1Once in a year, at the small but famous temple for Māriyammaṉ in Kaṉṉapuram (Tamilnadu) the goddess marries a demon. During a period of more than a week, a tree trunk representing a mysterious spouse stands planted in front of her shrine. Eight days (and nine nights) later that symbol is uprooted and the goddess briefly becomes a widow. But the next morning Māriyammaṉ is once more described as married. This second time, however, her wedded state is more normal. Now her husband is the great Lord Śiva, himself. During the first period, when the goddess is linked to an unknown male, she is extremely temperamental. Her mood is beneficent and cooling by day, but angry and hot by night. She is offered only the purest (raw) foods during that erotic encounter, yet three goats are sacrificed in her direct line of view. She also possesses her priest and devotees regularly while enjoying those unorthodox wedding rites.

2An annual wedding ceremony, one may note, lies at the core of a great many festival cycles celebrated in Hindu India. At the great temples these weddings are very expensive and orthodox affairs. The present rituals provide important parallels with that larger set of traditions, but also some clear inversions. The following essay will explore the significance of this set of local annual proceedings. A detailed description of the goddess’ unusual wedding rites will be provided first. Later, information concerning the mythical and temporal context of those rituals will be used to enlarge the preliminary picture. After this one ethnographic example has been fully explored, the essay expands outward to consider various types of comparative data. Details drawn from the festivals of other goddesses, finally, contribute to a wider set of conclusions.

3Kaṉṉapuram is a very old settlement in a revenue village of the same name. It lies about seven mile east of Kangayam, in the Coimbatore District of Tamilnadu, India’s southernmost State. The same complex that houses the Māriyammaṉ shrine also houses a major Śiva temple and a Bhadrakālī (Tamil : Pattirakāḷi) temple. Although the date of the founding of the Kaṉṉapuram Śiva temple is not known with any certainty, sometime in the thirteenth century is a likely guess.2 The associated Māriyammaṉ shrine was probably built later, but early enough so that it has been cited as one of seven traditional shrines dedicated to this goddess in an old song.3 Hence priests of other local Māriyammaṉ temples always mention the name Kaṉṉapuram with special reverence. Nowadays, the annual festival for Kaṉṉapuram Māriyammaṉ is held in conjunction with a major cattle fair. Thousands of people are thus drawn to the locale regularly from all over the State. But the focus of the crowds is on the fair, while the festival proceedings at the temple are left mainly to local residents. Thus the temple remains very modest. The setting provides a clear contrast with some Māriyammaṉ shrines, those which have recently mushroomed into huge pilgrimage centres.4

4The accompanying map (figure i) provides some idea of the main Kaṉṉapuram temple complex. This Māriyammaṉ temple has a solid stone inner shrine and vestibule. It also has a larger, open, outer compound surrounded by a stone wall. The main image is of carved stone. It shows the goddess seated with her left leg folded under her and the right one dangling down. There is nothing under the dangling foot. The expression on her face is mild. She is shown with four arms.5 An older, uncarved stone in the vestibule is said to have served as the initial image of the goddess. A token offering is always given to this image first, before food is set in front of the main icon.

1. The Basic Ritual Sequence

5The rituals to be described in the following paragraphs are the ones performed for Māriyammaṉ in Kaṉṉapuram. However, there is a “core area” with perhaps a ten mile radius (taking Kaṉṉapuram as the centre) where very similar festival traditions are well-rooted. Other goddesses in the area (especially Mākāḷiyammaṉ) are given almost identical annual celebrations. The one in Kaṉṉapuram is, however, drawn out over the longest period (more than two weeks). Hence it provides some elaboration of various details. Strikingly similar rituals are also reported as practiced in a village some thirty miles to the north.6 And ethnographic reports from as far away as Salem District seem to suggest direct parallels.7 Hence, the proceedings now to be described, are not unique to Kaṉṉapuram. With minor variations they seem to be practiced throughout a rather large substate area. Māriyammaṉ is widely understood, both in Kaṉṉapuram and elsewhere, to be a form of the great female Dēvī. An integration of her role as Śiva’s calm consort (Pārvatī-Umā-Gaurī), with that of her violent underside as punisher and angry death dealer (Durgā-Kālī) is achieved, it will be argued, through this popular, annual celebration.

6The rituals surrounding the festival for Māriyammaṉ in Kaṉṉapuram, extend over a period of sixteen days. Thus it is not feasible to discuss each and every detail here. In general, the following description will focus on the key events, as these are defined by the immediate participants involved. Furthermore, emphasis will be laid on the major symbolic items the rites employ, on preparations for handling them, on their manipulation, and on what people say about these objects. Other dimensions of the festival, in particular the details concerning which castes are responsible for which events, deserve a separate discussion. This essay will focus only on certain primary concepts, that is, on the conceptual system that lies behind these specific ceremonies and on the definition of divinity involved. Within this, the links of the goddess to a human world, and to the specific locale in question, will be the key issues explored.

7The ritual proceedings begin on the Tuesday closest to the new moon day falling in the Tamil month of Cittirai (April-May). Aside from various announcements made to all the surrounding villages that have an official link to Kaṉṉapuram Māriyammaṉ,8 nothing much that is visible to local residents happens during this first week. The priests busy themselves with preparatory details. These include setting out preliminary offerings at nearby sacred spots and shrines, and in preparing the objects that are to be used the following week. The remains of foods set before various deities are also distributed, in a specified rank order, to ritual representatives of various castes in the area. The following Tuesday the main non-Brahman priest (a Paṇṭāram) and the main untouchable officiant (a PaRaiyā) each has his pubic hair removed by a barber. Each then takes a purificatory bath and begins to fast. These men will eat no more cooked foods until the festival is nearly over, nine days later. The goddess is also offered only raw foods from this moment onwards. Both fasting men must sleep inside the temple compound during this period.9 They will not return home and are expected to be ascetic, and sexually abstinent, for the duration of the festival. Their wives are expected to remain equally pure, and to prepare all the raw foods which the men eat.

8Wednesday morning, following the beginning of the fast, a milk hedge tree (pāla maram) is ritually cut down, debarked, and brought to soak in a field well not far from the temple. That evening a Brahman priest performs a purificatory ritual (puṇṇiyāccanai) in front of the goddess’ main image. Then, near midnight, the trunk is taken out of the well. It is laid on the north side of this cistern, and a large earthen pot filled with the same well water, having a large bunch of margosa leaves in its neck, is then placed beside the trunk. The pot is said to represent the goddess and the tree trunk her husband-to-be. The pot is placed on the trunk’s left, with the understanding that the “couple” are facing north.10 A Brahman priest ties a thread (kāppu) on each object, and decorates them both with flower garlands. The Brahman also places a kāppu around the wrist of the non-Brahman priest and hands him a chest thread (pū nūl) as well. He then “marries” the pot to the tree trunk with a few brief mantras.

9Immediately after this “wedding,” a goat is beheaded in front of the couple. At the moment the head falls the non-Brahman priest who accepted the threads, becomes possessed by the goddess. He has already placed the tree trunk on his shoulders, and now his movements become quite wild. Amidst very loud and rythmic drumming by untouchables, a procession led by the priest carrying the trunk (and an assistant carrying the goddess’ pot) starts towards the temple from the well. Though the distance is short (a few minutes’ walk) this ritual procession can take up to two hours. The priest carrying the trunk accepts small chicks from an assistant. He bites off their necks, one by one, and sucks their blood. There is much wildness of movement now, punctuated by periods of silence when the same priest pauses so that the goddess may speak through him. People ask her questions and she provides a few, often metaphorical, predictions about the welfare of local residents and their crops in the coming year.

10Finally this agitated procession reaches the temple. The tree trunk is then immediately implanted in front of the main shrine (see figure 4, p. 119). The pot filled with water and green leaves is, meanwhile, carried inside the inner sanctum by the assistant priest. He also dresses the main image of the goddess in new clothes. Meanwhile, the main (Paṇṭāram) priest gives wrist and chest threads to his untouchable counterpart. That man ties the threads on with the help of his drummer assistants. A large pot with a wide mouth, constructed to hold burning embers, is then readied in the inner temple. A kāppu thread is tied around it as well. A fire is lit in the pot and it is carried clockwise around the inside of the temple compound (circumambulating the main shrine) once by the main priest. It is then placed on top of the tree trunk. His untouchable counterpart will then feed that fire with a special kind of wood (vēppa or viḷa) for the rest of the night.

11Early the next morning, Thursday, the main priest will bathe and put on special turmeric-coloured cloths. He will then worship the goddess privately and put on several flower garlands. As his worship finishes the goddess possesses him again. He then rushes to the trunk outside, lifts the fire pot off its forked branches, and proceeds around the temple compound with it, clockwise. That possession must be accompanied by untouchables (PaRaiyā) drummers, one of whom is a flutist. During this period the priest moves rather wildly, and uses special dancing steps. When he stops periodically the goddess begins to speak through him. Again people ask her questions, especially begging her to predict the coming rains, and to speak about other matters of local concern. Generally the procession is slow and will last about half an hour. Finally the goddess leaves the priest, about the time he completes the circuit of the temple.11 The priest then places the fire pot inside the inner shrine, and brings out another wide-mouthed pot filled with water and leafy branches. It is now placed on the tree trunk and will remain there until evening. These events occur soon after dawn. At dusk that pot will be replaced by the fire pot, again. This alternation continues for an entire week. But possession occurs only once a day, at dawn.

