Indian Folklore, Volume 2

INDIAN FOLKLORE VOLUME 2 D P Pattanayak Peter J Claus Jawaharlal Handoo Foreword [D.P.Pattanayak] Preface [Jawaharlal H...

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INDIAN FOLKLORE VOLUME 2

D P Pattanayak Peter J Claus Jawaharlal Handoo Foreword [D.P.Pattanayak] Preface [Jawaharlal Handoo] Introduction [Peter J.Claus] Frames ,Tale Types and Motifs:The Discovery of Indian Oicotypes [Brenda E.F.Beck] Structural Analysis of a Bengali Folksong [Mazharul Islam] The Chamak Proverbs:An Ethno-Structural Introduction [Dulal Chaudhuri] The Relevance of South Asian Folklore [A.K. Ramanujan]

Performance as Paradim:A rhythm in a Tamil Oral Tradition [Stuart Blackburn] Folk Hero in a Tribal Society [Sitakant Mahapatra] Folklore as Mass Media:An Introduction [Trilochan Pande] Folk APintings of Assam:Tradition and Change [Birendranath Datta] Cenne(Mancala) in Tuluva Myth and Cult [Peter J. Claus] The World of Teyyam:Myth and The Message [Jawaharlal Handoo]

FOREWORD The Central Institute of Indian Languages in collaboration with the Social Sciences Research Council of the USE organized a Seminar on Indian Folklore from August 22 to 26, 1980. This Seminar brought together about 26 folklorists of different orientation to exchange ideas and information regarding the collection, analysis and utilisation of Indian folklore materials. The Seminar discussed topics such as the relevance of folklore, in modern India, defining folklore and story Oikotypes, plant symbolism and Indian folk traditions, the concept of Indian folk hero, oral epics in relation to rituals of healing and possession, performance as paradigm: a study of Indian folk dances, the impact of oral traditions on Indian audience, folklore and mass media, oral epics and Indian value system, oral traditions and Indian women Several sessions were devoted to a thorough discussion of some of the issues on which there was overlap of concern among the collective thinking of delegates in these discussion

sessions. I must record my appreciation and thanks to Prof. Peter J. Claus of the California State University Hayward, who has assumed the major responsibility in putting these together. Many people dismiss folklore as traditional. Others pursue the study of folklore with traditional methods and approaches of investigation. Serious interdisciplinary study of folklore, though has made strides in the west, is yet to take root in the Indian soil. Even if attempts are made the western orientation often stands as barrier in pursuing and western orientation often stands as barrier in pursing and interpreting Indian folklore in its own terms. The exploration of paradigms which would permit valid comparative study therefore was one of the concerns of this group. The papers included in this volume are working papers. However, they bring together different points of view regarding the text, the context, the genesis of folklore itself. It is hoped that the dissemination of results of this conference will stimulate further enquiry in the field.

Prof. Peter J. Claus and my colleagues Dr Jawaharlal Handoo who are editorial teammates deserve special mention apart from the learned scholars who have contributed to the volume. Sri H. L. N. Bharati, Asst. Editor of Publications of the Institute deserves thanks for speedy production of the work. Debi Prasanna Pattanayak

PREFACE No country in the Eastern civilization offers the student of folklore so excellent an opportunity to trace the links of unity amidst clustered diversities as dose India. India is a vast country ; a subcontinent having the characteristics of big continent. Most of us are aware that this subcontinent is, and has remained, the meeting place of world' s great races. Indian culture has attracted all kinds of people from all over the world who made this country their home. These assimilative capabilities of Indian culture have given this land a special unity. No other civilization can be so proud of such special characteristics as India is and should be. The vast treasures of folklore and folklife of this great land reflect these special characteristics very clearly. In the Asian context, when we look over this rich folkloric heritage of India, it becomes very clear that it occupies a special place among various cultures of the area. The reasons are obvious: Indian folklore is as ancient as the people of this land, Indian folklore reveals is as

