Teyyam
Teyyam ( Malayalam ), also Theyyam, Teyyāṭṭam or Kāḷiyāṭṭam, is a Hindu ritual theater that is performed in the north of the southern Indian state of Kerala on the site of a small village temple, at a makeshift shrine or in private cult rooms. Through costumes, make-up, accompanying drum music and the singing of sacred verses, the low- caste actors get into a state of obsession in which they embody a deity (also Teyyam ). The word teyyam is derived from Sanskrit deva ("god") and daivam ("lower deity", also "fate"). With the word component āṭṭam ("dance") teyyāṭṭam means "dance for the gods". Kali in her form as Bhadrakali is the most revered goddess in Kerala. A total of 400 male and female deities, spirits, mythical ancestors and personified animals are treated with rituals.
Teyyattam belongs to the very old tradition of the Bhuta cult, in which a possessive malevolent spirit is evoked and appeased until, in the end, transformed into a protective power, it blesses the believers. Bhuta-, Teyyam- and similar rituals are based on the concept that a personified higher power manifests itself through appropriate preparations in a dancing actor and raises him to the status of the respective deity for the duration of the ritual.
Teyyam rituals take place every year from November to June with the involvement of the entire community as lavishly celebrated public festivities or are carried out in a small private setting to fulfill a vow.
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origin
The area in which Teyyattam, the Bhuta cult ( Bhuta kola ), Epic of Siri and similar rituals such Tira ( Thira ) Padayani and Putan are common, the northern part of Kerala and comprising Tulu -sprachige region of northern adjacent state Karnataka along the Malabar Coast including the mountainous hinterland of Kodagu . Teyattam is listed in Kerala in the districts of Kozhikode , Kannur and Wayanad , the district of Kasaragod is a center for both Bhuta kola and Teyyam. The names of some spirits and deities appear here as there, otherwise Bhuta kola and Teyyam differ considerably in the performance practice.
The powers revered in Teyyam include the spirit souls of people who died unnaturally, i.e. by accident, murder or suicide, who could not be buried according to the regulations, mythical heroes and deified ancestors, animals, natural forces and protective deities of villages ( Sanskrit Gramadevata ). The teyyams are divided into male and female as well as into the categories mentioned. In the course of time, a large part of the adorable and feared otherworldly forces found their way into the Teyyam cult, where they are influenced by appropriate rituals and are supposed to work for the good of the community within the popular belief.
According to the 17th century Sanskrit chronicle Keralotpatti , the most important source of the medieval history of Kerala, the mythological Brahmana Parashurama , the sixth avatar of the god Vishnu , is said to have introduced Teyyam along with other ritual events. According to this original legend, the oldest social groups that held Teyyam were the Panan, Velan and Vannan (Peruvannan). The Velan are still among the Teyyam dancers today, their name appears for the first time in the Old Tamil Sangam literature , the oldest known literature outside of the classical Sanskrit tradition (covers about the first five centuries before and after Christianity). It contains references to religious cults in which obsession with a deity plays a role. The ritual practice of the South Indian Sangam culture included the veneration of deified ancestors and war heroes, for whom stone marks ( natukal s) were erected. At certain time intervals, a ritual was held in front of an altar, in which the deity embodied himself in an oracle dancer, from whose mouth the deity prophesied. The salutation for such a ritual dancer was Velan . It is mentioned that a Velan was commissioned by several mothers to cast out the evil spirits from their lovesick daughters. Today's Panar musician caste, which is concerned with exorcism, was a group of song singers in ancient times. The old Tamil Velan made a floor picture ( kalam ) and sacrificed a goat in front of it in order to get rid of the spirits with the help of the invoked god Murugan . The ritual ended with a dance known as Velan Veriyattal , in which Velan carried a spear in his hand and predicted a happy future for every girl.
In the Kurundogai , a work of the classical Tamil literature, it is stated that Velan addressed several gods by name in a song called tottam . According to another sangam work, Agananuru , the dancer wore a high headdress, in other writings further details about the performance and the venues in the present region are mentioned. Next to the organized by the lower strata of society - these are from the first five centuries AD derived basic structures work -.. With similar religious content Bhuta kola also and Theyyam Ayyappan tiyatta and other ritual theater, relevant only from the normally for the temple service Brahmins are performed allowed to. If one compares the orally transmitted literature, the ritual tradition of certain gods and the distribution of their temples, Teyyattam should have existed since around the 15th century.
In addition to popular religious ideas, Teyyam was influenced by the Brahmanic tradition. This includes the worship of feminine power in Shaktism and Shivaism , which has incorporated numerous folk deities and spirits around Shiva . From Vishnuism comes the Teyyam called Vishnumurti , in which Vishnu manifests himself as the man-lion Narasimha . The Islamic myth tradition also found its way into the Teyyam in the form of the Muslim magician Ali. He once saw a beautiful girl bathing in a temple pond and tried by force to pursue him. However, the girl was the goddess Bhagavati personally and drowned him. After his death, Ali became a spirit in the Bhuta cult and in a teyyam in which the goddess appears as Alichamundi . Ali wears Muslim clothing with a Turkish cap and a lungi ( wrap skirt ).
In the north of Kerala, the Kollatiri family ruled over the largely independent kingdom of Kolathunadu , which had been largely independent since the 12th century and which continued to exist through tribute payments during the British colonial era . The Kollatiris worshiped their own clan deity together with other local patron gods at their family temple with a large teyattam, at the same time they appeared as patrons of numerous Brahmin temples in their sphere of influence. In addition to the main temple, the governors of the Kollatiri Rajas maintained their own shrines for their family and other deities in their places. The calendar days for the teyattams organized at these shrines all over northern Kerala were centrally set by ordinances across caste boundaries.
