats, who live in the huts of former slaves and who are deceived by the owners who do not pay them and sometimes indebt them to force them to stay. Despite some exceptions, the tensions sometimes lead to arson by the indentured servants who can no longer bear their inhumane working conditions. The figures speak for themselves: when immigration stopped in 1884, of the 25,509 migrants, 11,944 died and 4,260 returned.
Some participants in the ceremony
Rejected by all, today inseparable from the Caribbean
Nicknamed "Coolies", they experience a difficult integration. Although the majority were Tamils, the Indian indentured servicemen did not speak the same language among themselves and even less French or Creole. The big landowners see them as inferior because of their skin color while the church considers them as pagans to convert. Finally, part of the rest of the population accused them (wrongly) of stealing their work and of driving down wages. Children born in the area were not entitled to French nationality but lost their British citizenship and became full citizens in 1922 thanks to the efforts of Henri Sidambarom in Guadeloupe and Eugène Govindin in Martinique. Over time this community integrated with the rest of the population, without losing their cultures.
Today the situation seems to have calmed down and the recognition of its contribution to the history of France is done timidly, as shown by the laying of a stele last January 15 in Sainte Marie in honor of the first Tamil engager, or the official visit of the ambassador of India in France, received by the City of Saint-Pierre March 2, 2016. Trips are also organized from India to Martinique and vice versa, to help the spiritual and cultural reconnection between the subcontinent and its diaspora.