ancient as the people of this land Indian folklore reveals the true history of India which all of us should be proud of, Indian folklore is the best example -of unity in diversity. It dose not, unlike many other cultural expressions, yield to the pressures of languages, community, geographical boundaries or any other dividing factor. So if one really wants to realize the true meaning of the great Indian saying "Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam" (indeed a part of folklore) one must search, and find it, in Indian oral traditions. When the folklore of a vast ancient country represents such important aspects of its cultural strength, it becomes imperative that it be studied seriously and scientifically. With this objective in view the Central Institute of Indian Languages in collaboration with the Social Sciences Research Council of the U.S.A. organized a five-day seminar named "Indo-American Seminar on Indian Folklore " from August 22 through 26, 1980. The Seminar brought together about 26 folklorists of India and the U.S.A. to exchange ideas, fresh outlook, and their experiences regarding the problems of collection, genre-definitions, distribution

of forms and modes of analysis. One of the interesting things about this Seminar was that almost all the folklore from the U.S.A. who participated are specialists, who do not have the experiences of the West (Indian folklorists who have the advantage of working on the date pf both the continents. I am glad to note that this main purpose was very well achieved, The result is this volume in which all papers represent modern approaches to folklore. These approaches surely incorporate the complex Theoretical perspectives: folkloristics as a sciences has been witnessing during the past two decades. The Seminar thus provided an excellent opportunity to examine important Indian folkloric aspects such as the motifs and types, performance, the folk hero, value system, world view, ritual and social structure, cultural dimensions. The five-day deliberations of the Seminar in the form of these scholarly papers point to the great potential the folklore of this country has and also to a bright future that awaits its serious study. I am grateful to Dr. Peter J. Claus for his help at every stage of organizing the Seminar and bringing out these

papers in present form. I am also grateful to all scholars for their excellent contributions. Dr. D.P. Pattanayak deserves special mention for his guidance and encouragement. Shri M. G. Kanakram and Shri. H.L.N. Bharati who have been instrumental in seeing the volume through press deserve my sincere thanks. Folklore Unit Central Institute of India Languages Jawaharlal Handoo

INTRODUCTION These essays were presented at the Seminar on Indian Folklore held at the Central Institute of Indian Languages in August of 1980. Together with the workshop discussion reports, published as Indian Folklore : Volume I, they constitute the proceedings of the Seminar. It was intended that these papers were to be regarded as "Working Papers", and, in an effort to speed their rapid dissemination to folklorists in India, they were to be published as soon after the close of the Seminar as possible, without extensive revision. Production delays have unfortunately come between good intentions and reality. Some of the papers have already found their way into print (in revised form) by other, faster routes. Nevertheless, it is only here, in these two volumes, we are able to get an idea of the full range of ideas, methodologies and materials which were shared at that memorable meeting.

Several of the papers (Ramanujan, Mahapatra, Pande and Datta) bring to our attention the value inherent in folklore. A.K. Ramanujan's paper places the question "Why Folklore?" in the broadest context, listing a number of features of folklore which make it especially useful for intellectual inquiry. He then leads us through several areas where folk materials stands to revolutionize our understanding of Indian conceptual orientations. Trilochan Pande's paper speaks of the usefulness of folk media to the needs of contemporary communication and information dissemination. Mahapatra and Datta speak of the valuable role of folklore in rapidly changing society, struggling to integrate new ways with old and a variety of ethnic and regional cultures with one another. Other papers use folk material as a tool to uncover aspects of Indian culture sometimes too subtle to perceive directly. Brenda Beck's paper scans an enormous number of folktales in search of specifically Indian oicotypes, themes or patterns in tales which express general cultural attitudes. Peter Claus' paper proceeds in an almost opposite direction - from an

inter-cultural to intra-cultural comparative study of a game, from a surface structure shared by many cultures, to a covert metaphoric structural meaningful only in the context of an ecstatic religious cult. Some of the papers concern themselves primarily with the analysis of formal structures of folk material. The most innovative of these is Stuart Blackburn's study of performance structure. Performance sequence, he demonstrates, has a form capable of analysis just as surely as does the textual content of a folk tradition. More than that, he argues, performances serve as behavioral (as opposed to verbal) models for organizing cultural meaning. Jawaharlal Handoo makes a similar cult traditions. Mazharul Islam and Dulal Chaudhuri reveal structures inherent in poetry and proverbs, respectively. Although in neither of these cases is there a specific context in which text and performance are associated, both authors take pains to relate the structure to phenomena outside the text: to the poet's experience, on one hand, and to the culture, on the other.

