Antropologicheskij forum, 2017, no. 34

SELF-POSSESSION, RELIGIOUS SERVICE, THEATRE: ON BORDERS OF RITUALISTIC AND ARTISTIC APPROACHES IN TRADITIONS OF KOLAM (DAIVA-NEMA) IN SOUTH KANNADA AND KALIYATTAM (TEYAM) IN NORTH MALABAR, INDIA

Svetlana Ryzhakova

Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Science
32-A Leninsky Av., Moscow, Russia
sryzhakova@gmail.com

Abstract: The paper is based on fieldwork conducted by the author in 2013–2015. The paper examines two regional traditions in Coastal Karnataka and North Malabar regions of India — ritual-performance daiva-nyama (bhoota-kolam) and kaliyattam (teyyam). Both are living, orally-transmitted traditions, in different ways connected to religious and artistic culture (temple festivals, spirit worship, possession, impersonation), as well as “mirrors” of the local social set-up. Both are based on local epic traditions. The author analyses their social and cultural aspects, origin, classification and stratification, and offers a cultural interpretation of action. The author describes some social characteristics of the communities involved and the context of performance, as well as explores their interconnection, and enquires into its social functions. She argues that kolam and kaliyattam appears to be a “total” cultural institution that connects the whole society, accumulating actions of various groups. Kolam and kaliyattam have been enacted according to strong ritualistic vernacular “plots”, particular to a certain locality and deity. Apart from enacting the story, kolam appeared as a peculiar social practice of joint affords, an institution for inter-caste communication etc., with a strong aesthetic idea. But both enjoy certain spontaneity and both serve as an instrument of socialization, a form of preserving and enactment of local and personal historical memory, and a way to overcome cognitive problems. Both should also be observed from different perspectives, as cultural tools with multiple purposes.

Keywords: self-possession, trance, ritualistic theatre, South India, Coastal Karnataka, North Malabar.

To cite: Ryzhakova S., ‘Oderzhimost, sluzhenie, litsedeystvo: o granitsakh kultovogo i khudozhestvennogo v traditsiyakh kolam (dayva-nema) Yuzhnoy Kannady i kaliyattam (teyyam) Severnoy Keraly (Indiya)’ [Self-possession, Religious Service, Theatre: On Borders of Ritualistic and Artistic Approaches in Traditions of kolam (daiva-nema) in South Kannada and kaliyattam (teyam) in North Malabar, India], Antropologicheskij forum, 2017, no. 34, pp. 213–246.

URL: http://anthropologie.kunstkamera.ru/files/pdf/034/ryzhakova.pdf