Tradition · ritual dance drama

Mutiyēṭṭu, central Kerala

Also known as Mudiyettu, Mutiyettu, Kalamezhuthu, Mutiyēṭṭu — central Kerala

Function

Arts & performance

Confidence

Not assessed

Location

10.080, 76.350

Worth knowing

The kalam — the powder drawing — is destroyed as part of the performance, not after it: the dancer wipes it out with his own feet and body as the possession takes hold. Making a large image in order to erase it is common to several Kerala forms and is the opposite of what a temple mural is for.

Connections (3)

• AnalogueTeyyam, north Malabar

  Central Kerala's mudiyettu and north Malabar's teyyam are both goddess possession performances in temple compounds, but they divide on a sharp line. In mudiyettu the performer is usually a Kuruppu or Marar of a service caste and the Kali drama follows a fixed narrative; in teyyam the performer is generally from a lower caste still, the deity speaks freely to the audience, and the oracle rather than the story is the point of the night.

• Patronage networkThrissur / Vadakkunnathan

  Mutiyēṭṭu is performed in Bhagavati temples across the Muvattupuzha and Periyar country, and central Kerala's ritual year runs on these temple festivals — Thrissur's Pooram is the largest and most secular-looking of them, but the same organisation of families, hereditary rights and temple committees produces both. The performers of mutiyēṭṭu are Kuruppu and Marar service castes with inherited rights to the role, and those rights are property in the legal sense.

• Site withinKochi

  Mutiyēṭṭu, central Kerala lies within Kochi — the two sites sit about 19 km apart, well inside the city's historical boundary and part of the same urban or peri-urban landscape. Mutiyēṭṭu, central Kerala is one of the specific sites that give Kochi its layered character, and reads differently when seen as a stop within the larger city rather than as an isolated monument on an open map. The surrounding neighbourhoods, roads and other heritage ensembles belong to the same single urban fabric.

On these journeys

• Possession, mask and shadow — the ritual theatres

Sources

Wikipedia, “Mudiyettu”. Sangeet Natak Akademi documentation; UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage nomination files where the practice is listed.

• Wikipedia — Mudiyettu