GL05 sample

WORLDWIDE 2005ISSUE #05$6.95

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MALAYSIA’S THAIPASAM FESTIVAL

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#16 get lost! ISSUE #05 get in the know! 50,000 Hindus make the procession up the 272 steps of the Batu Caves Temple.

get informed!

#16 get lost! ISSUE #05

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get in the know! Some Western medical authorities believe that the white ash smeared over the body helps to numb the pain of the piercings. ISSUE #05 get lost! #17

SELF-MUTILATION

Ed Waller watches Ashok the old Hindu smear a thumbful of ash on to a passing child’s forehead,smiled at me benignly and adopted a tone I imagine he uses when telling his grandchildren of thegreat Hindu sagas. “Shiva gave his sons a challenge,” he intoned. “The first to encircle the worldwould be blessed with the fruit of wisdom.”

EXTREMEtext + images: ed waller

destination: malaysia faith


#18 get lost! ISSUE #05 get in the know! Lord Murugan’s silver chariot, which leads the procession, weighs around five tonnes.

THE OLD MAN CLEARED HIS THROAT ANDglanced back at the 50,000-strongnocturnal procession escorting the statue

of Shiva’s son, Lord Muraga, to Kuala Lumpur’sBatu Caves. There a million devotees wouldcelebrate Thaipusam, a stomach-churning orgy of self-mutilation, to prove their devotion. “OffMuraga went, flying east on the back of his giantpeacock,” Ashok resumed. “Ganesh, however,merely put his four hands together and walked a circle around his father: Shiva was the world.”

Ashok stretched his tale of how rejected Murgarathen became a hermit to fill the long walk, withembellishments and rambling deviations thatalways ended with “this is a historical fact, ascertain as the birth of Christ”. So it was easy to missthe slow dawn and the fact that KL’s Chinatown hadturned into broad highways lined with residentialblocks, ugly in the dim morning light. The drummingresumed as Batu’s jagged ochre cliffs pokedthrough the flat concrete suburbia, a somewhatmundane setting for a sacred shrine.

By the river at the foot of the caves everybodywas getting their heads shaved in earnest,emulating their tempestuous god. Long lines ofpenitent Hindus queued up at makeshift barber’sstalls, where cut-throat razors danced over bowedheads. Nobody was exempt and soon my ownlocks were blowing in little circles on the ground.

One by one, the devotees began fulfilling theirvows and saffron-clad saddhus blessed them byringing a bell and lighting a spoonful of camphor.All around me, the drumming was sending

devotees into wild trances. Several women beganlolling their tongues lewdly, eyes firmly locked onthe middle-distance. Their saddhu unveiled acollection of ornate nine-inch skewers. He cleanedeach one by running it through a banana thengrasped each woman’s ash-caked tongue firmlyby its root and forced a skewer right through it.

Other devotees carried beautiful woodenstructures, supported by waist straps andshoulder pads, which towered high above theirheads. These kavadis were gilded with rows ofpeacock feathers, tinsel and images of theirfamily god. From the larger ones hung chainsthat attached to the devotee’s flesh by hooks.

In the middle of the ghat I noticed two shrines,adorned by a painful collection of chains and meathooks. A team of men unhooked the long chainsand were readying a pair of devotees. The youngerof them had on a maharajah’s turban, and awalking stick laden with bells. In his cochineal-reddened mouth were wedged four billowingcigars, and he strutted around like a parody of aBritish officer, madly tweaking his moustache.

The other devotee, with a mess of wet blacklocks, had both his tongue and cheeks skewered,and dozens of pendulous limes and bellshanging from hooks across his chest. Withhypnotic drumming and chants of “VEL, VEL”sending them into frenzies, each devotee wasattached to their shrines with meat hooksarranged in two neat lines down either side of the spine. “Their mother has recovered from her illness,” one of their team explained.

get informed!


I followed the two brothers as they draggedtheir shrines, each with a small electricitygenerator in tow, up to the cave. Their burden was made heavier after their children sat onvarious parts of the structure, causing thehooks to rip deep into the flesh. The hirsutepilgrim puffed and roared like an elephant,while his younger brother chuffed on his cigars and, at one point, ripped off his ownmoustache in fury.

Despite the self-inflicted mutilation and obviouspain, not one drop of blood came from thedevotees’ wounds. “Divine intervention,” a clean-cut Red Crescent doctor explained, as if it was a stupid question. “They enter a metaphysicalstate and Muraga comes into their bodies.”