Performance practice
Hindu rituals are related to the social hierarchy, i.e. to caste, gender and economic status. The hierarchical order is based on the terms purity and impurity, according to which the social groups are divided into a top and bottom, separated from each other and isolated. Rituals in Kerala differ, on the one hand, into those that are only performed by Brahmins and their associated high castes; lower castes have limited access to them, non-Hindus no access. Teyyam belongs to the second group of rituals performed by individual lower ethnic groups. The faithful spectators and supporters come from the entire population of the respective area, including Brahmins. The ritual dancers belong to the lowest Jatis (caste groups) and to the Dalits , ( scheduled castes and scheduled tribes ) of the Vannan, Malayan, also the Velan, Panan, Munnuttan, Mavilan, Anjuttan, and others, some of which were formerly known as avarna (Sanskrit, outside the caste system ). The organizers of the large festive events come from the upper castes; in the past, the supreme leader was the regional landowner ( naduvazhi ) or ruler ( tampuran ). There are also astrologers, umbrella makers, washerwomen, blacksmiths and carpenters who bring firewood, as well as goldsmiths who are responsible for cleaning the ritual tools and weapons. Muslims ( mopillas ) are responsible for the procurement of fireworks, members from a large number of regional castes are entrusted with tasks.
Occasion and place
The ritual takes place in special places where the deity resides and where she unfolds her power. This can be a wooden platform built especially for the occasion, a makeshift building, an elaborately and colorfully designed shrine ( kottam ) outside a village or a room in a private building. Only urban brahmin temples are out of the question as a performance location. The temporary place of worship ( pati ) can consist of a wooden frame covered with dry coconut palm leaves or a platform on which an oil lamp ( deepam ) and the attributes (weapons, ayutham ) of the teyyam are placed. Usually the permanent shrine is surrounded by a sacred grove ( kavu ), which is protected from human interference as the home of deities. In Kerala the castes of the Nambudiri and the Nayar (Nair) worship the goddess Durga and the underworld snakes ( Nagas ) as protective powers of their household. Traditionally, every family has such a spot on their land with some trees and dense undergrowth, in which, for fear of the wrath of the gods, no firewood is collected and which may not be used for other purposes. The kavu represent an essential part of religious worship in Kerala. The widespread kavu snake cult nagakalam is practiced by the Pulluvan community with a floor painting ( kalam ) and chants accompanied by the single-stringed fiddle pulluvan vina , the plucking drum pulluvan kudam and the small pair of elathalam .
Each shrine has its own story, which explains its spiritual meaning and influence on the Teyyam ritual. If a family member dies unexpectedly, becomes seriously ill or an infectious disease breaks out in the village, an astrologer is often asked to find the cause. He usually concludes that an abandoned spirit ( bhuta ) or an angry patron deity in his shrine requires attention and satisfaction in the form of a simple private ritual or an elaborate public ritual. A teyyam ritual can also be performed for ancestor worship inside a house. Suitable rooms are a palliyara , that is the royal bedchamber ( palli- , "royal") in the palace, the simple stables ( kottil ) of a homestead or a kalari, as a traditional school (also sports arena, martial arts arena, practice area for dances) is called .
The typical village temple of a lower caste consists of a courtyard surrounded by a laterite wall, on which one or more wooden shrines are distributed, which are protected by a sweeping tiled hipped roof. Several brightly painted wooden figures of gods lean in front of the entrance, inside there is space for the statue of one, sometimes several teyyams. The image of the deity can simply consist of a metal mirror or a sword on a wooden chair or platform. Less important deities are assigned an altar made of stone or laterite at an external point on the site. A priest performs rituals every few days or every two months, otherwise most of the shrines are only brought to life for the Teyyam festivals.
The performance of a teyyam takes 12 to 24 hours with breaks. During a large teyyattam, which lasts two to five days, a large market is set up in the square in front of the temple or shrine with food stalls, tea shops, souvenirs and housewares. Vendors push handcarts with the same items around between the stands. The preparations for the festival include thorough cleaning of the temple grounds. Young men from the surrounding villages bring cow dung, which is mixed with water and spread on the ground. Then temple priests paint the floor with colorful patterns. Neon lights are hung to light up the square; Loudspeakers installed outside and an amplifier system are used to play catchy religious songs or Bollywood film music between the individual program items.
There is no special stage or backdrop for the dance ritual, it takes place in front of the shrine in the open air, while the audience stands in the vicinity or takes a seat somewhere. The audience is distributed according to their caste hierarchy. The brahmins position themselves furthest away, since the actors belong to the "unclean" castes. For the Nayar, who are only slightly below the Brahmins, there is a roofed and slightly elevated space closer to the place where the action takes place; a similar roof further ahead is intended for the Maniyani. Tiyyas, the "owners" (administrators) of the shrine, are in the shrine, while the dancers' castes below them, the Vannan, Malayan, Kopalan and Velan, are in the back of the area. Women are generally considered ritually unclean and usually do not have access to the shrine grounds. Should an unauthorized person enter the shrine, an expensive purification ceremony may be required to restore its former spiritual meaning.
The big festive events are held annually at a certain time. Although donations are collected, the costs for the organization can still be considerable, since with some the tradition requires that the entire congregation of believers must be fed over several days. Depending on the financial assets of a village, some teyattams can only take place every two or five years.
There is a tendency to use such performances, the entertaining parts of which, according to conventional ideas, ultimately only serve the goal of serving the protective deity and ultimately to give the believers the blessing of this deity, for economic and political purposes. Teyyattams have already been staged as entertainment dances on the occasion of Kerala Tourist Week and other government-organized tourist programs. Teyyam dancers performed at the opening ceremonies of the Asian Games in New Delhi in 1982 . In 1981 the Kerala Communist Party held a campaign rally in a village where political speeches were followed by teyyam dances. It should be made clear to those present that Teyyam functions as pure entertainment and that the dancer does not embody a deity, but rather pursues paid work in the capitalist sense. At the end of the event, the audience walked past the dancer in the usual gesture of religious veneration and donated money, but without receiving his blessing.
