One one things

I came across a brilliant little anecdote which i think has interesting implications for the way we tend to look at religion. It’s from an outstanding book of travel journalism called The Age of Kali by William Dalrymple which i picked up one lazy rainy sunday afternoon at Barefoot (they’ve got the best selection of books in Colombo as far as i’m concerned). I’ll put a proper review later on if time and eagerness permit.

So there’s this island somewhere between Sri Lanka and Madagasscar called Reunion (pronouced as the French would pronounce it with a little accent on the first e) and back in 1931 a box of relics arrived in the island from the Vatican. Unfortunately the label with the name of the Saint in question had been discarded somewhere along the way and all that remained was a stamp with the Italian word “Spedito”, meaning expedited. The natives, a melange (i really need to figure out how to put accents where they are due) of retired French planters, arab and chinese traders, malagasy slaves, south indian tamils and other odd odd characters, decided that label or no label they would not be deprived of their saint. And so began the cult of Saint Expedit. The Saint’s popularity grew exponentially and eventually became the unofficial patron saint of Reunion. Dalrymple reports that there are over 350 shrines on the island dedicated to St. Expedit where all of the island’s different ethnicities pay homage to the Saint. St. Expedit was personified and his image is now that of a Roman legionary with silver breastplate and red tunic. In his hand lies a spear and under his right foot he crushes a raven, supposedly symbolizing his triumph over the demons of temptation. Hindus of Reunion clothe the idol in Hindu sacred colours and treat St. Expedit as an incarnation of the God Vishnu. Hindu mothers wanting children tie saffron cloths to the grilles. For the sake of Reunion’s Hindu population one hopes they don’t sit back and wait for the baby to knock on the door in 9 months time. The descendents of the slaves take the spear and the raven to depict sacrifice and consider the Saint to be a sort of white witch doctor. In order to neutralise his power, natives often cut off the head of the Saint and use it for their own spells and what not.

The cult of St. Expedit provides a very interesting case study of the evolution of religion. We don’t often get to see a religion evolve from an objective point of view over a very short time. I think it’s quite likely that many of the world’s mainstream religions are very similar, except they evolved over a far longer time and are thus more engrained into our lives. Our understanding of religion is based on what has been passed down from generation to generation, and I imagine each new version is bastardized to some extent. What we are left with today could for all we know be miles and miles from the truth. But it seems that isn’t what is important. What is important is that religion gives ppl something to live for and to shape their lives about, it provides a degree of structure. That’s obviously what is important for the ppl in Reunion. This very day many mothers may be telling their kids that if they steal things St. Expedit will cut their hands off with his spear, just like how our parents told us that if we commit sins we’ll go to hell or be reborn as something not very nice.

Maybe a 500 years down the line ppl in Reunion will fight wars in the name of St. Expedit. Try telling them then that St. Expedit is just a clerical error. Jihaad!