12On the eighth day after the tree trunk is installed the climax of the festival begins to build. This always occurs on that Thursday closest to the full moon of the month of Cittirai. In the morning, at about eight, a representative of the leading clan of the leading caste of the area (called the Mupāṭṭukkārar) arrives and will circle the temple with a tray of lighted oil lamps made of rice flour paste and sugar. These are then taken inside as offerings to the goddess. Then a goat is beheaded in front of the tree trunk, after this special offering has been made inside. The goddess is dressed in her finest clothes for this event. It is considered to be the most important animal sacrifice of the whole festival. After the severing of that head the main Paṇṭāram priest becomes possessed, as usual, and takes the fire pot around the temple compound for the next-to-last time. The crowd of onlookers will leave after this and the priest’s assistants will turn to cooking for the first time since the planting of the tree trunk. Now the goddess will be offered boiled (poṅkal) rice and other vegetarian dishes, the result of these culinary preparations. Her dependents (Pōtturājā, Pēciyāttāḷ and Karuppaṇacuvāmi) will receive a share of cooked, sacrificial goat meat as well.12 The temple priests break their own fast by partaking of the cooked (vegetarian) dishes, soon after they have been offered to the goddess.

13Meanwhile, many families in the local area boil their own (poṅkal) rice. Later the same day women begin to arrive with their own rice-flour lamp offerings, and their own cooked foods. Meanwhile groups of men arrive at the temple carrying pots of water (kāvaṭi) for bathing the goddess. These have been brought from the nearest river and require their own preparatory rites. (On this Thursday the fire pot is also lit somewhat earlier than usual, at about 2:00 p.m.). At about 10:00 p.m. the same evening the goddess is worshipped again, as during all preceeding evenings. Then the priest lifts the fire pot off the trunk and carries it around the temple for the last time. He is, of course, possessed by the goddess once more. This time, however, assistants loosen the tree trunk as he circles the shrine in preparation for the festival’s climax. At the end of the priest’s circuit that trunk is uprooted at the very moment a third (and last) goat is sacrificed in front of it. The main priest then hands the fire pot to an assistant, so that he can grab the tree trunk. He then jams the severed head of the goat deep into the hole the trunk has left, using the base of the tree as a kind of pile driver. Then he carries the trunk back to the well at a run. It is submerged there and abandoned. Meanwhile, the priest tears off his wrist thread and throws it, along with a plateful of other removed threads, into the same well. Bathing briefly, he then floats a small camphor light set on a betel leaf, on the surface of the water. The crowd that followed the proceedings returns to the temple. There people receive a portion of the food offerings that were set before the goddess earlier in the day, before leaving for home.

14The following morning, a Friday, more food offerings are brought to the temple by devotees. Significantly, the goddess had her clothes changed to white and all her jewelry removed the night before (by an assistant priest), at the very moment the tree trunk was uprooted. This is said to be a sign of her “widowhood” and of the marital tie that has just been broken. Now, however, she is redressed in normal clothes, as if she were again married. A chicken is sacrificed to ward off any evil spirits or influences. Its meat, subsequently cooked, is offered to the goddess’ subordinates. Then the gathered crowd throws turmeric water on all who are standing by, in a sort of free-for-all. The festival is over.13

2. The Evidence for a Marriage

15From the above description it should be clear that the goddess Māriyammaṉ becomes married to a tree trunk near the beginning of this local festival. Eight days (or nine nights) later, however, she is separated from that “husband”, Since she is dressed in the clothes of a widow at the moment the tree is uprooted (as would also occur at a funeral for a woman’s husband), it seems clear that this spouse is somehow “killed” at the climax of the proceedings. The goddess is said to look both sad and angry, furthermore, when this critical transition occurs. The moment is inauspicious, and women (especially married women) should not see the tree trunk as it is being taken back to the well. In addition, a wooden structure that always stands outside the entrance of the goddess’ temple is decorated with special cloths on this climactic day. It is called a tēr (chariot) or kiriñci but has no wheels and never moves. At its summit is placed a small, up-side-down, round pot. A tēr that serves as a female wedding chariot should have a right-side-up pot at its summit. But a human funeral tēr is surmounted by an inverted one. One local temple priest reasoned along these lines, saying that this wooden structure is, therefore, a kind of funeral bier for the tree trunk. Others say simply that it is a “traditional decoration”, a part of the festival ensemble.

16What happens to the goddess, after this gruesome funeral for her “husband”, is less clear. The priests say that she is present in the little camphor flame that is floated on the well where the tree trunk is submerged. As that flame goes out they say that she “goes back to heaven”, to arrive at her festival again next year. From the fact that she is redressed in the clothes of a married woman in her temple the next morning, one might surmise, however, that she is also somehow remarried after her departure. That she has “left” is clear. People say her image in the temple has less “force” now than during the festival proper. Furthermore, any rituals performed are standard ones that can occur at her temple at any time of year (except the turmeric water mêlée). Now she receives offerings of cooked food, not raw edibles. Her priests need not fast, nor does she possess them. There is no pot of fire and no special fear of her anger. But locally there is no explicit explanation of what has happened to the goddess. That question must be left until later in this essay, when it can be addressed more fully with comparative materials.

17At the beginning of the ceremonies for the goddess, an untouchable (PaRaiyā) must announce the festival to residents of a large area around the temple that includes about thirty-two small and medium-sized settlements. The song this man sings as he travels from place to place is quite long. But some of the lines can now be excerpted to show how such a man describes this festival in (traditional) words.

(Oh goddess Māriyammaṉ)
You are our helper and protectress
Even those places that have no palmyra trees, you must make them prosper
Remember Kaṉṉapuram of (the region called) Koṅku nāṭu…
I will tell you something
The goddess is going to be married
The marriage will be celebrated daily
There will be a fresh, green canopy
There will be oil lamps
There will be fireworks
We will do all this to celebrate the wedding
There will be a kāppu tied on the wrist of the goddess...
The goddess will be beautified
She will have a five-headed cobra over her, and sit on a white elephant...
She will reside in state for fifteen days
She will have two male goats and two poṅkals from each family
If this is not done she will become angry
Then all the big families of the area will have to answer for it
All the twenty-four villages (of the kirāmam area) must prosper […].
All the families must prosper, like roots that hang from a banyan and grow tall and well-leaved, as does the mungil tree
The goddess must also prosper

Clearly the fact of the marriage is recognized in this song. It is also clear that the goddess’ own prosperity and happiness are somehow thought linked to the prosperity of this local area as a whole.

18Despite the clear emphasis on a wedding, it is striking that neither the preceeding song nor the rituals themselves provide much information about who in particular the goddess marries. The priests are also not very articulate in discussing this, the obvious question. Why a tree trunk? Who is this fellow who is later murdered? It is almost as if the answer were a wellguarded, ritual secret. Fortunately, however, the main myth people tell about the goddess locally, provides a few clues. Māriyammaṉ’s husband is some kind of low being, some kind of demon. Perhaps this explains the sense of hidden meanings that surrounds the marriage event. It would also seem to clarify why both the ritual union, and the ritual murder occur at roughly midnight. And the same answer suggests why the goddess is agitated, why she appears as a pot of fire, and why the whole period is somehow thought to be a dangerous one.

19One of the best known local myths about Māriyammaṉ’s life helps, somewhat, in clarifying these questions surrounding her festival. Here is a summary of that story, as told by a member of the Kaṉṉapuram (Paṇṭāram) priestly community:

There was once a Brahman couple who had no children and who did penance, thinking of Śiva and Pārvatī, in hopes of obtaining a boon. These two gods decided to grant their wish and appeared to the husband in a dream. They told him he would find a baby girl lying on a lotus leaf, in the pond where he normally bathed. He was told by these gods to take this child and raise it as their own. The couple treasured the child and raised it lovingly. At age twelve, however, their young daughter became very frightening. She began to punish wrong-doers. First Indra, king of the devas, saw her and became jealous of her powers. He challenged her in battle but could not win. When he conceded the battle he gave her an elephant. Then Agni, the king of fire, came and started an argument. But the young girl beheaded his goat vehicle and he ran off. Then Varuṇa, the king of rain, came and tried to fight her. He, too, lost and gave her his lion vehicle. He also promised her rain and coolness whenever she asked for it. Then Yama, the king of death, challenged her. When he could not win he gave her a buffalo vehicle called Mahiṣāsura. This made the girl angry and she killed the demon (asura) in rage. Yama left saying that in future, when the girl killed demons in order to establish the reign of justice, he would not interfere.