All of the papers represent thoroughly modern approaches to folklore. In fact, with regard to each of the folk forms with each they deal, the essays all constitute significant advances over earlier studies. Gone are the days when folkloristics meant merely the collection of folklore. And, although the several of the papers make use of large collections and incorporate the concerns of an earlier school of historicalgeographic studies of distribution, all go well beyond simply identifying and locating variation and into sophisticated analysis. Folkloristics is rapidly catching up with - and even going beyond - the advances made in other humanistic sciences. In this regard, it is difficult to discern any significant differences between the papers by Indian scholars and by North American Scholars. There are differences between structuralists and those who favour a "softhearted" structuralism, as Ramanujan calls it (p. 86). There are differences between those who adhere to a narrow definition of folklore and those who allow a broader one. There are differences in regard to the way the authors treat the relationship between text and

context. But these differences reflect no international boundaries. What is gratifying in making this observation is that one can see a great potential for ongoing collaboration between the scholars of both regions. In this, the Seminar thus points to a bright future of South Asian folklore. Peter J. Claus A NOTE ON ORTHOGRAPHY The transcription of words in Indian languages used in the various essays in this volume are, by and large, those suggested by the particular author. There has been little attempt to standardize the papers to a common orthography. Titles of classical texts (e.g. Mahabharata), names of deities (e.g. Siva, Krishna, etc.) and places are generally left in the form used by the author, with the exception of a few instances of radically unconventional usage. Indian words commonly used in English (e.g. Brahman) have been treated as English words.

FRAMES, TALE TYPES AND MOTIFS : THE DISCOVERY OF INDIAN OICOTYPES Brenda E.F. Beck University of British Columbia The term oicotype refers to a specific folk tale pattern popular with a particular social group or in a limited geographic region. An Indian oicotype would be one which described a preferred South Asian folk form. However, do any particularly Indian story telling patterns actually exist? Our present knowledge of South Asian oicotype patterns is very scanty. Although work on oicotypes is still in its infancy everywhere, a few useful observations have recently been published concerning specialized North America folk tale patterns. A brief mention of these ca help provide a starting point for a new effort to develop parallel generalizations about India. Baughman (1966 : Introduction) has compared traditional Anglo-Saxon and new world story types and found the tall tale to be an overwhelmingly American

form. He has suggested, for example, that the American "lying tale" builds on an exaggerative style already present I European folk traditions, but that this tendency has been further encouraged by the physical, intellectual and emotional climate of America's unique new world environment. Richard Dorson has further outlined certain traits of national character that enjoy a vivid expression in American mainstream folklore. Without specifically using the term oicotype, Dorson stresses the importance of optimism in America. He also links this idea to a popular public vision of the U.S. as an earthly paradise (1980 : 86). He then links America's Western frontier, and the central role of advertising in the national economy, with another folk theme he calls "boosterism". American folklore has the double quality, he argues, of gross exaggeration and of entrepreneurial self-aggrandizement. The boosterism he speaks of appears in older stories about self-made frontier heroes as well as in the modern-day salesmanship typical of small town tourism.

