ADALYA JOURNAL ISSN NO: 1301-2746

Power Politics in the Myth and Poetry of K. Kavitha Department of English, Quaid-e-Millath Govt.college for Women, University of Madras [email protected]

Ingrained in the cultural matrix of , Theyyam is a socio cultural phenomenon. The ritual is an attempt to please God by re- presenting Him. The ritual, a form of worship includes song, dance and music. The layers of text in it add to the complexity of understanding the form. The survival of this art cum ritual largely owes it to this complexity. The art employs a complex play of symbols that are significant not only in the religious but other spheres of life too. An analysis of the myth and the Thottam Pattu of the art form reveals the power games behind them. A reading of the performance of the Theyyam, Thottam Pattu and the myth behind it along with the socio-political and historical background reveal a complex play of power in the race to establish social supremacy.

The paper explores the use of myths to smoothen the apparent disparities in beliefs and assimilation as a mechanism of establishing power. The shared understanding of the myth among the community it is performed in functions as a frame of reference to comprehend the ritual and it voices the silences in the Thottam Pattu and complements the song. The ritual was cleverly employed by upper caste in the Hindu hierarchy to subvert the text and thereby ensure their domination. The act of deifying victims, reprehensible heroes, violent Goddesses is a political statement that negotiates with reality and manipulates it to a favourable position.

Keywords— Theyyam, ritual, powerplay, domination, subvert, myth, symbol, assimilation

Theyyam, is a unique folk ritual tradition that lends a stamp of identity to North Malabar. It is believed to have evolved from fertility rites, spirit and nature worship. The deities worshipped are animals, snakes, birds, trees, ancestors and heroes besides innumerable Mother Goddesses. An enquiry into the etymology of the term Theyyam reveals that the word has evolved from the word „Theivam‟ which means

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God in . The ritual, a form of worship includes song, dance and music. This ritualistic art is not an innocuous act of worship. It was a strong weapon in the hands of the dominant class who employed it to consolidate their power over the lower castes. The constant struggle between the two for space and power is an undercurrent beneath the mask of the ritual. A caste- ridden society with strict hierarchy was the bane of the society for it sought to maintain unequal status among men. Power and agency was concentrated in the upper echelons who diplomatically safeguarded their position of supremacy. This study seeks to explore this conflict between the upper caste and lower caste in a few Theyyam deities with respect to the power struggle portrayed in them. The conflict is not explicit but a hidden agenda, which is perceptible while reading the Theyyam poetry and myth against the socio political background of the period.

Numerous researches have approached it from different perspectives such as economic, anthropological, ecological, and sociological. The layers of text in it add to the complexity of understanding the form. The survival of this art cum ritual largely owes it to this complexity. The art employs a complex play of symbols that are significant not only in the religious but other spheres of life too. The ritual is an attempt to please God by re- presenting Him. Thottam Pattu is only one element of this grand spectacular ritual but it forms a vital part that speaks about the Theyyam. It is the poetry that accompanies the performance of the ritual. The words infuse the ritual with power and create an experience. Examining them in isolation to understand the phenomenon would be a partisan approach, for just as the words lend meaning to the performance, the performance fills the gap in comprehending the song. The shared understanding of the myth functions as a frame of reference to comprehend the ritual and it voices the silences in the Thottam Pattu, thus complementing it. Reducing the song to a ritual observance would be denuding its significance at various levels and the powerful impact it has on the minds of people. An examination of the Paattu and myth in its performance signals the power politics that existed in society then.

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About four hundred deities (Dasan 48) worshipped can be grouped into the categories of Mother

Goddess, local heroes, victims of social injustice, flora and fauna. The deities are spirits that are appeased by giving them a space and a Theyyam performance. The worship of trees, animals and Mother Goddess is a practice long prevalent among the natives of the land. This practice suggests their interaction with nature was filled with awe and fear. The primeval fear of the mysteries of nature is manifested in the

Theyyams that are performed. What cannot be grappled with or rationalized is given a form, language and structured to rid man of negativity and fill him with the strength to endure the odds of life. Not all Mother

Goddesses that are worshipped are benevolent. Many of the Goddesses are extremely violent and wreak havoc in men‟s lives. Unable to come to terms with natural calamities, disease or death, man views it as the deeds of an angry Mother Earth who should be appeased. The myths behind Theyyam believe that to tackle the issues such as disease and destruction, the goddesses should be appeased. The incongruence between the Goddesses of the Hindu pantheon and the Theyyam Goddesses are stark. While the former are largely benevolent and function by the golden rule of punishing the evil and rewarding the good, the myths of the Theyyam Goddesses show a powerful female force not bound by such rules.