In the same way several other gods challenged this young girl, but none of them could win. Finally a terrible demon named Pēraṇṭan approached her. He would eat little children, and even raw flesh. He would even devour the children born of his own wife. He chased a young woman and her child across a field and they ran to the (goddess) for protection. Upon seeing Māriyammaṉ, however, this demon discovered how beautiful she was and lusted for her. Noticing this, the body of the goddess began to burn. She threw that fire at the demon. She also placed some of the fire on his head. She then told him that he would have to stand outside her door as a guardian with that fire burning on top of him. Seeing this, Śiva was very pleased. He told the girl to change (māri) 14 from a frightening person into a lovely woman. He asked her to protect the people of the area and to help them. He then gave her some fire in her right hand to help serve her. He also gave her some people to serve her, and to cool her by caring for that fire. (Various other things people are to do for her are then described.) Then the girl’s Brahman parents became very pleased and tried to throw their arms around her. But Māriyammaṉ magically changed herself into a baby once again. Her parents carried her to the pond where they had found her. She fell into the water, by mistake, and the couple thought she had drowned. Then she spoke to them from the water, saying she would come when called to help them. The festival thus brings the goddess from the well once a year for eight days, and people confess their troubles to her.15

20This myth clarifies that the goddess has, or had at one time, a young warrior form. It also links her to the great goddess Durgā in the sense that Māriyammaṉ acquires weapons from a whole group of other gods in order to fight a demon. The same tale further associates Māriyammaṉ with that goddess by describing how she killed a buffalo demon named Mahiṣāsura. Similar parallels surround the story of how she acquired her lion vehicle.

21Although the above myth does not mention a wedding, it does hint at something erotic by suggesting that a demon once fell in love with Māriyammaṉ. The references to throwing her fire at him, and to her placing it on his head, furthermore, refer directly to what happens in the festival context. There a pot of fire is put on the “head” of the tree trunk each night, when the goddess is said to be “angry”, At the end of the festival, furthermore, the place of the tree trunk is taken by a small stone called “black god of the tree trunk” (Kampattu Karuppaṇaṉ). This deity is explicitly a guardian for the goddess. He is greatly reduced in size, relative to the trunk used in the festival, but remains in the same spot year round. The fact that this minor god accepts meat offerings also implies that he has a relatively low social status. Finally, this same myth links the goddess to Śiva. It also links her to the various castes in the region that serve her. And it also says something about the field well used in the festival. That watery source can now be seen to serve both as the place of the goddess’ birth, and of her retreat, during the annual festival.

22For a more explicit discussion of Māriyammaṉ’s wedding to a demon, however, one must turn to another myth. This second story was obtained from a ritual singer (Pompaikaraṉ) who has annual rights at another temple honouring a similar goddess about three miles from Kaṉṉapuram. Significantly, perhaps, this singer does not have traditional ties to the Māriyammaṉ rituals. Instead, he is a participant in another ritual complex belonging to the goddess Aṅkālammaṉ. Perhaps this is why he could speak about Māriyammaṉ’s marriage more openly:

The story of the tree trunk (kampam) at Māriyammaṉ’s festival that some people tell...
Long ago Īśvarī (Pārvatī) implanted herself in the womb of a Brahman woman and was born as a baby girl. When this girl was five years old she went to school. In the same school a PaRaiyā (untouchable) boy was studying. The boy fell in love with her and when she was ten he went to her parents’ home to ask for her hand. They consented (without asking questions), and the marriage took place. Then the groom took the girl to his house. There the girl’s parents saw an assortment of large drums hanging on the wall. They were very angry, but could do nothing since the wedding had already taken place. So her parents gave the couple their blessings and left for home. Afterwards the girl, contemplating the fact of her marriage to such a man, became angry. Looking up at her husband in anger, she caused his body to become engulfed by fire. He asked her to stop the burning, but she replied that he must never enter her house, even though he be her husband. She cursed him to have his body reduced to ashes by fire. Where those ashes fell she caused margosa (vēppa) trees to grow. In this form he was told to always stand outside her home.16

With this story the link between the tree trunk used in the festival and the untouchable status of the goddess’ husband becomes clear.

3. The Linkage with Durgā and with Kālī

23The two above stories, taken together, “explain” the general sequence of events at Māriyammaṉ’s Kaṉṉapuram festival fairly well. But neither of these can be called localized stories, except in the matter of a few details. The second story has been reported from widely different folk sources.17 But, generalized as a story of the marriage of an untouchable male with a Brahman female it can be found in a much wider range of materials of a more literary kind.18 The first story is even more widespread. It serves as a kind of key myth, reappearing at all levels of Indian tradition in connection with the goddess Durgā.

24In general Durgā is the goddess to receive the weapons of the other gods, and the one to be asked specifically to descend to earth. She is also the one to fight the buffalo demon Mahiṣāsura, who desires her. In most story versions that buffalo has either a full or a semi-human form. Kālī is generally thought to be fiercer yet. She is adorned with skulls and her tongue drips with blood. More importantly, however, in popular iconography she is often shown dancing on a prone human form described as the body of her own husband Śiva. He was trampled by her when he chose to mingle with the demons she was attacking. It can easily be said, then, that Māriyammaṉ’s own identity presents a kind of merged form of these two great goddesses. That merger can be seen in the myths told about her, and by the links they forge with the iconography of both Kālī and Durgā. In Kaṉṉapuram Māriyammaṉ’s image is milder than Kālī’s, but fiercer than Durgā’s peaceful aspect as Pārvatī. Māriyammaṉ is seated. She has four arms rather than Pārvatī’s two or Mākālī’s eight.

25Buffalo sacrifices were common at Māriyammaṉ’s shrine in the past.19 Indeed, the mound where those animal carcasses were buried can still be identified. Furthermore, Māriyammaṉ stories speak of Mahiṣāsura. These themes seem to link Māriyammaṉ to Durgā. But in the symbolism of the kampam, in the fire that sits on top of it, and in the emphasis on killing her husband, a resemblance to Kālī also runs deep. Indeed, most local devotees do not distinguish Durgā from Kālī at all. One of the priests at the Kaṉṉapuram Māriyammaṉ temple wrote to me recently that another local goddess (Cellāṇṭiyammaṉ) must also be understood as Durgā-Kālī, as if these were one term. His reasoning pointed to two facts, that blood sacrifices occurred during her festival and that she has a male guardian (Karuppaṇaṉ or Muṉṉaṭikaruppaṇaṉ) posted outside her shrine. Both these criteria are also met at the Kaṉṉapuram Māriyammaṉ temple.

26Māriyammaṉ’s link to Kālī can also be seen imbedded in the sacred geography of the Kaṉṉapuram Kirāmam area. As the figure 2 illustrates, this area has three central shrines, each of which is considered to belong to the kirāmam as a whole. The first is a temple for Śiva, and the two others are dedicated to variant forms of Śiva’s wife (Bhadrakālī and Māriyammaṉ). The whole locale, furthermore, is subdivided into nine subsidiary domains. Each of these supports a Mākālī temple and an associated annual festival. These smaller shrines (often modest enclosures of thatch) enjoy an annual festival almost identical (except for the lesser scale) to that performed for the kirāmamwide Māriyammaṉ goddess.20 There is also an identical story told about Mākāḷiyammaṉ (a warlike encounter with a lustful demon). Such evidence suggests that the only active distinction made between these two goddesses is one pertaining to the size and local importance of the territories they control.

27The spatial linkage of Śiva, Bhadrakālī and Māriyammaṉ can Te further seen in the following diagram (figure 3) of this entire kirāman temple complex. A number of rituals that are performed annually at the great Śiva temple require one or more circumam- bulations of the entire sacred area. The most dramatic and popular of these is a chariot trip around this entire complex. Śiva and Pārvatī take this journey in a huge temple cart the day after their annual wedding. The goddess Bhadrakālī also circumambulates this area once a year following her wedding. The Brahman priest at the Śiva temple says that these circuits of the entire complex are “like the sun and the moon” which circle the whole world. The eight guardians must give their permission for the passage and are propitiated with cooked rice.21 Māriyammaṉ, though included in the route the other two women take, is distinctive by being the only one of the three not to circle the entire area during her own (somewhat inverted) nuptial celebrations.

4. The Timing of Several Local Festivals

28Though the local priests do not think of the Māriyammaṉ festival as being connected to the other two wedding celebrations that occur in the same locale, an examination of the timing of these three parallel events suggests otherwise. It is difficult to express the interrelationship of the three events in words, since the Māriyammaṉ festival is fixed to given days of the week. The uprooting of the tree trunk, for example, must occur on the Thursday closest to the full moon of Cittirai, and not necessarily on the full moon night itself. Pārvatī’s wedding to Śiva must be celebrated one day before the full moon, without taking account of the day of the week. Bhadrakālī’s “wedding” occurs four days prior to that, or five days prior to the full moon.

29From table i it should be clear that Māriyammaṉ’s “wedding” can occur on any day of the week preceeding (yet including) the day on which Bhadrakālī nuptials are celebrated. Her festival can occur either before Bhadrakālī’s, or simultaneously with it, but never later than the latter. Similarly, the feast and turmeric throwing escapade that ends the Māriyammaṉ festival can occur either prior to the end of the Śiva festival, or concurrently with it. But it will never finish later than Śiva’s celebrations. This suggests that the “end” of the cycle of weddings should concern the most auspicious of the three unions. Both Bhadrakālī and Māriyammaṉ are potentially malevolent forms of Pārvatī. They are also “descending forms”, representing the goddess during her time on earth. At the end of the cycle (or sometimes simultaneously), the local goddess goes “back” to heaven. All is calm and properly ordered as far as the gods are concerned, then, when this burst of festival activity comes to an end.

