Tradition · possession performance
Teyyam, north Malabar
Also known as Theyyam, Theyyattam, Kaliyattam, Teyyam — north Malabar
In the shrines and family groves of Kannur and Kasaragod, between December and April, a performer of a Dalit or other subordinate caste puts on towering headgear and painted face, and for the duration of the performance is the deity — giving oracles and blessing, and being addressed as god by the landlords who employ him.
- Function
- Arts & performance
- Confidence
- Not assessed
- Location
- 12.000, 75.350
Worth knowing
The inversion is the whole point and everybody present knows it: for a few hours a man from a caste who could not enter the house speaks as a god to the family that owns the land, and is answered. When the headgear comes off the ordinary order resumes. There are several hundred distinct teyyam figures, many of them people who were killed unjustly.
Connections (3)
- AnalogueBūta Kōla, Tulu Nadu
Teyyam in Malayalam-speaking north Malabar and būta kōla in Tulu-speaking coastal Karnataka are the same institution across a language border: a hereditary performer from a subordinate caste is possessed by a local deity, and in that state gives judgements that the landholding castes accept. Many of the deities are shared across the border under different names, and in both the performance is paid for by the very families whose authority it temporarily inverts.
- Shrine within cityRajarajeswara, Kannur
Teyyam belongs to kavus — small groves and family shrines — rather than to the large Brahminical temples of the same district, and the two systems ran side by side for centuries with different priesthoods, different deities and different castes. A temple like the Rajarajeswara at Taliparamba, with its Sanskritic ritual and restricted entry, and a teyyam grove a few kilometres away represent the two halves of north Malabar religion, and only one of them ever admitted everybody.
- AnalogueMutiyēṭṭu, central Kerala
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.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Theyyam”. Sangeet Natak Akademi documentation; UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage nomination files where the practice is listed.
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