The instrumentalization of the Bhuta cult by landowners during the land reform in the 1970s belongs in this context. It was typical of the feudal rule that landowners organized elaborate rituals for the village population in order to demonstrate the religious power of the Bhuta to the population and thus secure their own social power structures. During this time there were large landowners who used religious ceremonies purposefully in order to dissuade the population from their demand for land reforms and to persuade them to continue to provide labor services in the fields.
In addition, private Teyyam performances are carried out on a small scale, which function as the fulfillment of a vow after the deity had wishes come true beforehand. The desire to have children, the desire for healthy offspring or a certain job are generally top priorities. A man healed from leprosy had a shrine built and decreed that Teyyam should be performed there annually.
The third occasion for a teyyam performance is called otta kolam . The entire village community acts as an organizer to thank the patron deity. This happens either at regular intervals of a few years or after the village has been hit by a disaster such as an epidemic.
procedure
The main character is called kolakarran , "the man who takes the form of a deity", composed of kolam , "image", "image" (the deity) and karran , "man". One of his preparations is that he obey some dietary and other precepts: between one and 14 days in advance he should be vegetarian and celibate, necessary privations that indicate a Buddhist and Jainist influence on Teyyam. On the day of the performance, the shrine is decorated with banana leaves, flowers, and coconuts. The village population has dressed up for the occasion when the ritual begins in the morning. The process after the cleansing rituals have been completed is roughly divided into six program items:
- The performer meditates in the locker room ( aniyara ), where he and his assistants may sing religious songs ( aniyara-tottam s).
- Beginning ( thudangal ): The actor walks in front of the shrine with a simple costume that is roughly the same for all deities, with little or no make-up, where he begins the invocation ( vara-vili ). He addresses the deity as "you". After receiving additional parts of the costume, the actor performs some ballads with historical tales from the life of the deity ( tottam ). He is now talking about her in the third person.
- The performer receives the entire costume and headdress ( oliyuduppu ). In the obsession dance he embodies the deity ( teyyam ).
- While he still embodies the Teyyam, he recites further stories about him in the first person ( mumbasthanam ).
- The actor questions those present and gives them the blessing.
- He takes off his crown ( mutiyettukal ) in front of the shrine and ends the ritual.
Depending on the performance tradition and the depicted deity, there are certain deviations from this structure; the sequence remains that the actor initially speaks about the deity as a narrator until he appears as the deity in person after the transformation. Each day of a festival lasting several days is dedicated to a different deity and follows this scheme. In between there are other rites where priests ensure that the divine energy is retained or recharged. Other temple workers interact with believers in different ways.
Before the actor starts singing the invocation songs ( tottam , from thondruka , "created"), he receives the following gifts ( kodiyila ) from the priest in the shrine : first a folded banana leaf with sandalwood paste and a ritual vessel ( kindi ) with water, with which the dancer splattered. Then he receives a second banana leaf containing rice, betel leaves , betel nuts and five burning lamp wicks (torches, vilakku thiri ). He throws a few grains of rice into the shrine, over his head and in his mouth, brings the flames to his face three times, and inhales the smoke. He now brings the second packet of leaves to the sacrificial altar near the shrine. The altar is called kalasa-tara , named after kalasam , the toddy pot. The alcoholic drink is later carried around in procession by a special priest from the toddy tappers ( tiyya ) group together with the teyyam . Alcohol and blood are among the substances that the lower caste believes in consumption are associated with physical exercise. The five burning wicks represent the fivefold breath of life ( prana ) or, according to another statement, the five elements air, fire, sky, water and earth. They transmit energy for divine transformation in the same way as other actions.
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At tottam, some teyyams limit themselves to invocation songs and dispense with tales of the gods, with others the narrative ballads ( tottam pattu ) can last several hours. The first part of the tottam is the spoken invocation , called vara-vili (from vara , “prayer”, “call” and vili , “coming”). It corresponds roughly to the invocation ( avahana ) with which the everyday puja (religious honor) begins. This is intended to invite the deity to meet at the chair in front of the shrine on which her holy sword lies, and to enjoy the songs of praise sung below. Later an oracle dancer ( veliccappad ) will hand over the sword of the deity to the teyyam dancer. The songs sung in Malayalam are part of the folk tradition and are not assigned to any author, some teyyams also perform Sanskrit verses from the great Indian epics. The singer himself plays the double-headed cylinder drum chenda and is accompanied by several drummers who play veeku chenda (the same type of instrument for the basic rhythms). The musicians emphasize each verse with drum rolls and join the choir, towards the end of the tottam the rhythm becomes significantly faster and louder. Usually the same tottam pattu s with slight variations are used to greet different teyyams by name. Instead of the chenda , the simpler cylinder drum thudi , played only by members of the tribe, is occasionally used, other musical instruments that can be played during the event are cymbals , the pair cymbal elathalam, the snail's horn shanku , the hourglass drum idakka ( udukku ), the gong cher- mangalam and the double reed instrument kuzhal .
After this introduction, the performer withdraws to the preparation room, where he is made up for the transformation into a teyyam. There, under a series of ceremonial accessories, he finds several bags with brightly colored powdered paint, which he now mixes into pastes with which he makes up his face. While outwardly transforming himself into the role of Teyyam through costume and make-up, he recites sacred syllables ( mantras ), the magical content of which he breathes into the color mixes in a literal sense, until he applies the deity to his face with a full-surface application of paint wrote. An assistant helps him with the painting, which must be done very carefully and takes at least two hours, as each line has a symbolic meaning.