Both Dorson and Baughman rightly insist on the importance of historical experience in determining the major unique features of a national folk tale pattern. Similarly, in India one would be well advised to look for folk themes that link to this region's prior social experiences. Old religious and political rivalries abound in Indian folklore. There are also hints of an Indian version of a frontier spirit imbedded in popular dacoit and robber stories. Similarly, the courageous farmer-warriors who gradually settled India's dry, upland areas can be called frontiersmen. In Indian history, the frontier spirit involves an ancient tradition of great forests, places where kings have found magical power and ascetics still escape from wordly concerns. Rather than boosterism in the American sense, South Asia's population demonstrates a preference for linking local heroes to great epic figures. Reincarnations of personages described in the Mahabharata and Ramaya¸a are particularly common in local story telling. Many tale motifs also link popular Indian folklore to myths founding standard religious and mythical works (puranas). Instead of boosterism

one might speak of a Indian mythologizing tendency. If America's folk patterns are clearly future oriented (Dunes 1975 : 227), Indian ones generally strive to maintain their links to the past. These differences in national folklore habits provide us with some significant ideas for study. By establishing oicotypes and thereby comparing similar tale forms across varied societal boundaries we may gradually determine what aspects of story telling are universal and what aspects are specifically expressive of more localized attitudes and values. Once we can identify specific cultural and national oicotypes in folklore, furthermore, we may then hope to study processes. For example we can try to assess in what ways, and how fast, a tale borrowed from one culture has become transformed to suit its host environment (Dundes 1975c : 33). Similarly, it will then be possible to ask how different social groups each adjust a given story to suite their own special perspective on the human condition (Blackburn, 1978). An identification of oicotypes, then can make a major contribution to

understanding the interplay between local cultures and more universal features of human tradition. In discussing oicotypes, Dundes introduced the very helpful concept of a "frame" into which many stories from a given group or area can fit. A frame is a kind of background of very general cultural attitudes against which the events of an individual story must be viewed. For example, in discussing East African folk tales, Dundes points out that many of them fall within a "friendship" frame (1975b). That is, two characters in the story form a friendship bond but later that newly formed trust is somehow misused or betrayed. This frame is larger than a given tale plot, and friendships can be formed between various types of characters in a variety of ways. A friendship can also be broken in many ways. Dundes argues that a concern with the formation of friendship bonds and the display of their ultimate fragility "frame" a large corpus of variations and unite them under a single, East African theme. A fairly extended study of the Thompson tale type compendium has led me to postulate the existence of

four similar frames that describe that portion of his index catalogued which is uniquely Indian. These four Indian frames concern: (1) The sibling bond, (2) The patron/client bond, (3) The threat of an adversary, and (4) The strength of individual desires. The four perspectives were defined gradually as I sought to combine my extended knowledge of Indian social attitudes with a repeated sorting of specific tale types described by the Thompson index. The bulk of this paper will now develop this scheme in relation to those Indian materials on which Thompson reports. I will first discuss each frame separately and illustrate it with extended examples. Each frame refers to a basic set of South Asian story values. Respect and support between siblings, for example, is greatly emphasized in Indian culture. Mutual obligations towards one another revolve around ascribed brother/sister ties that exist from birth. Those moral bonds can either be upheld in a story, or shattered by inappropriate behaviour. Similarly, the hierarchical relationship of patron and client is highly valued in India. A senior partner is

expected to be protective and giving, while the junior is enjoined to be devoted, helpful and submissive. These bonds, too, can either be upheld by a story or shown to be wrongfully broken. Even friendships in Indian stories tend to have a hierarchical and complementary quality. But they differ from the sibling ties described by frame one, by being basically voluntary in nature. Frames three and four differ from the first two in that neither of the latter takes a particular moral bond as its primary base. Instead, frame three deals with the idea of an unprovoked attack. Like the repeated challenge by asuras in Hindu mythology, in frame three a protagonist is forced to protect himself against thieves, demons or generalized ill fate (poverty, illness, etc.) as in the previous two cases, frame three contains stories that show a protagonist as successful, and also ones where he is unsuccessful in meeting such a challenge. Frame four, finally, does not depend on a relationship with any particular counterpart at all. In frame four, the story is centered on the desires of one person. That person sets out to fulfil a wish or to obtain a goal no matter what the social context or the practical odds.