30This neat pattern of interrelationships is not repeated by Māriyammaṉ festivals everywhere, since not all such temples are linked to Śiva shrines so directly. Nor are all Māriyammaṉ festivals celebrated in the month of Cittirai. Local inquiries turned up considerable variation in the timing of these events from place to place. Table 2 shows what percentage of the total festivals reported for this goddess actually occur in Tamilnadu as a whole for each month of the year. Clearly the typical pattern is for the Māriyammaṉ festivities to occur between mid-March and mid-June, but plenty of exceptions can be found. Comparing this set of frequencies with the tendency for other festivals to occur during the same months shows that the “hot” period of the year (March-June, before the monsoon) is popular overall, but that it is more frequently chosen for the Māriyammaṉ festival than for other temple celebrations. A choice of these “hot” months is significant because of Māriyammaṉ’s association with anger, heat and epidemic diseases. The latter also tend to be most virulent during this period. But the link with Śiva and Pārvatī’s wedding, which is often celebrated in Cittirai also, cannot be forgotten either. The Kaṉṉapuram Māriyammaṉ temple, as well as the whole complex of temples in which it stands, is an especially old and famous one in the larger area. Songs sung about Māriyammaṉ up to five hundred miles away (in Madras) mention Kaṉṉapuram as one of Māriyammaṉ’s major shrines. The old festival traditions are also well maintained at this site. For these reasons, this particular complex and set of timings may stand closer to the core of original ideas pertaining to this goddess than do many other celebrations currently reported by the census.

Table I The timing of festival in the Kaṉṉapuram complex

Table II Number of Māriyammaṉ Festivals Reported – Madras State

Alls Other Festivals Reported – Madras State

5. The Various Local Forms of Śiva’s Consort

31Three forms of Śiva’s consort that are important in the local festival cycle also call for certain other simple comparisons. All three statues are carved from stone, for example. In terms of form, Pārvatī has four arms, two of which are empty and two which are used for blessing devotees. She stands with both legs on the ground and wears a mild expression. Bhadrakālī makes the greatest contrast with the former figure. She has eight arms, all of which carry weapons. Her face wears a fierce expression. She stands on her left leg, which is bent in a dance posture, while her right leg is raised. Under Bhadrakālī’s left foot lies the prone body of a human male warrior holding a sword. Māriyammaṉ is a kind of compromise between these fierce and mild forms. In Kaṉṉapuram she is seated, but with her right leg dangling and her left leg bent under her (more active than Pārvatī but less active than Bhadrakālī). She has four arms (like Pārvatī), but all of them grasp objects (like Bhadrakali). Two hold weapons (like Bhadrakālī) while the other two carry ritual objects (like Pārvatī).

32When it comes to the details of the weddings performed for these three goddesses the intermediary position of Māriyammaṉ is not quite as clear. But in the question of husbands, for example, a clear pattern does emerge. The Paṇṭāram priest interviewed in the Bhadrakālī temple claimed that her festival must represent a wedding for three reasons : 1. because she is given a tour of the complex in a temple chariot ; 2. because protective wrist threads are tied for the occasion, on her and on the priest ; and 3. because she is dressed in new clothes for the occasion. A Brahman is also called in to perform the preliminary purificatory rites (puniyācanai). But the fact that she is “getting married” is no where announced, nor is it generally known. One Paṇṭāram priest thought her husband was Aghoravīrabhadra. The Brahman interviewed thought it must be Rudrapaśupati. Both names suggest forms of Śiva. But nowhere is an image of Śiva used. Not even his trident is present. Hence, Bhadrakālī’s marriage seems to be a secret wedding, par excellence. Pārvatī’s wedding, by contrast, is performed directly using an image of Śiva. In that case the groom can be named by all present. Furthermore, the rituals employed are easily recognized as an abbreviated form of a local Brahman wedding. Māriyammaṉ’s nuptial celebrations lie half-way in-between. The wedding is peculiar, but there is an object to represent the groom. The wedding is announced by a ritual at the beginning of the proceedings, and many participants (though not all) are aware that it has occurred. It also involves a Brahman priest, though it does not closely resemble a Brahman wedding ceremony.

33These several comparisons lead to one general conclusion : the Śaivite goddess who serves as the consort of Śiva takes many local forms. Often three, four (if one includes Mākālī), or even more are represented in the same local area and all may be worshipped by the same set (or sub-set) of local residents. Their myths are similar, and so too are their rituals. One common image for organizing this variety is to speak of a set of “sisters”, some elder and some younger.22 Commonly the “eldest” sister is the goddess who draws devotees from the largest area, whole subareas are thought to be protected by younger siblings. The elder is also the stronger in battle, and insists on the younger’s subordination.23 But it also seems that the local festival enthusiasm for these more senior women tends to be thin.24 They seem to be in danger of being outshone by more localized forms which generate more emotional attachment. Such is the possible explanation of the popularity of the Māriyammaṉ temple in Kannapuram, vis-à-vis the much less often visited Bhadrakālī temple next door.

6. The Ambiguity of the Central Ritual Events

34If Māriyammaṉ is a form of Mākālī, however, she must also be a form of Bhadrakālī. The parallel names alone lead one to this conclusion. Furthermore, these two temples are found side by side. Their territorial domains are identical and also the families of Paṇṭāram priests that serve them are one and the same. The rights to the income from ceremonies performed at both temples are inherited by a single group of families whose claims (and duties) rotate according to fixed rules. When a particular family is serving its turn, that subdivision (often only one man) is responsible for both temples simultaneously.

35The story told about Bhadrakālī, however, does differ from the story told about Māriyammaṉ. The later account links Bhadrakālī to the destruction of Dakṣa’s sacrifice. That story, as provided by a local Paṇṭāram priest, is nearly identical with other versions of the Dakṣa story found, for example, in the Skanda Parāṇa, book VI. That Bhadrakālī story, detailed below, agrees with the Māriyammaṉ story (above) in having the goddess descend to earth in the form of a child. In both accounts this young and attractive girl is raised by human parents. But when the child is old enough to marry the two myths diverge. In the Māriyammaṉ account she experiences a wrong union (or encounter) with a low status male. The young goddess eventually rejects this lover. In the Bhadrakālī story, the young girl is correctly married to a high status male god (Śiva). Furthermore, it is the father of the bride (not the bride herself) who rejects this bridegroom.

36In Bhadrakālī’s story then, the father-in-law (and not the groom) is finally recognized as a demon. In both cases, however, an overly self centered male of the story is attacked by a goddess. In both stories, too, the offending party is eventually brought back to life as her (and also Śiva’s) servant. In the Bhadrakālī account, it is a parent, not a lover, who is made to bow down. This latter story also differs in most versions from the Durgā-Māriyammaṉ account in that now there are two forms of the key woman. One is mild (Satī) and the other fierce (Bhadrakālī). The mild one eventually commits suicide by jumping into her father’s sacrificial fire. When she is reborn in a new body, Śiva consents to remarry her. Recall that Māriyammaṉ is said to return to Śiva’s side after jumping into a well. The moment when the “flame of the goddess” is floated on the surface of the festival cistern is strongly reminiscent of the latter idea.

The Bhadrakālī Story According to a Local Pattirakāḷi Temple Priest
Śiva’s wife Pārvatī once went to the Kālinti river to sit on a white lotus and do penance to cleanse a sin. While she sat there Brahmā’s son Dakṣa (Tamil : Takkaṉ) and his wife came to bathe. Dakṣa recognized her as Pārvatī and reached out to touch her. At this moment the lovely woman turned into a small child. Dakṣa and his wife took this child home with them and raised it. At the age of six the young girl began praying to Śiva. One day Śiva appeared to her and promised to marry her. Dakṣa was pleased with this development and began to prepare for the wedding day. When the time came Śiva arrived and married the girl, but did not take her away with him. Dakṣa was very angry at Śiva for this, because of the shame it brought on his family. Pārvatī was sad and asked her mother what to do. Her mother suggested praying to Śiva. This the girl did. Then Śiva appeared and took her to heaven with him without Dakṣa’s knowledge. Dakṣa was very angry at Śiva and decided to take vengeance on Śiva and obtain this god’s powers for himself.
Dakṣa set up a big fire and began to sacrifice. Pārvatī noticed this sacrifice being performed by her father and asked Śiva’s leave to go and visit him. Śiva warned her that her father would not respect her and would send her back in shame. But Pārvatī reassured Śiva saying that she would return to him soon. Śiva answered that she could do as she liked, and Pārvatī left to attend her father’s sacrifice.
Dakṣa rebuked his daughter upon her arrival and asked her why she had come. Pārvatī answered that her father had excluded her and her husband from the proceedings while asking all the other gods to attend. Dakṣa answered that Śiva and his wife failed to respect him and that therefore he had excluded them. Hearing this Pārvatī became angry and said that she could not permit him to speak of her husband in this way. Stating that Śiva was the greatest of all gods, she returned to heaven (Kailāsa). There she asked Śiva to destroy her father’s sacrifice.
Śiva opened his third eye and out of that (beam of force) he manifested himself as the fierce Vīrabhadra. In the same way Pārvatī then manifested herself as a woman with a thousand heads and two thousand arms, known as Bhadrakālī. In this form she was Vīrabhadra’s consort. These two beings then turned to Śiva for instructions and he ordered them to go and extinguish Dakṣa’s sacrificial fire and bring Dakṣa back as a captive. A great war ensued. Vīrabhadra managed to kill Dakṣa and all his supporters, including Brahmā and many other gods. Kṛṣṇa was the sole survivor on Dakṣa’s side and he then asked Vīrabhadra’s forgiveness. Pārvatī then asked Śiva to restore all the dead to life and he did so. Then Brahmā ordered Dakṣa to worship Śiva, warning him that all who failed to respect Śiva would receive the same fate.

