Self-flagellation

I saw something like this in Taiwan in 1998.

I had found a nice little park not too far from where we live. I had never been there before and I really liked the way it was kept clean and tidy. It was more like a little old lady's well kept garden than a park. There was a large swinging love seat at one end and since the park was empty I took it. I rocked back and forth and read from Seven Years in Tibet as the rain dripped slowly off the tin roof overhead. After 30 minutes I left in search of a slop shop.

I found one a few blocks away and sat down inside to a meal of rice and stir-fried vegetables: leeks, cabbage, and cauliflower. Suddenly a long string of firecrackers exploded in the street outside. I jumped in my seat then quickly finished my meal. A Taoist parade of some kind was in progress outside and I wanted to get a good look. I had seen many of these before but I was newly interested in this one because of its violence. I went outside with the last piece of cauliflower still in my mouth and observed the procession from a few yards away.

One man was walking along peacefully in the middle of the hubbub when he suddenly took on a frenzied, possessed stance, then started shaking with convulsions. Three other men in yellow T-shirts and matching jackets (I called them referees in my mind) rushed over to him and helped him shed his gray tunic. One of the referees then handed Possessed Man a club with triangular razor blades embedded into the upper half of it. Possessed Man did an odd little dance with his weapon and the referees pretended to hold him back so he wouldn't assault other members of the parade. At least I think they were pretending; none of the people nearby looked the least bit nervous so I assumed it was all for show.

Behind the man (now he was walking around proudly like a cocky warrior, brandishing his club and smiling like an idiot) were four men carrying one of the gods of the procession in a small shrine the size of a large mailbox. The shrine rested on two long poles, forming a small palanquin, and each of the four men was at one end of a pole. Another referee who wore sunglasses walked around like a secret service agent, sniffing out the appropriate time and place to throw a long string of firecrackers under the palanquin, which turned out to be every two minutes or so. Whenever the firecrackers started their frenetic dance and POP! the four men carrying the palanquin would shake the shrine violently up and down, back and forth, as if they were barely in control of the tiny god inside.

Behind the palanquin marched a single file line of five possessed warriors, each with a weapon. All of them were bare from the waist up and had a patch of small white scars in the middle of their backs. Suddenly another walker started to convulse and act more or less psychotic. The lead warrior fell back to join the rear guard and the new warrior paraded in front of the small shrine. This was made to look spntaneous but every last one of the warriors had the same scars on his back, suggesting that the same men performed this same role over and over. At the end of the parade I believe there were about eight possessed warriors.

I didn't have my camera with me so I quickly rode home to get it. When I got back to the slop shop the parade was gone, but the pulpy mess of spent firecrackers left an easy trail to follow. I caught up to it as the front of the procession arrived at the destination, a small temple on a busy street. The procession moved like a long colorful slug: nice and slow and leaving a trail of itself behind.

Five large mounds of ghost money were formed in the center of the street and a referee with a small can torch lit them all in a few seconds. The warriors paraded around in the midst of the burning ghost money one by one, waving their weapons menacingly, before entering the temple. The last two warriors took quite a long time cavorting around in the burning paper, occasionally striking their backs in quick repetitive movements, drawing blood from their scarred flesh. I noticed that they let the weapons touch their skin just enough to release a trickle of blood, no more. But it looked gruesome enough: two grown men, supposedly possessed, hitting themselves in the back with clubs that were bristling with sharpened nails and razor blades.

The thing that I was not expecting at all was the fluffy ball. A referee gave the last warrior (the one that smiled constantly like a fool) a fluffy ball that was actually a sphere of nails wrapped in string. It was made so that the ball could be nailed to a surface regardless of how it was turned. The warrior now had a medieval ax and he used the flat part of the head to pound the ball lightly into his head. The ball didn't stick and fell to the ground. He picked it up and tapped it into his skull again, this time hard enough to make it stick, then walked around proudly with a nail-ball stuck in his head, a thin trickle of blood creasing his forehead. It wasn't in very deep, but I'm fairly certain that it wasn't overly relaxing either.