This reminds one of the more general Hindu moral imperative that selfish desires be carefully controlled. Some Indian stories uphold primary social values, while others emphasize the fragility of human relationships and the difficulty of attaining an ideal outcome. Thus, Indian folk tales can be said to balance pessimism with optimism. Dundes' depiction of East African stories, by contrast, suggests that the later mainly favour a bleak view. There most friendships are ultimately broken by deception. In Native American Indian tales, Dundes sees another kind of frame. There, individual actions are self-centered and relate more directly to demands of a spirit dominated world (1971). Friendship superstructures are apparently absent in these American Indian tales. This culture area, unlike India, also favour the bleak view. There men consistently violate contracts made with supernatural forces or beings, whereas in India the protagonist more often works with such spirit beings. The table of contents of the Aarne-Thomson index breaks into four large categories: (1) Animal tales, (2)

Ordinary folktales, (3) Jokes and anecdotes, and (4) Formula tales. For the purposes of this preliminary work on frames, I have chose to study only parts two and three (types numbering 300 to 1999). These form the bulk of the material outlined and contain the richest descriptions. These sections also encompass all the stories where the main protagonist is human. Indian cumulative tales, where a repetitive sequence of events happens in turn to a number of characters, tend to focus on animals and, except for their special genre form, might well be included in category one. Once we can establish a convincing set of frames for the human stories, the remaining animal ones can be quickly understood. This is because stories about animals usually revolve around human ethical issues that become projected onto a non-human realm. Many anthropologists, historians, philosophers and psychologists have attempted to isolate specifically Indian patterns or themes. But very few folklorists have approached Indian tales with this idea in mind. The Aarne-Thompson Tale-Type Index, however, provides an obvious place to begin on this task. Its

data base consists of roughly 266 published books and papers, mostly in translation of varying quality. These publications refer mainly to pre-independence ethnographic work. Some volumes date as far as the nineteenth century. Though several of the collections used are of a high standard, others are poorly done. It is easy to criticize the Aarne-Thompson selection of source materials, then. It is also easy to critique the tale typologists. My purpose, is merely to glean some positive insights from this enormous compendium. An index is merely a place to begin a thorough search for unique themes. In chart one, I have taken all of the tale types in the Aarne-Thompson index found in section two and three and isolated all those reported to rest solely on South Asian sources. These specific folk tales, jokes and anecdotes should provide us with a useful first step towards defining a set of India-specific oicotypes. A full listing of these tale types, by number and by name, can be found in an appendix. All the optimistic, socially valued outcomes are listed on the left;

relatively pessimistic ones appear to the right. I now discuss each of the four frames in detail. CHART ONE : FOUR STORY FRAMES (Showing All Aarne-Thompson Tale-Type Numbers Between 300 and 1999 that have a Strictly South Asian Set of Sources Listed) Tale-Type Numbers Having The Fra mes

1

A

An

Succ

Uns

essfu

ucce

l

ssful

Outc

Outc

ome

ome

for

for

the

the

Prot

Prot

agon

agon

ist(s)

ist(s)

2

3

1)

450

315A

Sibli

A,

,

ng

567A

780

Bon

, 897

A,

d

923B , 976A , 1633

2)

302

875E

Patr

B,

,

on/

465

875B

Clie

D,

2,

nt

516A

875B

Bon

,

3,

d

534,

1532,

535,

1534

546,

A,

622,

1692

670

,

A,

1693

674,

,

709

1707

A,

910 H, 939, 949, 978, 1164 0 3)

655A

910J

Thre

,

,

at of

926

1168

an

A,

B,

Adv

934

1525

ersa

D’,

N,

ry

951C

1962

,

A

1152, 1646 , 1653 E 4)