37Looking again to the Kaṉṉapuram Māriyammaṉ rituals one can now see how they build on a multitude of mythic associations. The core theme of the wedding, for example, draws on several classical stories without matching any of them very precisely. Is the goddess Māriyammaṉ a form of Durgā ? Certainly there is an erotic link between her and a male who is later destroyed. There is also the older association with buffalo sacrifice, and a continuing tradition of sacrificing male animals of other species (goats, rams, cocks). But if we select the Durgā myth, then the marriage ritual becomes an anomaly. So is the clear emphasis on Māriyammaṉ’s variable character (hot at night and cool during the day). Durgā shows only her fierce side when she confronts Mahiṣāsura.

38The above problems also lead one to think about Māriyammaṉ’s associations with Kālī. The famous iconographic pose for Kālī, shows her dancing on top of the body of her prone husband. Māriyammaṉ’s festival rituals are also quite similar to those performed for Kālī (locally Mākālī). Furthermore, she bears a general spatial and calendrical bond to Bhadrakālī Māriyammaṉ’s pots always sit on top of her tree trunk groom during her local festival. And what about the Bhadrakālī myth? There Śiva’s wife is the young, mild tempered Satī (daughter of Dakṣa). She retains this form when she visits her father’s sacrifice, yet she also becomes the fierce Bhadrakālī in helping Śiva (as Vīra– bhadra) to later destroy it. In some places the guardian just outside Māriyammaṉ’s shrine is actually named Vīrabhadra.25 In this context Māriyammaṉ’s alternating, two-sided character portrayal makes more sense. The violent uprooting of the tree trunk in the local festival also fits best with the images provided by this latter story. Dakṣa’s sacrificial paraphernalia were overturned at the moment of his violent defeat.26 In the Durgā myth, by contrast, monographic custom shows Durgā using a bow and arrow to spear her adversary. Since several other festivals celebrated in the region (including one at the kirāmam Śiva temple nearby) involve the spearing of a ritually planted plantain stalk,27 an obviously different manner of attacking a central symbol is employed in the former proceedings.

39Finally, the burial of the goat’s head in a pit where the tree trunk has stood provides an added image more suggestive of Dakṣa’s beheading than of Mahiṣāsura’s. In most versions of the myth of Bhadrakālī (though not in the one cited here) this Dakṣa is transformed into a docile devotee, and set off from others by acquiring a goat’s head. The modest stone that replaces the tree trunk at the Māriyammaṉ festival during the rest of the year is Kampattukaruppaṇaṉ (see figure I, p. 85). This stone enjoys the role of temple guardian, and is the recipient of all animal sacrifices that are offered at the shrine. During the final uprooting ritual the goat’s head is buried just adjacent to this spot. By contrast, all other goats beheaded at the temple have their craniums donated to the Paṇṭāram priests, who carry them home to cook for curry.

40The above discussion has linked the Māriyammaṉ festival rituals to both Durgā and Kālī myth themes. Indeed, in this local ritual idiom, those two classical stories appear to be very much intertwined. But this is only a first step. Many further associations will become apparent in the following paragraphs. In sum, this ritual seems to provide a sort of symbolic condensate of many central Hindu traditions. This is only natural, as that is what rituals seem to do in other cultures as well.

41In addition to the above themes, the main priest of the Māriyammaṉ festival also becomes possessed by the goddess once a day. Because of this, the role of the main priest is thought to be quite dangerous. Fasting and sexual abstinence are essential during the eight days when the tree trunk is present in front of the goddess’ shrine. Indeed, all the three men involved in the main sacrificial offerings and possession rituals must tie on special wrist threads (kāppu) during this period These threads are thought to have some protective significance and are said to ward off evil forces. Furthermore, each of these central officiants should be married.28 It is considered dangerous for a young, single male to serve in this position. In addition to regular possession, furthermore, the goddess sometimes appears to her priests in dreams.

42All of the above references to danger seem to bear a relation to the possibility that various forms of intimate contact with the goddess are likely to occur. Possession involves such contact. And divine possession by a deity is often spoken of as a kind of love relationship. Local demonic spirits (pēy) always attack a person of the opposite sex. The same lover-beloved metaphor is also used somewhat less openly to describe a devotee’s bond to respected forms of divinity as well.29 The Kaṉṉapuram priests do not speak about their goddess in these terms. A Tamil proverb has been found, however, that addresses this possibility quite openly.30

43Kāppu wrist threads are generally tied only to the subjects of major life-cycle rituals. Of these, their use on the bride and bridegroom at the wedding provide the prime case. At the Māriyammaṉ festival the goddess gets a kāppu, as does her ritual symbol, the pot filled with margosa leaves. The tree trunk gets a kāppu, as well, just before it is joined to the margosa-filled pot in matrimony. In addition to these uses, however, the kāppu is tied on the three main male participants. One interpretation, then, is that these men are like chaste, almost unwitting bridegrooms for the eight days of the festival. As possible human multiforms of the tree trunk itself, they are also prime candidates for the sacrifice that will climax the festival events. The danger, it seems, of this literal equation of symbols is warded off by their asceticism31 and by the substitution of animal sacrificial bodies in their place.

44In all these matters, then, it is important to think of such rituals as having a wide umbrella of powerful, if diffuse, meanings. As has already been seen, the Māriyammaṉ festival does not reenact any one particular myth. Instead, it seems to combine material from several myths and hence to open the door to multiple strands of meaning. It combines much that is disconnected in everyday life. But it also leaves those associations at the level of implicit, half-formulated truths. One could not say that the tree trunk is a definitive lover-husband-demon-father-temple priest-local resident. Nor can one state that all these personnages die and are reborn in a purer, more devout form at the climax of the proceedings. But the multiple overtones present make any of those many equations possible, in the form of semi-articulated, fleetingly grasped metaphors.

7. Animal Sacrifices and Other Festive Offerings

45M. L. Reiniche has written that a bloody sacrifice is central to the performance of a festival for the goddess in the Tirunelveli area. And she links this fact with the story of the battle the goddess has with a demon whom she eventually kills.32 The Māriyammaṉ festival of Kaṉṉapuram leaves one with the same impression. The sacrificial acts performed there appear to be equally central to the proceedings. In Kaṉṉapuram three goat (or occasionally sheep) sacrifices are offered at the Māriyammaṉ festival each year. The first occurs just after the marriage of the tree trunk and the pot, when the priest lifts the former on his shoulder and becomes possessed by the goddess. The second occurs just before the fast of the goddess is broken and she is offered cooked foods for the first time since her marriage. And the third occurs at the moment when the tree trunk is uprooted and rushed back to the well. Of these, the first and the third occur late at night, while the second occurs around 10 a. m. in the morning. The first and third are associated with possession, furthermore, and are explained as offerings to evil spirits33 that are said to (otherwise) prevent the passage of the goddess between heaven and earth. The middle sacrifice is different. It occurs in full daylight and is not associated with possession. Also, the priests have no explanation for this event, though (oddly) they label it as the most important sacrifice of the entire festival. The context in which this additional sacrifice occurs does, however, help clarify its meaning.

46On the morning of this day the Mupāṭṭukkārar Kavuṇṭar, who is a ritual representative of the leading clan of the leading caste of the area, must come to the shrine. He is the third man to tie a kāppu wrist thread for the proceedings. But unlike the Paṇṭāram and PaRaiyā, who must sleep in the temple for the entire period of the festival, this man may leave the compound by simply untying his wrist thread and fastening it to the implanted tree trunk in his absence. That simple transfer heightens the sense that these three men and the tree are somehow ritual equivalents. Now, however, the Mupāṭṭukkārar must return to the shrine for this main sacrifice. That morning the Paṇṭāram priest will have already boiled a very large pot of rice in preparation for the main poṅkal (boiled ritual rice) offerings. He will also have pounded raw rice into a fine flour and made a set of small lamps (māvillakku) out of a dough obtained by mixing this flour with water. In the center of each lamp a depression is made, filled with oil, and then lighted with a small cotton wick.

47The Mupāṭṭukkārar must first carry these lamps once around the inner compound of the temple, clockwise, while they are lighted and balanced on a tray atop a cloth ring on his head.

48This procession must be accompanied, furthermore, by music made on PaRaiyā drums. The Mupāṭṭukkārar will place special stripes of sacred ash on his body for this event, and wear a flower garland around his neck. The Paṇṭāram priest then takes the lighted lamps from him and carries them inside the temple to set before the goddess. At the same moment a male representative of another local caste (Nāṭār) must produce a male goat and behead it in front of the implanted tree trunk, facing the goddess. The newly cooked rice is then offered to the goddess, a camphor light is waved in front of all the temple deities, and sacred ash is distributed to onlookers (these last two steps are common to many other temple rituals).