Meanwhile, other helpers prepare the costume ( kolam ), which has to be made anew each time . It consists mainly of vegetable materials and fabrics in bright red colors. The external transformation is completed by a tower-high wooden headdress (crown) with the face of the deity. Then the actor resembles the small colorful wooden figures that represent the different deities on the shrines.
As soon as the performer in the Tempelhof has been equipped with the entire costume, the drums herald the beginning of the invocation and transformation ritual and he is led to the entrance of the shrine, where he stands on the step ( nada ) in front of the figure of the main deity in the mutiyettu ceremony the headdress ( oliyuduppu ) is put on. By this time, one or more priests ( parikarmi ) have ritually cleaned the shrine ( kottam ) and made offerings (coconuts, fruits, water, flowers) together with oil lamps ( deepam ) and above all a clay or bronze pot ( kalasam ), the Contains freshly made toddy , arranged on the altar. The actor exudes a majestic dignity, he looks into a mirror held ready to make sure of his transformation, assistants check his costume again. Make-up and headdress are indispensable means, with the help of which the divine energy passes into the performer during the long process of transformation.
The following divine dance begins a second time with the spoken invocation vara-vili . The priest throws holy rice, which was kept ready next to an oil lamp at the shrine, at the actor, who is supposed to absorb even more divine energy. Only slowly does the actor move his legs and dance with measured steps until gradually the deity or the deified spirit takes possession of him. He uses various rhythmic dance choreographies. The movements become wilder and spread over the entire body. In the courtyard in front of the shrine, the dancer, who is no longer a performer but the main mythological figure, performs the dramatic plot to the victorious conclusion; Loudly accompanied by the entire orchestra. With his weapons, a shield ( churika ) and a sword ( kadthala ) he walks around the shrine (another prop can be an umbrella, olakkuda ). As a gesture of blessing, he distributes uncooked rice to the believers crowding around him, who place the grains of rice on their heads or eat them.
The deity now stands in front of the shrine and addresses the supporters and believers. The first-person narrator gives a monologue in which he reports further historical events from the life of the deity and where shrines have been set up in her honor. He then overwhelms those present with accusing questions and asks individual believers to know whether they are properly worshiping him and always making sacrifices for him. He welcomes every single caste and especially important members with their official titles according to their hierarchical position. He shouldn't make a mistake. His divine fortune-telling abilities allow him to act as a mediator for social problems and disputes that have arisen in dealings between members of different castes or between the organizers of the temple festival. At this point, the religious drama can possibly become a real social drama. As thanks, the deity receives offerings and gifts of money from the believers who have picked up their blessings in the form of a small leaf containing turmeric . Believers rub this auspicious powder on their foreheads.
Depending on the type of teyyam, the dancer also leads a procession that runs around the temple grounds or through the nearby village to visit other shrines. After returning to the toddy altar, the dancer deity may oversee the sacrifice ( kuruti ) of a chicken. This blood sacrifice is addressed to the deity or to the multitude of spirit beings around them. At shrines, whose religious tradition is more strongly influenced by Brahmanic or Buddhist-Jainist influences, the slaughter of chickens does not take place on the temple square, but on its outer wall.
The sixth part of the program, in which the divine power must be returned in a regulated manner, concludes the ritual. In front of the shrine, the dancer takes his crown off his head, puts down his weapons, throws rice in the direction of the holy chair and bows respectfully to those present. The mood becomes cheerful and relaxed when assistants help him take off his costume. The musicians and the other contributors pack their utensils together, collect the offerings, unless they have previously been distributed as holy food ( prasadam ) to the believers and, after the patron has paid everyone his wages, mingle with those at the sales booths present spectators.
Mythology of the Teyyams
Teyyams born from mythical heroes
Traditionally, every extended family ( tharavadu ), which as a social group formed a fiscal unit until the beginning of the 20th century and had its own land, worships one or more teyyams as their patron deity and organizes rituals for them. The origins and character traits of the several hundred Theyyams (there are over 400 on one list) are rooted in the history of Kerala and the social situation of the people who worship them. The historical ancestors of those living at the bottom of society were once victims of oppression, then the ancestors were proclaimed mythical heroes who fought valiantly against injustice, and eventually elevated to teyyams. Certain Teyyams are now fighting the mythical great battle between good and evil against social discrimination. This group of teyyams includes:
Pottan Teyyam
The story of Pottan Teyyam , which is particularly popular with the Nambiar , is about the contrast between ritual purity and impurity. The brahmin scholar Shankaracharya , who is about to reach the highest consciousness, sarvajnapeedam (throne of omniscience), once met a Pulayan, a man from an impure caste ( Dalit ) along with his wife and children. Instead of avoiding the Brahmin, the Pulayan challenges him to a dispute, in the course of which the Pulayan convinces the scholar that all people are equal and should not be divided into an above and below. Shankaracharya realizes his error and asks the common man for forgiveness. Behind this man is actually Shiva, who has come in disguise to test the wisdom of Shankaracharya, his wife is Pulachamundi, behind whom Shiva's wife Parvati is hiding . The mythical story contrasts social reality with a “universal truth” in dialogue form.
Chonnamma
Chonnamma is the name of the daughter of a Brahmin family, brought up according to the class tradition , who refuses to observe the commandments of purity and impurity. She is punished for this and then leaves the parental home. What is unusual about the story is that the daughter was born to a couple named Kuravan and Kurathi, who were both untouchables and sold the child to the Brahmins. The moral statement that disregarding the rules leads to punishment is opposed to the mendacity of the brahmin family, who disregard the commandment for their own benefit and thus reduce it to absurdity.