411,

369,

Acti

413,

462,

on

433C

612A

Moti

,

,

vate

459,

896,

d by

467,

926

the

516B

B,

Stre

,

1250

ngth

653B

B,

of

,

1295

Indi

855,

B*,

vidu

856,

1331

al

881A

B*,

Desi

,

1511,

re

888

1685

A,

A

977, 1409 C, 1525 Q

Frame One

The pattern of two or more brothers or half brothers going through a series of adventures together appears to be a very important theme in Indian story telling. The pattern is apparent as early as earliest recorded versions of the great Mahabharata and Ramaya¸a stories. The group of brothers theme appears to be particularly linked to Indian epic and adventure stories where male siblings repeatedly face outside challenges together. Two features of this common pattern are especially characteristic of India, by contrast to other cultures. For one, Indian brothers regularly appear as a cooperative set. Their aggression, apparent, seems mainly directed against outsiders or relatively more distant kin (agnatic cousins and in-laws in particular). In other epic traditions brothers are found more often in situations of direct and aggressive competition. According to Thompson's motif index, A 515.1.2, or Sworn Brothers as Culture Heroes, is widely reported from India, as is P.311, Sworn Bretheren. The second key feature of this sibling frame is that the contrast between elder/younger is commonly highlighted even when the two are twins. In Indian stories a younger

brother often becomes king at the end of the tale, while the elder retreats into religious activities. These several sibling patterns all play on a strong Indian tradition of joint inheritance and the accompanying joint management by brothers of family property. They also reflect a hierarchical Hindu value framework where religious duty is prestigefully associated with the later stages of human life. The same older/younger norms which govern most brotherly interaction also merge with a general cultural stress on hierarchical relationships. Type 567A, the Magic Bird-Heart and the Separated Brothers, contains all of the above features (except twinship) and also adds to them the interesting fact of a lengthy sibling separation. In this tale type each brother goes through a specific chain of adventures independently, but the two are reunited after the elder is chosen king. This framework allows for a dramatic sense of unity in adversity, without providing an opportunity for direct competition. It also requires that the elder brother eventually yield his political position to the younger, an opportunity that does not

exist where the junior sibling wins a kingdom for himself (see frame four and the discussion of the Arecanut Princess). The other key dimension of sibling unity in Indian stories involves the rights and obligations that bind brother to sister. Hindu tradition (if not modern law) generally decrees that women inherit their share of the wealth as dowry (movable objects) and not as land (which is immovable). Brothers are not freed of their sisters by the dowry, however. Instead they are again expected to support their sisters from common holdings if such a woman should encounter grave hardships during the early years of her marriage. Sisters, in turn, are seen as a source of blessings and can insure prosperity for their brother's families. It seems likely that this brother/sister support pattern is an especially prominent feature of South Indian folk traditions (Claus, 1975; Hart, 1975; Beck, 1974), and that is less important in the North. The comparative role of sisters in folklore, both North and South, would be a very useful pattern to research in this light.

Tale-Type 450, Little Brother and Little Sister, has no specific entries from South Asia in the AarneThompson index. Instead these stories seem to be recorded in the Aarne-Thompson index as number 897, the Orphan Girl and Her Cruel Sisters-in-law. The type is supported by thirteen examples from India and none from elsewhere. From the wife's perspective, a sister-in-law provides obvious competition for her husband affections. I can think of several important examples that appear in my own folklore collection, in which a cruel sister-in-law mistreats her husband's young sister. Stories (and songs) in my Tamil folk collection also describe the key bond between an unmarried sister and her elder brother(s). A sister may bless her brothers' swords, for example, or inspire their heroic endeavors generally. Such a woman is viewed as a magical source of her brother's prosperity, and in return such men are seen to protect their sister's in comfort. Tale type 450A, The Brother Transformed To a Snake, depicts this idea rather well. There a brother and sister are first driven forth together (by a step-

mother). The brother then protects his sister by killing a snake. Next the sister finds a flowering tree growing from the snake's body and tries to bless her brother by touching him with its blossoms. But at this moment the brother becomes a snake, though later he is returned to his normal self. Thus, this tale type nicely illustrates the principle of reciprocal care expected of opposite sexed siblings, and the belief that special magical bonds exist between them. Stuart Blackburn, in an article on "creation myths" has noted the further interesting fact that an incestuous brother/sister pair are central to stories about human beginnings told by the tribesmen of Central India (1977). He argues persuasively that this motif must have been known to Munda speaking peoples long before the bearers of Indo-Aryan culture arrived. If correct, this would give the brother/sister bond a special place as an ancient frame theme of Indian civilization. Blackburn goes on to describe how the same sibling incest motif is currently imbedded in a wider set of stories concerning an original flood and an earth diver. These later themes are widespread in