49This is a climactic moment in several senses. First, the ceremonies are led by the Mupāṭṭukkārar, the ritual leader of the whole territory the goddess guards. Secondly, the goddess now receives a special offering of lighted lamps. Thirdly, there is an animal sacrifice. And fourthly, Māriyammaṉ is now offered cooked foods for the first time in eight days. After these foods have been set before her the three men who have tied the kāppu threads may also eat their first cooked meal of this entire period. The significance of the little lamps is not entirely clear. Various details reported from elsewhere in South India, however, help to clarify their possible meaning.34 In Bellary (a district in Andhra), for example, it is reported that when the buffalo sacrifice for the goddess occurs its head is placed in front of her shrine. A lamp that has been burning for eight days is then placed on its head.35 In another account, also from Andhra, an untouchable must lift the sacrificial head, and the lamp that burns on top of it, onto his own head. The latter practice is said to be very dangerous.36

50The presence of a symbol equation being made between the sacrifice, the head of the sacrifice, and these lamps thus seems fairly clear. Other accounts speak of the placement of such lamps on the body of a diseased person, also as a kind of offering.37 Thus it seems likely that the lamps are expressive of some kind of sacrificial offering to the goddess on the part of the Mupāṭṭukkārar.38 Could they be considered a ritual substitute for his own head, and by extension, for the heads of others in the area whom he represents? Later in the day women from all over the area bring similar lighted lamps made in their own homes, and also pots of boiled rice as their own offerings to the goddess on this climactic day.39

51It is also important to note that this key goat must be sacrificed by someone of a different caste than the Mupāṭṭukkārar’s own. The tradition is similar to that followed at many clan festivals, where someone other than the person who brought the offerings must perform this bloody act.40 Even in Vedic sacrifices someone other than the officiating priest was supposed to kill the animal. The beheading of any living being is a demonic or polluting act and must be separated from other aspects of worship.41 Perhaps equally important, if done by another, the person making the offering has a passive role, and hence can be more easily identified with it. The Dakṣa myth makes this identification of the sacrificer with the sacrificial victim especially vivid.42

52There is plenty of ethnographic evidence available concerning the employment of symbolic substitutes for human sacrifice in India.43 Indeed, many of the activities that occupy devotees at popular Tamil festivals, even today, turn on bodily tortures of one kind or another. Hook swinging and fire walking are only the more dramatic of a whole range of similar activities commonly seen at local festivals. One innocuous example drawn from a wide range of possibilities is the practice of bringing pots of water (kāvaṭi) to a deity. The goddess Māriyammaṉ in Kaṉṉapuram receives parties of men carrying these sacred pots from the nearest river (to and from which a barefoot pilgrimage must be made) all afternoon and evening on her climactic festival day. Carried on the shoulders or head, and linked both to special purificatory rituals and to possessed dancing, these offerings can also be seen as the symbolic offering of the devotees’ own heads.44 Heads are linked to or represented by pots in many rituals.45 And the sacred water in the head-sized kāvaṭi pots is collected in the temple It is then poured over the image of Māriyammaṉ in special “cooling” baths. As in the Kālī myth, this symbolic conquest of a male victim and his conversion into a devotee, seems associated with a calming of the previous anger and wildness of the goddess. It draws the festival towards its end.

8. Elements of Ritual Wilderness and of Social Inversion

53The offering of cooked foods for the first time in the eight days of the goddess’ marriage is also important in this complex set of symbolic overtones. Before the sacrifice of the second goat the goddess has been quite untamed in her behaviour. She has been embodied in a pot of hot fire that has regularly sat upon the symbol of her husband, as if burning his “head”. She and her three special male servants have taken nothing but “raw” foods. There has been no intercourse between these men and their wives, and indeed they have not even visited their homes. Furthermore, each day during this eight day period devotees have come to the temple with large pots of water. These have been poured at the base of the tree trunk and also in a great swath around the entire inner compound as each devotee circles the inner shrine and spills water (deliberately) along the way. By the end of the eight days, then, the whole area is almost a sea of watery mud. All these details lead one to think that the goddess is somehow untamed. She has been possessing her temple priest regularly, the PaRaiyās are there with their big drums, and everything about life at the temple seems to contrast with the quiet order which prevails during the rest of the year.

54Reports of similar festivals from elsewhere strengthen the impression one has of the importance of reversing normal behaviour patterns during this critical eight day period.46 In Andhra a special untouchable person, called a Matangi, is allowed to shout insults at Brahmans, for example. She can even spit at them, without rebuke, during this unique period.47 Still further to the north, ethnographers have reported a disregard of caste barriers to a most unusual degree during the goddess’ annual festival.48 One observer says that crowds of men and women mill around so that their bodies touch one another. The abandonment of ordinary sexual and caste norms at this time is said to surpass even the great festival of Hōḷi, where reversals of behaviour are well known.49 In another area there is said to be no untouchability on the day of the goddess’ festival.50 Elsewhere in Tamilnadu there are reports of transvestitism,51 and from Andhra reports of people wearing only leaves for clothes during this period.52

55Even the drums which the PaRaiyās beat during this period would seem to contain a special “reversed” imagery of their own. All other drums used in the area have two opposed “ends”. Where one end is hit with a stick that is called the “male” side of the instrument. The other end, when hit with the hand alone, is described as “female”. Given the long, thin shape of such drum sticks, a male association is not surprising. The sexual analogies also extend to swords (in juxtaposition with pots), for example, and to spears (in juxtaposition with swings). But in the case of the tappaṭṭai drum there is only one side, a buffalo hide stretched over a large hoop-style frame. Only in this one case is the drum head called “male” and the stick hitting it, “female”. Considering the context of the Māriyammaṉ festival, where the use of these drums is critical, it is possible to see in that stick a multiform for the goddess “beating” a male companion. It is also not an accident, perhaps, that this male symbol is made out of a buffalo hide, and is hence reminiscent of Mahiṣāsura. The neat reversal involves assigning the “female” to a long thin (slightly curved) object, providing it with the more active aggressive role.

56The conclusion, considering this comparative material, seems obvious. The period of the goddess’ wedding to a demon is a period of reversals of normal behaviour. The goddess is on earth. The distinction between human and divine is temporarily relaxed. The appearance of cooked food once again seems to be one of the most powerful symbols of the necessary transition back to normalcy. Near midnight, the final step is taken. The goddess’s lover-husband is uprooted. Only a servile shadow of his former self remains. At the same time Māriyammaṉ departs from earth herself, establishing a greater degree of separation between man and divinity once again. A turmeric water mêlée serves to indicate the completion of this separation process. The “bath” helps to cool and purify the shrine and also the devotees. An intense period of divine contact is over. The image of the goddess is dressed auspiciously once more.

9. The Significance of the Tree Trunk

57The importance of the goat sacrifices and their link to the death of the goddess’ lover-companion have been discussed at length. But the significance of the tree trunk symbol in the Māriyammaṉ festival remains to be explored. This tree trunk is locally called a kampam. The word means pillar (Sanskrit : skambha) and it is widely used to describe a variety of posts that are important in ritual contexts. Ascetics, for example, are generally said to perform penance on a kampam. Furthermore, in the standard South Indian Śiva temple, a koṭi kampam (flag pole) is implanted inside the outer compound wall, directly in line with Śiva’s central shrine. The spot chosen for the Māriyammaṉ festival kampam is parallel in every respect. Just in front of Śiva’s kampam, furthermore, is always a small palipītam (sacrificial altar). That spot corresponds to the exact place in the Māriyammaṉ temple complex where goats (and cocks) are sacrificed during this local festival.53

58More interesting still, the spatial organization of a South Indian Śiva temple is understood, by sophisticated devotees, to correspond to that of a human (male) body. In this mystical schema the god’s innermost sanctum corresponds to a human head, while the flag pole and palipīṭam are likened to the body’s genital area.54 Once again, then, an association between sexual urges, demonic qualities and sacrifice can be seen to emerge.