After an excruciating climb we reached the cave.The interior was enormous, rising high into thedarkness and jammed with devotees. Black smokebillowed from braziers and a perpetual drizzle fellfrom stalactites overhead. The penitents flocked

around a small shrine in the wall at the far end,into which Muraga’s statue had been placed. Thebrothers finally received their blessings, and theyounger promptly fainted along with his wife, whilethe older one sat quietly, deep in contemplation.

Back outside it was pitch dark and a tropicalrainstorm was doing nothing to quench thecollective hysteria. I fought my way down thesteps, which were now clogged with discarded flip-flops, and re-entered the melee around the river.

It was pandemonium. Bone-chilling shrieksmerged with the screaming static from rain-soakedspeakers and megaphones. Grimacing devoteesemerged through the smoke, forcing themselvesforward but dragged back by chains hooked intothe skin on their backs. Contorted faces pierced byfour-foot tridents stared through me. I found entirefamilies rolling on their sides through fires. An oldman staggered past wearing large wooden sandalswith nails hammered up into the soles, screamingwith something other than pain with every step.

My head spinning, I forced myself through the crowds. The ground was a quagmire, withmuddy pools of milk and mountains of burningcoconuts husks. Everywhere underfoot was anendless carpet of discarded milk cartons,countless limes ripped from the backs ofdevotees and smouldering piles of black hair. The river itself had been transformed by hundreds of fires that bobbed downstream, each made up of a floating banana leaf, hair andcamphor, all representing somebody’s prayers.

Despite the self-inflicted mutilation and obvious pain, not one drop of blood came from the devotees’ wounds. “Divine intervention,” a clean-cut Red Crescent doctor explained, as if it was a stupid question.

’’

’’


Ethiopia’sget going!

#46 get lost! ISSUE #05 get in the know! The so-called Rasta colours are in fact the colours of the Ethiopian flag. Rastafarians revere Haile Selassie as a direct descendent of King Solomon.

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LalibelaCHRISTIANITY

& HISTORY

get in the know! Ethiopia is the only country in Africa never to be colonized – although the Italians did invade it. ISSUE #05 get lost! #47

BUT THEN, BEFORE I WENT TO ETHIOPIA I HADthe same jaded view of the place that mostpeople do. Band Aid might have saved a lot

of lives a bunch of years ago, but it has reallycoloured the perceptions of a whole civilisation.

“feeeed the world - do they know its Christmastime” Well yes, actually they bloody do. TheEthiopian royal family traced their lineage back to a liaison between the Queen of Sheba and KingSolomon. Hailie Selassie - the last Emperor andrevered by Rastafarians - was believed to be 155in line from this regal meeting. The first in linewas credited in some quarters as bringing backthe Ark of the Covenant from the Holy Land, toAxum in the north of the country. Ethiopia itselfadopted Christianity in the fourth century AD (as opposed to having it foisted upon them bymissionaries during the colonial scramble forAfrica in the Victorian era). So, yes, I think thatyou could safely say that they do know itsChristmas, and they probably care far more than most of the rest of us.

And there IS snow in Africa, and not just on thesummit of Mount Kilimanjaro. It gets bloody coldup in the highlands of Ethiopia as I can well vouchfor. I am freezing.

I am at Lalibela in the bleak north of thecountry. If any place sums up the multifacetedcharacter of Ethiopia, it is Lalibela. A UNESCOworld heritage site on a remote plateau,surrounded by some of the poorest people youwill ever meet – eking out a tenuous existence insome of the most remote and unfertile areas onthe planet, many of them being supported by UNfeeding programmes.

There are 11 stone carved churches here atLalibela, dating back to the reign of King Lalibelaover 800 years ago. Four are free standing, therest are cave-style – carved into rock faces.Ethiopian legend has it that the king waspoisoned, but survived the attack. In gratitude he built the churches, with the help of angels, in just one day. I made the mistake of discussingthis theory with Hailemiriam, a young studentwho guided me around the churches for a fewdays. His absolute belief in the teachings of theChristian church helped me to get amazingaccess at the various churches, but he certainlywasn’t the person to question the legend of theLalibela churches with! There are a couple ofother theories. Popular in the West is the notionthat the churches were constructed a fewhundred years earlier by Crusaders returningfrom the holy land, but the most likely is that the construction was started by King Lalibela,but finished later.

Whatever lies behind the construction, thechurches certainly are an amazing feat ofengineering. The most well known is Bet Giorgis,the House of St George, created from solid rockin the shape of a giant cross. Looking down intothe courtyard from ground level I could see thatthe builders would first have had to cut down 6metres to form the outside of the building andthe courtyard. Then they would have cut doorsand windows into the structure and hollowed itout from the inside – making sure that they leftadequate supports for heavy structure. All of thiswas done (with or without the help of angels)with just hand tools.