Thottam Pattu is the song rendered by the performer and sometimes his assistant joins in. The term Thottam means „thottuka‟, or to create or to make. It is an invocation to the deity for the spirit to manifest through the performer. The song creates an atmosphere for the enactment of the ritualistic dance drama. The poetry works in different ways in a Theyyam performance. It incorporates the myth, history of the place, and praise of the deity. The performance does not rest on the poetry alone. Nonetheless, the poetry is significant for the performer and the audience.

The Theyyam performance signifies the transformation of the artist into God. The performer turns into a god only after the words begin and the transformation involves many stages. The song, the rhythm, and the repetition reach a stage when the performer internalizes the feeling with a shiver. Some of the

Thottams may begin with the birth place of the deity, the parents, childhood and youth of it. Some may

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To talk about Hindu gods is usually the first step towards that insensible adoption of the externals

of Hinduism which takes the place of formal and open conversion which sterner and less adaptive

creeds demand. The next step is to set up Brahmins, whose influence furthered by a variety of

social forces, gradually disposes of the tribal gods and transforms them into orthodox shapes and

gives them places in the regular pantheon as local manifestations of this or that well known

principle, and relegates them to a descend and an inoffensive obscurity as household village deities.

(12)

The deities have parents on earth but are born of Shiva or Parvathy or Vishnu. Like in the case of the mother goddesses, who invariably are born out of the eye of Lord Shiva or emerge from the sacred fire.

Although the method of worship, and the deities are markedly different from the vedic gods and worship methods, there is a blatant attempt at assimilation. The intention is evidently to plant an idea and manipulate the myth and the song to cater to the higher class ideology.

The language the Thottams are rendered in is not uniform. The difference in the language used persists not just between two Thottams but is discerned in the same Thottam too. The deity‟s association with the Aryan gods of the Hindu pantheon is rendered in a mixture of chaste Malayalam with Sanskrit.

But the majority of the poem is in colloquial language that is the native dialect of North Malabar. There are Theyyam Thottam Pattu in which a few passages are in this dialect and the rest in sanskritised

Malayalam. A study of this peculiarity points to the attempt at sanskritization and effort to homogenize the cultural difference between the indigenous forms of worship and the vedic deities by smoothening the prominent differences. This strongly suggests assimilation of the deities by ascribing a lineage with the

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Aryan gods. It definitely suggests that the Aryan gods are superior and all powerful and the indigenous deities worshipped in the kavus are in the second rung whose greatness can be legitimized only by linking them to the superior gods. The language intrusion supports and proves this argument.

A closer look at some of the Thottam Pattu depicts the appropriation of a ritual or art form by the upper caste to serve their ulterior motives. The ritual was a powerful medium that was employed by the dominant caste to subdue the dissenting voices and to ensure the power equations are maintained. It provides a reading of the social matrix of the period and the vital role Theyyam played then. Tales of territorialisation, deeds of violent men of great physical strength and feats of just heroes of great valour, narratives of victims of caste oppression and gender discrimination and representation of elements of nature are incorporated in the Thottam

Pattu. The polysemic nature of the ritual drama entrenched in the tantalizing web of meaning is evident when the poetry is studied along with the myth and history of the land.

Pottan Theyyam and Vishnumurthy Theyyam are manifestations of the victims of caste discrimination.

The Thottam Pattu of the two reveal a different voice that attempts to defuse the vitality and virility of the texts.

