Anti-ghost Platoon

As usual on trips so densely packed with new and exciting experiences as this, I'm falling savagely behind on my blog posts. Combine the constant onslaught of new sights and sounds with the sentiment that "I didn't fly halfway around the world to sit in an internet cafe" and you will begin to understand the backlog. I've been back in Vietnam two weeks already since Laura and I visited Angkor Wat, but I'm still blogging my way through Cambodia. Expect to be hearing about Southeast Asia for weeks after my return....

Regular readers know that I'm always interested in the supernatural interventions people across the globe choose to put their faith in. My sister-in-law, Melanie, is a foremost world expert in South Indian techniques for avoiding the "evil-eye," and I share her fascination for these sorts of vernacular expressions of superstition, magic and belief. The sociology of the ways in which talismans, amulets, altars, shrines and so on are manifested across the globe is often obscure, but in Cambodia, driving in the countryside, we again and again encountered houses protected by "scare-ghosts," whose genesis and form seems to make obvious sense in the wake of the Cambodian genocide. There is scarcely anything metaphorical about them.

Invariably constructed at the gateway to the front yard, the Cambodian anti-ghost version of a scarecrow is impressively humanoid. An old shirt, torn trousers and some sort of head are usually enough to construct one, but these protectors, stand-ins for an armed guard at the doorway, often have an evident militaristic aspect. They often sport bits of old military uniform, and sometimes a weapon.

Our Tuk-tuk driver, the incomparable Mr. Boret (well, we considered him incomparable until he stood us up the next day when we had scheduled a ride to the airport) explained that these "puppets" (a loaded word in and of itself in Southeast Asia, as it historically described local collaborators with the Imperialist Yanqui) are placed in front of homes to protect against ghosts, who come at night and take people away. Cambodia, obviously has many of them.

The Little Gaucho

Driving through the Argentine pampas it is not uncommon to come upon a collection of tattered red flags flapping beside a grove of shrubs on a remote stretch of road. Heralding a miniature building, like a brick doghouse painted bright red, I imagined the first one I saw to be a roadside memorial of the sort commonly found throughout latin america wherever a loved one has perished in an automobile accident. After I saw two or three, however, all flying flags and crimson red in every particular, I knew greater forces must be at work. I'm a sucker for all that voodoo business, so I pulled the car over, a reluctant churchgoer looking over my shoulder up the highway to see who might be driving up behind.

The red shrines are in honor of a home-grown deity or fetish named Gauchito Gil, or, to be more specific, Gauchito A. Gil, for Gauchito Antonio. As at santeria shrines and many catholic holy sites, the faithful post their thank-yous for the joys, successes and worldly goods bestowed upon them. "Thanks for protecting us, and for completing our wishes," reads one. "Thank you, Gauchito!," reads another "since it is because you went before God as an intermediary that I have my son."



Gauchito is typically represented by a small ceramic figurine, not on a crucifix, but standing in front of one. He is moustached, and his long black hair is held in place by a red headband. Wikipedia has one version with the specifics of his legend but the important thing is that Gauchito is a guy we can all talk to, have a drink with and get down to business with in the here and now. God is so very far away, so remote and so abstract, whereas Gauchito is right there, beside the very road we are travelling on. Gauchito means "little gaucho," so his persona includes the very essence of Argentine beef-herding identity, further underlining that he is a local representative of the divine.



What appeals to me about these roadside altars is that they are a collaborative folk art project, each visitor adding to the aura and mystery with a dollop of candle wax, a hubcap or a stretch of ribbon, a disused coke-bottle filled with perfume. Over time they become complex authorless installations representing the aspirations and desires of countless travellers. Jumbled together in this miniature red world are a crucifix welded out of rebar, plaques engraved by village snake-oil salesman, a hasty graffiti-like thank you scrawled on a shard of tile, a pot full of flowers and countless other windblown artifacts signifying secret personal promises and covenants. Despite its dangers, faith is a beautiful thing to see.