Now I feel that I should warn you in advance: this story is going to be about Christianity & history. If you want to turn the page now,then please do – I won’t be insulted. After all before I went to EthiopiaI probably would have done the same damn thing.

text + images: Steve Davey

destination: Ethiopia


#48 get lost! ISSUE #05 get in the know! The official language of Ethiopia is Amharic – the same one that most of the dialogue in fundamentalist Mel Gibson’s ‘The Passion of Christ’ was shot in.

get going!

We move on to the Bet Gabriel-Rufa’el (House ofArchangels) Church also known as the Palace ofKing Lalibela. I’m a little nervous here. Last time I was here about three years before I managed to get into a bit of a fight with the priest. I was onan overland tour and a few of us were walkinground. A small (and quite dirty) boy tagged alongwith us and offered to mind our shoes when wewent into the churches. He was decent enough

so I let him. It was a good arrangement until thepriest at this church slapped him round the headwithout warning telling him to get out of thechurch. I don’t like anyone slapping kids –something I managed to convey to the supposedholy man in no uncertain terms. True at that timewe also had a seemingly tame monkey thatadopted us as well, (and was marginally cleanerthan the boy) which might have sent the priest over the top. Still if he recognised me (or remembered the boy or the monkey) heseemed to think better than to mention it, and I didn’t think to bring it up.

I’m not a very good tourist. I find facts justwhistle over my head, and my eyes glaze over with too much sightseeing, but there’ssomething about Lalibela that does manage

to entrance me. The churches are undoubtedlybeautiful, which helps, but also the liberalsmattering of pilgrims mix well with the oddhermit, who sit there reading tatty bibles. Other highlights are the treasures that each priestbrings out conspiratorially at each church.Sometimes it’s an ancient bible, hand paintedonto goat skin in the old forgotten religiouslanguage of Ge’ez, or even an ancient painting of

religious icons, some five hundred years old, but with colours that are still so bright they could have been painted just yesterday.

Inside of the Bet Medhane Alem (the House ofEmmanuel), the priest shows me the cross thatwas fairly recently stolen by a tourist but laterreturned. It’s one of the most sacred treasures,said to belong to King Lalibela himself. This churchis huge. 800 square metres, and completelysupported by 72 pillars – half inside and halfoutside this great structure. Like Bet Giorgis, it was carved in one piece from solid rock and is reputed to be the largest carved monolithicstructure in the world. The inside is huge andgloomy. The priest suggests that I come back thenext day as there is some sort of festival going on.

When I do get back, the place is absolutely

packed with pilgrims. Some sit around appearing to do very little, but others are praying at thefront. The same priest from the day before bringsout the cross and is immediately mobbed bypilgrims struggling to get to kiss it. A moment of fear flickers across his place then he growlssomething in Ethiopian, and the crowd calmsslightly. He disappears down the church pursuedby his retinue of the faithful.

Outside in the overcast daylight, the courtyardof the church is also full of pilgrims. A priest isreading from a bible, but he is totally obscured bya large umbrella and his disjointed voice boomsaround the courtyard.

One of the things that I find the most evocativeabout the churches is the fact that they’re still so revered, and an active place of worship. Each has its own priest and congregation, andalthough to Westerners they are just one moresite on the UNESCO tick off list, to Ethiopiansthey’re a source of hope and comfort in theirhard lives.

On my last full day I decide to visit the AshetonMaryam Monastery. This is a two or three hourwalk up one of the mountains overlooking thetown. Yet again Hailemariam is going to be my

There is something about Lalibela that does manage toentrance me. The churches are undoubtedly beautiful, whichhelps, but also the liberal smattering of pilgrims mix well with the odd hermit, who sit there reading tatty bibles.’’

’’


get in the know! Many Ethiopian’s chew Qat – a stimulating plant that produces a mild high. ISSUE #05 get lost! #49

CHRISTIANITY& HISTORY

guide – even though, nothingpersonal, I would probably rather be on my own.

As we head out of town a bunch of touts withdonkeys try to rent us mounts for the journey. I feel guilty, but I really don’t want one. I’ve found this a real problem in Ethiopia. I feel guilty as hell turning down services I don’t want aspeople rely on the income.

The path is steep, but hell, the views arefantastic. Not for the first time I get an idea ofhow absolutely remote this place is. The altitudefeels pretty harsh up here, which is not helped by the heavy camera bag. Hailemariam offers tocarry it again, but at under half my size, I reallydon’t have the heart to let him.