Pottan is usually a term that refers to a deaf and dumb. It also means a fool. Pottan belongs to the pulaya caste, the lowest in the hierarchy. The Thottam Pattu of Pottan unravels an incident that occurred when Pottan, with a child in his arm walking along a narrow path between fields, spots „Chovvar‟, a man from the upper caste, coming from the opposite direction who stops midway and orders Pottan to give way for he was afraid that

Pottan‟s touch would pollute him. It was generally believed that the upper caste would be polluted by the proximity to pulayas and therefore the pulayas were expected to maintain a safe distance of 42 feet. In response to this command Pottan innocently questions the whole system of untouchability. The lines are similar to that of Shylock‟s in Shakespeare‟s Merchant of Venice, where he demands of Antonio the reason for the injustice done to him when he too is just as human, who bleeds when cut and weeps when sad. Likewise,

Pottan too wonders why this great man talks of untouchabilty when he is just as human as the other. He reminds him that “The banana grown in our dump yard is the offering to your god”. The fruits of his labour

Volome 8, Issue 9, September 2019 666 http://adalyajournal.com/ ADALYA JOURNAL ISSN NO: 1301-2746 are accepted where as he is rejected. He protests that he too bleeds like the other when cut. This is the voice of the oppressed finding it hard to understand the rationale behind such a system but simultaneously deploying ways to accept it by turning it into the voice of Theyyam. Surprisingly, the Paattu does not end here and it continues with the narratives borrowed from Sankara Digvijayam. The „chovvar‟ is Shankaracharya who realizes that the man in front of him is no commoner, and that it is Lord Shiva. Lord Shiva had appeared as an untouchable but the minute Shankaracharya realizes it is the Lord , the God assumes his real shape and

Shankaracharya prostrates before him. And Shiva blesses him. T.V. Chandran in his book raises pertinent questions regarding the act of blessing Shankaracharya. Equally puzzling to him is the act of ignoring the questions raised by Pottan. (7) He points out that the perpetrator is blessed while the victim disappears and takes the form of Shiva. The clever ploy to appropriate the myth and interpolate it reveals the blatant effort to silence the voice of Pottan. By not answering the questions, they are brushed aside probably as suggestive of acceptance of the predicament rather than opposing it. He states that “…the questions do not have self contained meaning. Meaning evaporates and the words remain just like driftwoods without having their own force of direction.” (8) By tweaking the myth thus, the force of the questions are defused. The voice of protest is averted and in turn becomes an empty ritual. Subverting the text is reigned in by the Hindu ideology.

Pottan being termed a fool is allowed to pose questions with a belief that it would not be considered seriously.

During the Marxist period in the twentieth century the voice of Pottan was considered the voice of protest and it lent itself to be used for the propaganda of Marxist ideology. The popular form was thus exploited to their advantage.

Another Thottam Pattu that is taken up for study is that of Vishnumurthy, a victim turned Theyyam.

The myth tells the tale of Palantayi Kannan, a boy belonging to Thiyya caste, who steals a mango from the tree of Kuruvatta Kurup, an upper caste landlord. While eating the mango seated on the tree, the seed of the fruit slips from Kannan‟s hand and falls on the niece of Kurup who was standing near the tree. Fearing drastic punishment, he runs away to a distant land. There he lives for some time till one day he comes back to his

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Kurup‟s tharavadu faces retribution in the form of disease and untimely death. And in his dream, Kurup sees

Kannan who demands that he be deified and a Theyyam be performed. The guilt of Kurup and the fear of further retribution resulted in this Theyyam. But the irony is that a lower caste boy is a victim of caste violence but is celebrated as Vishnumurthy, an upper caste god and not as Kannan. The Thottam is also interpolated with the story of Prahalada and Narsimha. The Thottam consists of both the myth of Palantayi

Kannan as well as Narasimha from Hindu mythology. In the incident recounted Kurup is Narasimha. The appropriacy of this Hindu myth is enigmatic unless understood as an intentional interpolation to shift focus to

Narasimha thereby undermining the Kannan episode. Again, the language too in both the narratives differs.