Iyepalliteyyam
A Brahmin had members of the Pulaya tribe work all of his fields. A Pulaya boy who worked for him was called Pithari. One day Raja Kolattiri of the Kolathunadu Kingdom came by while the boy was playing. Because he did not keep the necessary distance from the king, he shot him and the brahmin at the same time. Because of the unjustified action, the king had to endure a few blows of fate, from which he was only able to free himself when he began to worship the boy as Iyepalliteyyam . The subject is the arbitrariness and the threat to which the common people are exposed by the powerful.
Makkapothi
Makkapothi is about family quarrels. The housewife Makkam lives with two children, her brothers and their wives. The other women are jealous of the housewife and accuse her of having an improper relationship with a man who often comes by and sells coconut oil. Without asking any further questions, on hearing this, the brothers murder their innocent sister and her children. Makkam and her children become teyyams.
Muchilottu bagavathi
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It is about the experience that women are oppressed and badly treated by men; especially women who want to achieve the same status as men experience this. The story of Muchilottu bagavathi , a talented girl who is superior to men in technical discussions, is exemplary . With an intrigue they manage to expose the girl. When the men asked what the noblest of the nine classic emotional moods ( nava rasas ) was, she replied kama rasam , meaning enjoyment of love. The girl had thus fallen into the trap that had been set up, because the men pressed her with the accusation that since she knew such things, she must therefore have had forbidden premarital relationships. The girl was forced to leave town; she later committed suicide by getting burned. Posterity made her Teyyam.
Pulimaranja thondachan
The tragic story of a Pulavan named Kari also begins with the injustice that a member of a lower caste should not learn anything. The boy was very inquisitive and especially wanted to learn the physical exercises kalari vidiya (this includes the martial art kalarippayat ), which he only succeeded in hiding his origins. He even learned the art of metamorphosis and became a well-known magician who was honored as kurikkal (equivalent to a guru ). His reputation reached the king, who suffered from a mental illness. Kari Kurikkal managed to cure the king, but instead of being rewarded, he was asked to teach a leopard's milk and hair. For this, the magician had to transform into a leopard. When he had succeeded in doing this and left what was required in the palace, he returned in his leopard form to his wife, who was supposed to transform her husband back, but did not recognize him and refused to open the door. The leopard went mad, broke in and killed her. This made the king mad and Kari a teyyam.
Muthappan Teyyam
The regional patron god of the lower castes, Muthappan (Muttapan), has grown into a more important role in the course of time, in which he now combines aspects of Shiva and Vishnu in the Kannur district. The religious integration from outside of society into the Brahmin order is vividly expressed in the moral narrative of Muthappan's origins and adolescence. Padikutti Amma, a simple woman who has remained childless until now, is bathing in a holy bathing place one day when she hears a child screaming in the forest. The family takes the boy in and looks after him as if it were their own offspring. As the boy grows up, he begins to fall out of his proper role by not stopping to eat meat and fish and to drink toddy even after long admonitions. The family doesn't know what to do other than to expel him from their village community ( illam ). When a palm tap named Chandan warns the bad boy to shoot him with a bow and arrow from the palm tree he climbed to drink toddy, the supernatural boy turns the man into a rock. Chandan's wife promises religious sacrifices and gives the boy the name Muthappan, whereupon her husband returns to life and the mighty Muthappan has been worshiped ever since. Another teyyam is dedicated to Padikutti Amma, who was subsequently elevated to the status of a deity.
Muthappan's headdress is shaped like a buffalo horn. His constant companion is a dog.
Kandanar Kelan
The farmer Kandanar Kelan becomes a hero because of his unfortunate death. When he starts a fire in the bush to gain new farmland, the fire gets out of hand. Kelan is bitten to death by a snake, both of them die surrounded by fire. Later, the hunter Vayanatt Kulavan comes into the forest, touches Kelan's burned body with his bow and brings him back to life. The two become friends and Kelan is henceforth worshiped as a deity. Before the performance of this play, hunters go into the forest, kill game, which they cook over a fire and ritually eat.
The performance of this teyyam includes both elements of death. The performer is painted with two coiled snakes on his torso and has to go through a fire.
More teyyams made from heroes
A great number of teyyams in the manner of these examples have arisen through apotheosis from what is believed to be historical human figures who died violently. The deified powers have taken over the character traits from the narrative tradition of the former humans unchanged. This is based on the notion that the human world is permeated and influenced by otherworldly powers. The narratives assign the Teyyams to the entire range of social ranks. This ranges from the way of life of the Teyyams, which only occur in a certain caste or family environment, to local rulers and warlords, to the patron deity of the Kolattiri family, who destroyed an evil demon and thus saved the kingdom.
Teyyams of divine origin
The second group consists of Teyyams, who have always been divine beings and represent forms of the powerful Hindu gods from the myths of the Puranas . They too stand parallel to the human world in a social hierarchy and carry out conflicts, spread fear and exercise violence, all of which has to do with the same differences in power, status and the degree of ritual purity. Most teyyams are addressed using the general term for God, Bhagavati , some others as Chamundi .
Kundora Chamundi
Kundora Chamundi (corresponds to Bhadra kali ) is, according to the Kerala version of the myth, originally a terrifying deity created by Shiva for the purpose of defeating the demon ( Asura ) Darikan. In a successful fight against Darikan, she caused a bloodbath that made her unclean. Shiva did not want to tolerate her near him in this state and sent her on a journey to various holy bathing places ( tirtha ) in order to ritually purify herself there. Instead of achieving the liberating purification, Chamundi got into an argument with the Brahmins in these places, confused their rituals and was therefore chased away by the Brahmins. Elsewhere she slaughtered a sacred cow to quench her greed for blood and killed brahmins who tried to keep her from it. Ultimately, as a kind of appeasement attempt against the hustle and bustle, she forced the population to elevate Chamundi to the rank of goddess. A Kundora Brahmin built a shrine for them with royal support. Kundora Chamundi is a popular teyyam among the lower Velan caste, whom they, according to their character, worship with the sacrifice of alcohol and blood. This even happens when the rituals take place in the home of a brahmin family.