59Apart from the name, the shape of the kampam is also important in Māriyammaṉ. A kampam always has three branches issuing from a single point. The temple priests must search the surrounding area until they find a suitable tree that has this feature. The three branches have a practical function, of course, in that their triangular placement enables the trunk to support various pots that belong to the goddess. The specification that there be three and only three branches, however, is too suggestive to let the problem rest with a practical reason. Four or five branches could also hold a pot. The three branches, more specifically, suggest the shape of Śiva’s trident. A trisul (Sanskrit : triśūla) is Śiva’s most prominent weapon. Indeed, it is sometimes used as the only symbol for his presence in the local rituals.55 Also important is the fact that the trident is carried by Śiva to the forest as a hunting weapon during that period when he is considered to be an untouchable or outcaste.56 During this mythical episode he is primarily a seducer of women, demented perhaps, but also highly erotic.57

60A report from Andhra mentions that the husband of the goddess Poleramma should be represented by three bricks or stones.58 In Chhattisgarh, furthermore, the trisul is almost always present in Devi shrines.59 Given these many supportive details, the use of a three-branched tree trunk at the Māriyammaṉ festival in Kaṉṉapuram seems to reflect a very general theme. Some of the stories describing how Śiva burnt Kāma (erotic desire) in a fit of anger, further mention that the object of his wrath took the form of a tree.60 When Śiva sent his wife to earth in order to kill demons and to watch over mankind, he is also said to have installed her near a (viḷa) tree.61 And when Durgā battled her demon-lover Mahiṣāsura, at least one story insists that the demon tried to escape by taking the form of a (vaṉṉi) tree. However, the goddess discovered this ruse, and cut the tree down.62 In a festival for the goddess celebrated near Jaffna (Sri Lanka) a plantain stalk is installed in front of her shrine. On the tenth day of the proceedings the Brahman priest (representing the goddess who travels by his side in a palanquin) cuts down this tree with three strokes. It is then further chopped into three pieces.63

61The tree specifically said to represent the goddess’ husband, then, can be seen to bear a heavy burden of diffuse meaning. It can be linked to the genitals, to lust, and to the sacrifice or burning of that lust, as well as to the conversion of desire into religious devotion. Though different types of trees are used in the ritual in different areas, in Kaṉṉapuram the wood must come from a pāla (milk hedge) plant.64 The sap of this species is very milky, and flows freely when cut. Hence there is a potential for also understanding this cult object as a ritual metaphor for a container of sexual fluids generally.65 Also suggestive in this regard is a local myth describing the origin of this particular temple. There Māriyammaṉ is said to have appeared in Kaṉṉapuram in the midst of a field of milk hedge plants. She next demanded that devotees build her a shrine on that very spot.66 Somehow, then, Māriyammaṉ is particularly attracted to milky liquids.67 Perhaps she is concerned to protect the human domain by advocating the control of sexual desires that generate these fluids.68

10. The Central Role for Untouchables

62The mythical importance given to Śiva’s role as an outcaste hunter is also important in understanding the duties which devolve on an outcaste PaRaiyā group in most of these goddess festivals. In Kaṉṉapuram, for example, a representative of the untouchable community must tie one of the three kāppu threads. This man must then sleep inside the temple compound for the entire time the tree trunk is implanted there, and he must feed the fire of the goddess nightly. This role is central to the events and the festival could not take place without someone to fill it. The PaRaiyā drummers are also essential to the proceedings. Reports from other areas, however, clarify that the participation of an untouchable is indeed a key theme, perhaps at least as central as the presentation to the goddess of a blood sacrifice. This becomes clearer from a more detailed discussion of the role of this community, below.

63In addition to a small black stone which resides permanently near where a tree trunk is annually installed, there is one other minor male deity within Māriyammaṉ temple compound in Kaṉṉapuram. He is called Pōtturājā (Telugu : Pōtu rāju) (see figure I, p. 85). No local myth exists to explain who this additional male is. It is clear from his treatment, however, that he is considered to be a guardian of some kind. This male is of relatively low status, furthermore. Meat offerings will be placed before his image (but never before the icons of the goddess herself). Pōttu or pōtu means “buffalo.” Though a kind of residual being in Kaṉṉapuram, descriptions from elsewhere make it plain that he and the untouchables linked to him are commonly very important figures in festivals performed for the goddess.69

64In Telugu-speaking areas Pōturāju is generally impersonated during the festival by an untouchable. That same outcaste community must also provide the sacrificial goats that are to be killed before the goddess’ shrine. After a beheading occurs, an untouchable sometimes dances with the head of this animal victim held on top of his own.70 In another area an untouchable must dance, in a similar fashion, with the “skull” of a demon.71 And as far away as Maharashtra it is reported that untouchable devotees of the goddess are “sometimes called Pōtturājās, or Bhutyas” (also a type of demon).72 There members of the Mahar and Mang communities often dedicate their first son to the goddess, and hope for a fulfillment of their wishes in return. In these ceremonies a male buffalo is sacrificed as a part of the dedication service, just in front of the young man in question. In other respects, however, these rituals explicitly resemble a wedding ceremony.73 In sum, in these goddess festivals a buffalo demon is often impersonated by or otherwise linked to ritual roles played by male members of a local untouchable community. The impersonation, and related dedication rituals, involve animal sacrifices. The events, furthermore, seem structured to suggest the direct identification of the animal victim and its human impersonator. The Mahar and Mang reference to a wedding between the goddess and an untouchable human servant bring these customs even closer to the Māriyammaṉ festival themes described above.

65Why, however, should the role of an untouchable be so important? Untouchables are often thought to be “demon-like”, locally, because of their low status, generally black skins, and (presumed) sexual prowess. But surely there is another important theme that plays a role in these associations as well. Śiva is always spoken of as the official husband of Māriyammaṉ and other local goddesses. As an ascetic and a wanderer, however, he takes on a demented, outcaste form. In that context he attempts to seduce women. The females whom he chases are generally Brahmans and his erotic enticements occur in forests or other uninhabited areas. Māriyammaṉ’s temple, furthermore, was built on a deserted tract of land and remains far from human dwellings to this day.74 And in the local goddess stories, Māriyammaṉ and others like her are raised by Brahman parents. The presence of an outcaste male liaison, implied in every one of these stories, is socially unthinkable. Human women are supposed to marry “up” the social ladder, if they marry out of caste at all. They are not supposed to have “affairs”. A temporary liaison between a high ranking female and a lowly male, therefore, contains the greatest possible quantum of social impropriety. If lust is animal-like and uncontrolled behaviour, then the union of Māriyammaṉ (a Brahman) with a man of the lowest ranks (an untouchable) captures an extreme image of sexual transgression. However, whether the male involved is a genuine asura, or simply a disguised form of Śiva himself, is much less clear.

66In the local Māriyammaṉ festival, of course, the shocking sexual union described is a temporary matter. Its purpose seems to be to establish that fact, precisely in order to provide an occasion to destroy its symbolic force. If the goddess’ visit to earth is an exciting and energizing event, it is also a dangerous occasion. In a sense men and god become “too close”. The end of the festival clearly separates the goddess from mankind, re-establishing the proper distance between them. Māriyammaṉ departs on a journey upwards, toward heaven to rejoin her orthodox husband. The head of the decapitated goat, symbol of the lustful lover, is meanwhile buried underground. A small servile image is all that is left of a once imposing groom.

11. The Split Body Theme

67If a “splitting” of the great god Śiva into two forms (one high and the other low) is clear from such festival proceedings, an idea that the female may also divide into two is equally central.75 The main mythical precedent for this is provided by the story of Reṇukā. Many versions of her experience have been recorded. Some make a more and some a less direct equation between Reṇukā and Māriyammaṉ. The key idea in all the variants, however, is that Reṇukā is eventually beheaded in retaliation for her inability to control her own lust. In this case of female misbehaviour, the myths take a slightly more delicate tack. Still, the events cited amount to a set of suggestive parallels for Śiva’s own dilemma.

Reṇukā was one of seven earthly daughters begotten by the god Brahma. Left behind by Brahmā when he returned to heaven, however, Reṇukā was found soon afterwards by a king and lovingly raised to adulthood. After coming of age, her father married her to a great sage. By this man she had four sons. Reṇukā also led a very chaste life. One day, however, when her husband was preparing for a great pūjā offering to Śiva, she happened to see a very handsome form of Viṣṇu flying across the sky. She swooned and desired him. When she returned home from the river, where she had been fetching water, her husband guessed what had happened and was very angry. He then ordered his fourth son, Paraśurāma, to cut off her head. But Reṇukā saw her son coming and was afraid. She ran to the home of an untouchable woman who agreed to protect Reṇukā and hid her in a house. Parasurama became so angry at this that he beheaded her plus all the untouchables of that village where she had hidden. The next day, however, the son repented his actions and his father granted him the boon that he could bring all those he had killed back to life. But her husband was dissatisfied still, and said she was tainted by her death. He would not allow her to live with him as wife any longer. He gave her seven magic pearls and told her to make her livelihood with these. Reṇukā took the pearls and threw them at her husband. Each pearl turned into a smallpox sore. He begged her to take the pearls back, but she agreed only on condition that he grant her a boon that would take her to heaven. He agreed, and once in the abode of the gods Reṇukā threw her pearls at Śiva, Viṣṇu, Brahmā and Yama, as well. They too suffered from smallpox and asked her what she wanted in order to cure them. In return she demanded weapons from the three great gods, and from Yama she obtained the right to kill some people on earth with her pearls of smallpox. Reṇukā also asked Yama for a buffalo sacrifice. Then, descending to earth, she became the goddess who guarded village borders. She also took Kālī’s form to kill an evil king. There she obtained several brothers (who help and protect her). She has a form with a thousand eyes and excellent eyesight, like that of a cobra.76

68This myth is only one of numerous variants. An important alternate version says that Reṇukā embraced an untouchable woman (rather than running into a house) when fleeing from her son’s knife.77 As a result both women were beheaded. The next day, while reviving the victims of his wrath, however, Paraśurāma put the two heads back on in reverse order. For this reason, it is said, Māriyammaṉ’s head became attached to the body of an untouchable. This is apparently why her head is worshipped in some temples. In symbolic terms, Reṇukā’s body becomes divided into two. One part, presumably freed of imperfection, is Brahman by caste and rides high up. The other, with various imperfections, is tainted and consigned to earth. Particularly important, perhaps, is that in using the body image it becomes clear that one part (the head) can not exist without the other (the body).78 If Brahmans can be pure only because there are untouchables to carry off their wastes, so can the goddess be pure only by sloughing off her imperfections and leaving them (as forms of herself) to interact with the world below.