While Palantayi Kannan‟s death is described in a colloquial Malayalam, the other employs sanskritized

Malayalam. The myth is again turned on its head and the victim‟s tale pales before the larger picture of

Hiranyakashypu killed by Narasimha. When placed side by side, not only does the tale of Kannan lose its fizz but almost suggests Kurup is the Narasimha. It is a fine example of how a voice could be subtly manipulated to suit one‟s agenda. Today hardly anyone remembers Palantayi Kannan for the Theyyam is called Vishnu moorthy. Moreover, the larger section of the Thottam is on Narasimha. By superimposing the larger myth on the other, the latter is smothered into non-existence. It could also be viewed as a ploy to contain the resentment and sharp public protest that would have followed otherwise. Probing into the function of Theyyam it reveals that the Theyyam worked in two ways. For the backward caste, the oppressed, it helped them come to terms with social reality. It was a means to vent their feelings and making the victim a god helped contain anger and offered consolation. The frustration of powerlessness was channelized and the cathartic effect cleansed them of the negative feelings. On the other hand, it helped the upper caste wash their guilt, if they felt any, and provided them with a tool to prevent an outcry.

Yet another technique that was adopted to enslave people is described in the Thottam Pattu of

Pulimaranja Thondachan. He is the hero of the Pulayas. In the beginning of the song, the reference is to how

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Paranthattu Chenacheri Kunhampu (a lord), wanted an „adiyathi‟ (a slave woman) and reaches Madayikaavu.

On Pooram day in the malayalam month of Meenam, Pulayars assemble here to worship the Thai Paradevatha at the Madayikaavu. Kunhambu approaches the priest for a slave so that his farm could grow and progress.

The priest informs him that they belong to the goddess and therefore cannot be sold or leased. He added that

Kunhambu could take them if they came willingly. When the women slaves were approached none of them wished to go except Virundhi, who says that the mother gives birth and the lord protects. Here, the mother is

Mother Goddess and the lord is the landlord whose family the slave would belong to. Dineshan V. in his essay “Thai Peranum and Thamburan Pottanum” notes that a different strategy is employed here to put the

Pullayars to slavery. They are enslaved in the name of family relationship; they become a member of the family they are owned by. This is observed in the thottam. Virundhi reaches the house of Kunhambu and the lady of the house offers her food in a broken plate which Virundhi kicks, and claims that she was bought to help the family grow and progress as a part of the family. Now that she was part of the family, she demanded to be treated well with food and good plates. The lady of the tharavadu smiles and concedes. According to

Dineshan, the intention here is not to abolish slavery but to ensure it without protest (51). Virundhi may have been treated well and considered a part of the family but the power equations between the two indicate it is only a ploy to ensure the co-operation of the slaves.

The techniques used and the games played by the dominant class is subtle. Arnold Hauser believes,

The less ostentatiously a work‟s intention is expressed and the less it seeks to persuade, the stronger is

its social and political effect. Naked, crude and overt practical purpose alienates, arouses suspicion and

provokes resistance; tacit, veiled ideology…secret poison, disarm and have an unsuspected effect.

(129)

Their ploys also reveal an attempt to “homogenize the cultural plurality of India”(T.V. Chandran 9) to maintain their supremacy “by leveling down the religious others.”(11) The goal of a uniform culture is not indicative of the large hearted acceptance of the lower castes, their religious beliefs and rituals but rather a deft

Volome 8, Issue 9, September 2019 669 http://adalyajournal.com/ ADALYA JOURNAL ISSN NO: 1301-2746 manipulation of their mind to accept the gods of the upper castes as superior through a clever interpolation of the myth and poetry. The ritualistic art form of Theyyam is thus rife with power politics.

References [1] Chandran,T.V. Ritual as Ideology:Text and Context in Theyyam. D.K.Print World, 2006.

[2] Dasan, Mannarkkal. Theyyam: Patronage Appropriation and Interpretation. University,2012

[3] Hauser, Arnold. “Propaganda, Ideology and Art”,Istvan Meszaros, ed., Aspects of History and Class

Consciousness, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973

[4] Krishna Iyer, L. A. Social History of , Vol. I and II. Madras,1970.

[5] Vadakkiniyil, Dinesan. Anushtanam Kalam Samooham:Theyyathe Adharamakki Chila Anveshanangal.

Sahithya Pravarthaka Co-operative Society Ltd,2014.

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