Vishnumurti Teyyam
Vishnumurti is one of the most popular teyyams and is performed in numerous shrines in northern Kerala. The deity from the Vishnuit tradition is the manifestation ( avatar ) of the high god as the male-lion Narasimha , who has to prostrate the asura Hiranyakashipu, who has become immoderate. The demon assumes divine power and thus threatens the cosmic order . Opposed to him is his deeply religious son Prahlada, who holds fast to the worship of Vishnu. Only Narasimha succeeds in defeating the demon, who became almost immortal through a promise he had forced from the gods. The gods triumph and order is restored.
Bhairavan Teyyam
There are several original stories about God Bhairavan from Shiva's environment. Once Shiva is said to have annoyed his own creation, whereupon he temporarily turned it into a tree. In Kerala, the narrative of Bhairavan is known as the Brahmin Slayer, a connection being established between the Brahmin caste and the god Brahma . In a dispute about whether Shiva, Vishnu or Brahma was the supreme god, Brahma insulted Shiva as someone who only walks around cemeteries with corpse-abusing spirits, smeared with the ashes of the dead. With his dignity so violated, Shiva created a wrathful Bhairavan out of a mountain of fire. He went to Brahma and cut off the middle of his five heads. Brahma apologized for his insult, but Shiva was doomed to atone for his bloody deed to wander the earth as a beggar and to eke out his life with the skull of his victim as an alms bowl. The heterodox Shivaite sect of the Kapalikas worshiped this begging Bhairava as their main deity. There must have been considerable tension between them and the Brahmins. In the hagiography of the Keralesian philosopher Shankara (around 788 - around 820), for example, it is said that the learned Brahmin magically hunted down such low-caste, meat-eating, alcohol-drinking and sex-lustful Bhairava yogis several times .
Bali Teyyam
The ritual around the demon Bali achieves the quality of a dramatic theater, including a dialogue between Bali and Rama , acrobatic interludes of dancing monkeys, and the fight between Bali and the monkey king Sugriva . Grabbing the defeated monkey king Ravana by his tail, Bali flies around the world. The stories are also presented in the Kutiyattam Dance Theater .
In addition to the monkeys from the Ramayana and mythical snakes ( Nagas ) such as in Koroth Naga Bhagavathi and Naga Rajan , a number of animals from popular mythology appear. Puli Teyyams belong to the animal cults in which tigers act, in the Pottan Teyyam a buffalo is the focus and Kodoth Chamundi rides a pig.
transformation
Costumes
Hindu gods show an enormous wealth of design forms, colors and gestures that are iconically used to represent their character. The dancer or actor in a ritual drama represents with his costumes (Sanskrit and Malayalam vesam , "character", "role", "mask") not only the physical appearance of the god, but also his emotions, social role and spiritual power. By becoming possessed, he attains the consciousness ( caitanyam ) of the deity, which makes him identical with her. The costume plays a key role in the success of this transformation, in which the disguised actor as Teyyam becomes an object of worship.
The term vesam includes the costume and make-up of the performer. Each teyyam has a characteristic costume, make-up, headdress and a weapon with which his kolam ("form", "image") is represented. Performing teyattam means teyyam-kettu (“to put on the teyyam ”) or kolam-kettu (“to put on its form”), the language literally shows the meaning of the costumes for the transformation. The actor resembles a three-dimensional, freely movable altarpiece that is able to interact with the faithful.
The costume ( kolam ) consists of coconut palm leaves, stems of banana and betel palm leaves , flowers and dried grasses that are intertwined with colorful fabrics and strips of gilded paper. Male deities have beards made of jute fiber, while females have wooden breasts or coconut shells. The only thing that deserves a lot of attention is the costume on the upper body, below the hips a round, wide fiber skirt is often enough. White color is made with rice flour ( arichattu ), black color with charcoal ( kari ) and yellow with turmeric. In Pottan Teyyam , dry coconut palm leaves are used instead of cloth and the visible parts of the body are painted with rice flour and turmeric. The girdle ( aravalayan ), like the headdress, is made of softwood; the red flowers of Ixora coccinea (family of the red family ) can be tucked into the belt . All Teyyams wear bracelets ( katakam ) and rings on their ankles, the material for this comes from fishtail palms ( Caryota urens ). Metal anklets complement the rhythm of the drums when dancing.
Many teyyams also use individual attributes. For example, the Bhairavan wandering around as a beggar wears an alms bowl made of braided palm leaves (which bears little resemblance to the former skull bowl) and a sacred cord ( punul or pununul , corresponds to Sanskrit yajnopavita ) , which is also made of palm fibers .
Make-up and headdress
Real face masks such as in the mask dances krishnattam , kolam tullal or outside Kerala in the dance theater chhau and sometimes in yakshagana are not worn in the teyattam. Costume and face painting have the meaning of a full body mask and literally cause a pupation. Protected in this way, the actor has not only left his caste boundaries, but also the constraints of social norms, for example if he is allowed to use a vulgar language.
Natural colors are used to paint the face: turmeric for yellow and rice for white; Green color is obtained from the umbrella acacia species Albizia lebbeck, the paternoster pea ( Abrus precatorius ) and the wonder tree ( Ricinus communis ). The milky sap of the jackfruit tree ( Artocarpus heterophyllus ) serves as a binding agent .