69In the Reṇukā myth, the violence done to the goddess is also subtly different. It contrasts with what happens to males who experience a similar excess of pride or desire. In the latter case the goddess (Durgā, Bhadrakālī, Māriyammaṉ) may do the work of killing herself. However, in Reṇukā’s female case the son is the murderer, rather than the spouse or son-in-law of the miscreant. This contrast, perhaps, has something to do with a larger set of reversals involved. In the divine realm, Śiva is the more assertive figure. On earth, where things are tainted and less well ordered, however, that socially correct norm is reversed.

70In addition to the use of raw foods, leaf clothing, and untouchables who may spit on Brahmans, there is a shift in marital dominance. In their earthly interactions, the goddess becomes the more aggressive, assertive, and physically powerful partner. The fact that she sits on top of her husband for the entire period of the festival makes that role inversion especially clear. In a myth where a wife on earth is to be executed, neither the husband nor the lover is an appropriate agent. By describing the son’s attack on his own mother, a normally subordinate figure is here thrust into a most abnormal role.79

71The great profusion of the above materials tends to lead one in many directions at once. Most important of all, perhaps, is the demonstration this analysis provides of the relation between myth, ritual, and meaning more generally. The Māriyammaṉ ceremonies, as practiced in Kaṉṉapuram, do not reenact any one myth. Indeed, they would leave little to local imagination if they did. Instead, they serve to combine and merge scraps of stories from many sources into a locally distinctive whole. There are enough correspondences to allow one to develop intuitions, patterns of association, and even a meaning. But nothing is so precisely ‟ explained” as to lose its attendant paradoxical qualities.

72Another way to look at linkages between the myths and rituals that surround Māriyammaṉ is to observe that only one part of her story is acted out in any one setting. For example, in another area of Tamilnadu (Chingleput) it has been reported that a related goddess (Selliyammaṉ) enjoys nothing resembling a marriage during her annual festivities. Instead of having Brahman parents, furthermore, she is here thought to have untouchable ones. She does, however, return to this “human” home once a year. The outcaste community welcomes her as a “daughter” and then sends her off to a high caste settlement nearby. There her wedding to Śiva is celebrated. She is returned to heaven, from that second locale, in a set of concluding rites.80

73In this instance, then, it is only the goddess’ auspicious wedding with Śiva that is celebrated. Her eight-day liaison with a lover in Kaṉṉapuram is here transformed into a parental bond involving untouchables. Meanwhile, the powerful metaphor linking the goddess to a send off of human daughters to their husbands’ homes (a hoped-for heaven) is now fully exploited. That latter theme was left dormant in the Kaṉṉapuram festival. Two seemingly different celebrations thus recognize separate yet related aspects of one larger story. Taken in a wider context, these two distinct festivals can be likened to two blind men touching different ends of the same elephant. Each set of rituals has its own provocative quality. Each leads the participant further and further into the mystery of human links with the female aspect of Hindu divinity.

74The fact that the goddess Selliyammaṉ is treated like a “daughter”, yet is more generally called “mother” (tai or ammaṉ), also provides the observer with a paradox. In some accounts a local goddess is born on earth, and then is raised by human parents. Yet in other stories her human devotees are born from a pot of fire in her own hands. With a few exceptions, furthermore, these myths concur that the goddess is childless while she visits the earth. Her “motherly” qualities emerge only while she is in heaven (where her “offspring” are her human devotees). The latter usage captures the goddess’ role well. She is very close to humans, yet she is also far away.

12. The Goddess’ Links to Smallpox

75There is one further dimension of the goddess’ role on earth that still deserves discussion. This is her nearly universal link to epidemic diseases, and also to the weather. The goddess’ anger is said to cause disease, and her dissatisfaction with a given festival performance can cause a local epidemic. Similarly, she is said to control the rains. When angry, Māriyammaṉ causes too much heat, in the form of excessive sunshine. When pleased, she is cooling and brings abundant, well-timed rain. Similarly, when her anger is appeased by her devotees’ show of respect, she will relieve them of the same diseases she is said to cause. This two-sidedness of the goddess fits well, of course, with one’s sense of her personality as expressed in the festival itself. There she is represented by a hot pot of fire at night, and a cool vessel full of green leaves by day. Several writers have also noted that festivals for these local female divinities tend to occur during the hottest season of the year. Then, of course, is the appropriate time to attempt to curb their implied anger by worshipping the goddess in a way that most pleases her.

76The origin of the goddess’ anger, in a more cosmic sense, can be seen explained by the several local myths in which she fights demons. In some cases her adversary is of low caste status and is characterized by excessive, misdirected sexual desires. But in other accounts her object of anger is guilty of extreme pride, and is unwilling to express any general humility towards the gods. These various shortcomings, one must note, share a generalized mythical model. Low status, excessive egoism, and sexual lust are more or less interchangable terms in the world of myth. Though not identical concepts, they are all linked to images of asura-like beings, and to animal symbolism more generally.

77Interestingly, mythic images of evil in Hinduism do not set the matter to rest with a story of a simple, chaste, righteous, high status goddess combating an animalistic, low status male. Instead, more subtly, the myths imply that a woman who becomes angry at uncivilized, unethical or inhuman behavior, herself becomes tainted with those very same overtones. Hence, a goddess is said to be heating when she is angry. Heat, however, stands as a common metaphor for the concept of sexual desire. Furthermore, as we have seen, the goddess’ own body is half Brahman and half untouchable in many stories. Her own sexual makeup is covertly expressed, furthermore, in her repeated possession of the temple’s male priests. Her own social impropriety is even more directly acknowledged by the Kaṉṉapuram festival rituals when she is married to a mystery male. Equally important, in this veritable symphony of overtones, is the goddess’ own ability to suffer illness. In one local myth, for example, she reveals herself to a devotee as an old woman whose head is covered with a thousand pox-like sores.81 The fact that she causes (and cures) blindness is only one more aspect of this larger collage. Blindness is often the result of smallpox, her favourite disease. But it is also linked directly to ideas about the blindness that results from unreasoning lust. The sores of smallpox, therefore, are viewed metaphorically as eyes, as well as thought to be eruptions caused by excessive internal heat.

78In yoga the sexual forces of the lower body are channeled upwards towards the head. There they are pooled and transformed into a more generalized and morally informed type of power. The head is thus a key part of the body. It is where a male is said to store his semen. Significantly the pollution of intercourse and menstruation both lodge specifically in the hair of the head. Both require a head bath as their key cleansing ritual. The appearance of sores or “extra eyes” on the face or head is often taken as a key sign of the goddess’ presence within the body of a patient. And the head is also where the eyes (including a yogi’s third eye) are located.

79Given this diverse information about head as the focal location for sexual force, pollution, blindness, and general self pride, it is not surprising that the beheading of animals is a major sacrificial act at the goddess’ festival. The sacrificial animals, furthermore, are usually male in gender.82 Their sacrifice before the goddess can be understood to express the possibility for a conquest of the chaotic, animalistic forces that lie within each individual self. Performed before the goddess, these sacrifices also acknowledge her role in motivating a devotee’s own striving for self control. That quest for control is commonly expressed in personal vows, promises to more effectively abandon oneself in favour of service to her. The transformation from disrespectful adversary to humble servant, furthermore, is effectively expressed in the possibility for change undergone by the kampam or tree trunk itself. Initially a commanding presence in the ceremonies, at the end of the rituals this object’s presence is reduced to the size of a small stone. Buried near it, of course, is the skull of the third and last sacrificial goat.

80In general one can say that the Kaṉṉapuram festival for Māriyammaṉ is built around a simple set of very condensed symbols. These serve to combine and interweave a multitude of diverse ideas. The social structure of these same rituals also brings together various social groups in the area, particularly the two hierarchical extremes : Brahman and Untouchable. The result of all this activity is more than a simple renewal of a social fabric. When the goddess comes home to earth things are also stirred up. During this temporary reproachment between divine and human, some kind of cosmic reenergizing seems to occur. A fresh infusion of well-being flows from her presence and from a general lessening of categorical boundaries. With this goes the reversal of certain familiar roles. Within each local area these celebrations provide an eloquent testimony to common bonds. The strands of fellowship include a host of social interdependencies, as well as an extensively shared backdrop of mythic and moral concerns.

81Most important of all, however, is the fact that these rites constitute a public restatement of mutual dependence on the goddess. Only her continued good will can insure the ongoing agricultural and social prosperity of the communal whole. Rain, health, fertility, and well-being all flow from her, by virtue of submission to her dominant presence and the abandonment of the egotistical aspects of self. The concluding words of the festival announcement, made at the commencement of the whole event, make this sentiment clear :

[…] If this is not done (the festival properly celebrated), the goddess will become angry
Then all the big families of the kirāmam will have to answer for it
All the twenty-four local settlements must prosper
The pattis (animal pens) must prosper
All the families here must prosper
Like the roots that hang from a banyan tree and grow as tall and well-leaved as the mungil tree
So, too, must the goddess prosper.