After a couple of hours slog we reach a plateau. It’s windswept and barren here, but there are a number of small stone dwellings, and a patchwork of dry, pale fields covered withstones and rubble. I wonder how anyone can makeanything grow up here – but people are trying. In one of the fields a man is plowing the field, with an old wooden plough pulled by a couple ofskinny cows. It’s the sort of thing that you mightexpect to see in a museum or on the wall of acountry pub, but here it’s still in use. A young girlstands in the field in a torn dress and bright blueshoes. She’s sowing seed as he plows. They’reright on the edge of the plateau, and the groundjust drops away at the edge of the field. There is,of course, no fence or barrier.

We continue on up the hill. Another young girlappears. She has a couple of bottles of a softdrink. They’re warm, so I tell her to leave themin a trickling stream, and say that we’ll buythem on our way back down.


#96 get lost! ISSUE #05 get in the know! Elvis had a twin brother named Jesse Garon, who died at birth, which is why Elvis’ middle name was spelled Aron.

Vegas is the fastest growing city in the world and its populationincreases by 6,000 a month as

economic migrants flood in looking towork casinos in a more productive waythan just losing their life savings andheading off on the next Greyhound bus.

But unlike New York - where if you canmake it there, you can make it anywhere -you need a skill set to succeed in Vegas thatwould be pretty much redundant in anyother major city. As a result a heap ofschools have been set up for people toacquire Vegas skills. Right now in Sin Cityyou can attend classes in just aboutanything from pulling a rabbit out of a hat to pulling a g-string out of your butt with your teeth.

So I had an idea for a story: attend a few of Vegas’s more salubrious educationalestablishments, cleverly call the writeup Leaving Las Vegas and sell it for a few shekels.

Magic school and casino card dealingwere quickly dispatched on my first daywith ease but after a night spent in the hip-swiveling company of Tom Jones, the fragile state of my morning hangover was rudely pierced by the telephone. It was Erika, a lady from the tourist board who had helped me set up the lessons. ‘James, thewoman who runs the strip school’s mum has died and she has to go to LA to arrange the funeral. The stripping class is off.’

My tacky Vegas plastic cocktail cup (completewith bendy straw) suddenly went from half fullto half empty - stripping was to have been the

centrepiece of the whole feature.Erika and I convened for breakfast to try and

come up with a save-the-story plan, writing a list of typically Vegas things and trying to figure what

other schools therewere. The first word on the listwas about as far as we got: marriage.

So we called the Queen of the Las Vegas weddingscene Charolette Richards of the Little WhiteWedding Chapel. She’s the woman who marriedBritney Spears, Michael Jordan and Joan Collins - though not at the same time.

Sure she’d see me, sure she taught people how to do the ceremonies and sure I could get there inan hour. We put the phone down and Erika looked at me: ‘James. I’ve no idea what they law is but you can’t just learn how to marry someone.

You need some kind of religiousmandate.’ I couldn’t get hold of

Charolette to qualify this, so I went online. I’d read about internetordination but never knew it would be so easy. Google it and see. Withinminutes I was ordained by the ChurchOf Spiritual Humanism whosephilosophy seemed fuzzy enough to not interfere with my own: ‘SpiritualHumanism allows everyone to fusetheir individual religious practices ontothe foundation of scientific humanist

inquiry. We accept people from anyreligious background and recognize the validity of all peaceful religious

practices and behaviors.’Three hours and some instruction

later and Charolette, Elvis and myself were standing at the alter with an English

couple. They had divorced and wanted to re-marry, so we took the ceremony together.

At times, Elvis would interject with a burst ofsong, come over, hand me the mic and say: ‘Singalong with me now, Jim.’ As I’d crooned ‘Love MeTender’, I hoped I wasn’t spoiling the couple’swedding video too much.

I later found out there’s a slight hitch to my new career. In Clark County Nevada, it’s easy to get married but not easy to perform theceremony on your own. You need to have yourown congregation but the registrar at thecourthouse offered some consolation: ‘It’s OK Mr Ellis, a two-month residency will do it. And we’re not bothered how many you have in yourcongregation. As long as one of them signs a letter saying you are of upstanding moral values.’ So I may go back this year, do a bit ofdealing for eight weeks and see if the stripper will sign my reference. She owes me a favourafter all.

get answers!

They say God works in mysterious waysbut being a heathen, I wouldn’t have reallyknown - until I went to Las Vegas to become

a stripper and returned a reverend.

text: james ellis

destination: las vegas

VICARSTRIPPERCONFESSIONS OF A WRITER

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