The headdress has the greatest symbolic significance, and among the Teyyams from the Vishnuit tradition such as Vishnumurti, Daivathar and Palott it expands into a particularly ornate crown. The materials for the high headdress must be light, using betel palm leaves and softwood sticks from the Indian coral tree ( Erythrina indica , Malayalam murik ). The handing over of the characteristic weapons ( ayudham ), including sword ( kadthala , also kathi, kattari ), shield ( churika ) or bow and arrow, has a similar meaning for the transformation into the deity . Female teyyams act with sword, shield and knife.
Double transformation
An exception in the system of human transformation into a certain deity is Teyyam Bhairavan , a descendant of Shiva , who transforms into Kuttichathan (Kuṭṭiccāttan), a local deity of Kerala, and exchanges make-up and headdress for this during the performance. Otherwise the entire costume remains the same. This works because of the historical connections and similarities of the two deities.
In the Bhairavan performance described above, the old caste conflict between the followers of Tantrism in Kerala, to whose cult Bhairavan belonged, and the Brahmins is only weakly expressed, but it becomes clearer in the worship of Kuttichathan. This was not created by Shiva himself, but born into a family of tribesmen who were actually disguises of Shiva and Parvati . The child was terribly ugly, with a full beard, red eyes, black skin and a bulbous belly. In the Kuttichathan Teyyam he is represented like this. According to his lower class origins, Kuttichathan behaves inappropriately anti-Rahmanlike: he beats his own guru to death, chops off the heads of his classmates and finally burns the school building, furthermore, among other crimes, he stabs the eyes of the Toddy salesman and drives his wife insane because the couple are not handing him enough alcohol. The myths of the two deities are structurally similar in that they are obviously against the Brahmin order, but they are located on different social levels. The transformation of Bhairavan into his alter ego Kuttichathan is an expression of the adaptability of a myth to a local environment.
Members of the Panar caste perform the drama of the gods metamorphosis in the Kozhikode district , they are related to the Malayans who hold Bhairavan Teyyam and Kuttichathan Teyyam further north with only one deity each. Kuttichathan is revered by Brahmins as well as by low-caste Hindus and Mopillas (Muslims). Muslim fishermen ask him as a mighty spirit for a rich catch.
Staged danger and self-sacrifice
The transformation into a Teyyam is not an everyday act. An actor who leaves his social position behind for a certain time and becomes a deity is in a transitional state, just like the deity who left their cult image in the shrine and himself Moving freely around the Tempelhof without protection. Another, periodically brought about transitional state, in which a deity temporarily leaves its ancestral place, is one of the annual chariot processions ( Ratha Yatra ). While the deity is being dragged around in a threateningly swaying chariot ( ratha ) with a tower-like structure, the cosmic order is symbolically imbalanced. The purpose of the action is to renew the divine order and thereby maintain it in the long term.
The audience expects the Teyyam actor to sacrifice himself completely and endure pain. In practically all performances, the actor is physically challenged by the heavy headdress that he has to wear for several hours. As a remnant of past tribal rituals, he injures himself in some teyattams and inflicts bleeding head wounds, puts a knife in his mouth, dips his hands in boiling oil or is harassed with burning torches. In the Teyyams Pottan, Ottakkolam and Kandanar Kelan he walks barefoot through a fire. A pyramid made of logs and branches, piled up several meters high, is burned down until a mound of glowing charcoal is left. Helpers throw the Teyyam several times into the embers and drag it away on the floor. The final ritual in Ummattikuliyan Teyyam is comparable to an ancient human sacrifice to the goddess Kali , in which the actor's arms and legs are tied together and then stabbed with an iron needle until large amounts of blood flow. The blood loss can occasionally lead to unconsciousness of the victim, who is carried away wrapped in cloths like a dead body.
education
Students learn by observing; formal training is rare. A boy belonging to one of the teyyam performing casts spends many hours attending the festive events during the seven to eight month season. Performers stated in interviews that their training began with high jumps, where they should reach their foreheads with their legs stretched forward. They were taught body movements similar to those of Kathakali . In the theoretical part, they had to learn the names of the most important shrines at which the respective deities are worshiped and the special language, which consists of a mixture of Sanskrit and Malayalam, in order to address the dignitaries one after the other during the ritual. Learning is a strict discipline ( vritha ) when it comes to observing the food laws .
The pupil first learns from the deities how they should be invoked in the opening ( tottam ). As a rule, the father speaks the lines of verse one by one so that the boy repeats them, and he can also write down verses on paper and memorize them. In strict teaching units, he practices the dance steps of several deities. There is no specific age for starting basic training; at the age of five a boy may put on a costume for the first time and walk around with it.
Even if, according to popular belief, there is a divine inspiration behind it, the dancers themselves give different reasons for their abilities. On the one hand, the emphasis is on one's own experience, hard practice and exertion; on another, it is stated that the murmuring of sacred syllables during preparation gives the necessary strength to carry out the ritual successfully.
Formalized training to become a teyyam dancer is offered by a school in the village of Kotakkat ( Malappuram district ), which actors from the region opened in 1977 together with members of the university in Kozhikode . This was done with the participation of the Institute for Ritual and Traditional Arts of India at the University of California .
literature
- Wayne Ashley, Regina Holloman: Teyyam. In: Farley P. Richmond, Darius L. Swann, Phillip B. Zarrilli (Eds.): Indian Theater. Traditions of Performance. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu 1990.
- John Richardson Freeman: Purity and Violence: Sacred Power in the Teyyam Worship of Malabar. (Dissertation) University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 1991.
- John Richardson Freeman: Shifting Forms of the Wandering Yogi. The Teyyam of Bhairavan. In: David Shulman, Deborah Thiagarajan (eds.): Masked Ritual and Performance in South India. Dance, Healing, and Possession. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 2006, ISBN 0-89148-088-9 , pp. 147-183.
- John Richard Freeman: The Teyyam Tradition of Kerala. In: Gavin Flood (Ed.): The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism. Blackwell Publishing Oxford 2003, pp. 307-326.
- KKN Kurup: The Cult of Teyyam and Hero Worship in Kerala. Indian Folklore Series 21. Indian Publications, Calcutta 1973
- KKN Kurup: Teyyam - A Vanishing Ritual Dance of Kerala. In: KK Kusuman: A Panorama of Indian Culture. Professor A. Sreedhara Menon Felicitation Volume. Mittal Publications, New Delhi 1990, ISBN 81-7099-214-1 , pp. 125-138.
- H. Sadasivan Pillai: The uses and functions of rituals in modern Malayalam theater. Their relevance to the ritual concepts in the theaters of Antonin Artaud and Jerzy Grotowski . Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam 1994, Chapter IV. Theater in Ritual. Pp. 98-121. ( Online overview of the dissertation and Chapter 4 as PDF )
- Manohar Laxman Varadpande: History of Indian Theater. Loka Ranga. Panorama of Indian Folk Theater. Abhinav Publications, New Delhi 1992, pp. 57-60.
Web links
- Raghavan Payyanad: Teyyam and our times. Indian Folklife, Volume 1, Issue 1, 2001, pp. 11f.
- Theyyam, Folk Dance of Kerala. Indian Net Zone
- theyyamcalendar.com
- Moorikkoval Parambil Damodaran: Identity through Nature-Man Interaction: A Synthesis Definition Based on the Teyyam Performance in North Malabar. (PDF; 34 kB) Journal of Human Ecology 26 (3) 2009, pp. 191–196.
- Jawaharlal Handoo: The World of Teyyam: Myth and the Message. Working Paper, Ch. 10, Seminar on Indian Folklore, Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore, 22. – 26. August 1980
- Theyyam-The divine concept Part 1. and Part 2. Youtube Video
Individual evidence
- ↑ Varadpande, p. 58; Freeman 2003, p. 308.
- ↑ KKN Kurup 1973, p. 27.
- ↑ Freeman 2003, p. 309.
- ↑ Varadpande, pp. 57f.
- ↑ Freeman 2003, p. 310.
- ↑ Pillai, p. 99f.
- ↑ Bindu Ramachandran: Significance of 'Kavu' - A Note on the Sacred Groves of Kerala in Eco-Cultural Context. ( Memento of the original from December 27, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Journal of Human Ecology, Vol. 10, No. 4, 1999, pp. 285-288.
- ↑ Moorikkoval Parambil Damodaran: Theyyam is the Best Tool for Reconstruction the History of North Malabar. In: Anthropologist , 10 (4), 2008, p. 283.
- ↑ Freeman 2003, p. 312.
- ↑ Ashley, Holloman, pp. 132–138.
- ^ Ashley, Holloman, p. 148.
- ↑ Mark Nichler: Of Ticks, Kings, Spirits, and the Promise of Vaccines. In: Charles M. Leslie, Allan Young (Eds.): Paths to Asian Medical Knowledge. (Comparative Studies of Health Systems and Medical Care) University of California Press, Berkeley 1992, ISBN 0-520-07318-5 , p. 232.
- ↑ Ashley, Holloman, pp. 131f.
- ^ Ashley, Holloman, p. 143.
- ↑ Pillai, p. 119; Freeman 2003, p. 314.
- ↑ Pillai, p. 120.
- ↑ V. Jayarajan: Theyyam Oral Traditions. Folkland International Center for Folklore & Culture Elambachi, Trikaripur, Kerala; Ashley, Holloman, pp. 143-145.
- ↑ KKN Kurup 1990, p. 128.
- ↑ Ashley, Holloman, p. 147; Freeman 2003, pp. 316f.
- ↑ All about Theyyam. ( Memento of the original from June 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. vengara.com (list of over 400 Theyyams)
- ↑ R. Madhavan Nair: Pottan theyyam performance - fiery, awesome spectacle. The Hindu, January 19, 2007.
- ↑ Pulaya Tribe, Kerala. Indian Net Zone
- ↑ Moorikkoval Parambil Damodaran: Theyyam is the Best Tool for Reconstruction the History of North Malabar. In: Anthropologist, 10 (4), 2008, pp. 285f.
- ↑ Muthappan. ( Memento of the original from September 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Theyyam Calendar
- ↑ Pillai, p. 111.
- ↑ Kandanar Kelan Theyyam. ( Memento of November 2, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Kaliyattam
- ↑ JJ Pallath: Theyyam: An Analytical Study of the Folk Culture, Wisdom, and Personality. Indian Social Institute, New Delhi 1995, pp. 142, 149.
- ↑ Freeman 2003, pp. 319f.
- ^ Bhairavan Theyyam. ( Memento of November 2, 2010 on the Internet Archive ) Kaliyattam.com
- ↑ Freeman 2006, p. 149.
- ↑ Pillai, p. 106.
- ↑ Pillai, p. 111.
- ↑ Freeman 2006, p. 147.
- ↑ Pillai, p. 114.
- ↑ Freeman 2006, p. 150.
- ^ Pillai, p. 118.
- ^ R. Raji, K. Raveendran: Botany of Theyyam. Department of Postgraduate Studies & Research in Botany, Sir Syed College, Taliparamba yumpu.com
- ↑ Kutti Chathan Theyyam. Youtube video
- ↑ PRG Mathur: The Mappila fisherfolk of Kerala: a study in inter-relationship between habitat, technology, economy, society, and culture. Kerala Historical Society, Trivandrum 1977, p. 342.
- ↑ Freeman 2006, pp. 150-156.
- ↑ A man jumped on fire 101 times (theyyam ottakolam) sumesh kayyur. Youtube video with the entire scene
- ↑ Pillai, p. 108f.
- ↑ Pillai, p. 103.
- ↑ Ashley, Holloman, pp. 135-138.