North America, as well as I Northeast Asia, however. In a separate article Shulman has pointed to the importance of surviving floods in Tamil puranic Indian mythology. Though that theme is widespread, Shulman plays up the particular Indian emphasis given recurrent flooding and the wresting of creative life from disorder and chaos. That latter perspective fits nicely into my frame three where wresting with, or surviving the attack of, mysterious adversaries provides the key theme. There seem to be very few stories that stress a third logical sibling bond, that between sisters. Though several sisters may be compared in a story, especially in regard to their marriage prospects, Indian folk tales do not focus on mutual obligations between women. This absence is reasonable, of course, in a patrilineal and patrilocal society where sisters each go their own way at marriage. It would be interesting to pursue this correlation further by looking at the folklore of matrilineal, or matrilenealy influenced parts of India. Claus, for example, reports folk stories about twinsisters about twin brothers reported from

elsewhere. We might expect to find similar transformation of typical Indian story frames among the matrilineal Nayar of Kerala. The other half of frame one contains folktale types that describe transgressions against important sibling bonds. In tale type 976A, The Thief Exposed By a Story, one brother steals from a jointly held hoard of jewels. The dishonest sibling is then later exposed by self-implicating answers to a wise man's questions. More vivid are the tale types that go all out in breaking social convention by depicting acts of sibling cannibalism. The Cannibalistic Brothers, 780A, is represented by twelve Indian examples. Here a group of brothers kill and eat their sister after noticing how tasty the food is she has prepared: it contains a drop of blood from her cut finger. Type 315A reverses the direction of this sibling-to-sibling aggression. This time there are five examples reported, all depicting a princess who became a cannibalistic ogress. After consuming animals, kings, and the inhabitants of a city, she finally turns to her own brother. He is

captured, but later escapes from her by a nurse. The sister is finally killed, herself. It is significant that such a strong frame of sibling obligations is found countered by an equally strong set of reversals what could be more horrifying than eating one's own brother or sister? But, at the same time, a sex difference is noticeable in these several tale types. The brothers actually commit the broad terrible act of murder, while sisters die in their attempts. This, too, fits an Indian pattern: men tend to commit sacrifice by outward aggression in war, in hunting, or even by sacrificing animals at temples. Women, on the other hand, most frequently turn violence against themselves, in suicide or other forms of self torture (Beck, 1982). While the former theme is certainly found in many cultures, female suicide is a popular Indian motif. All of these reversals play upon two main sibling bond types. Brother/brother cannibalism is reported in stories from Central India (motif G73.1). There is only one example of girls eating a sister, however, and it comes from Mirzapur (motif G73). It

would be interesting to ask if this story can be linked to localized matrilineal customs. One further form of reversal contained within the sibling bond framework concerns the aggressive behaviour of a younger child against its elder competitors. In tale type 1633, Joint Ownership of a cow, an older brother claims the back half of the shared animal and gives his younger mate the front. Thus the elder gets to milk the cow while the younger has to feed it. Here is an obvious exploitation of an age difference and the breaking of a contract about equal sharing, later countered by a trick that the younger sibling uses to gain a fair portion of the goods. In 923B, the Princess who was responsible for her own fortune, a king asks his several daughters which has been responsible for their good fortune. All the elder girls flatter him by saying that he himself is responsible, but the youngest refuses to fall in line and instead claims that she should take credit. The father punishes her severely for this. However, eventually this daughter gets her revenge through a combination of wit and skill. In the end her husband becomes

wealthy and inherits a kingdom. Meanwhile, her father loses his own domain. This could be seen as an example of a parent-child struggle. But the story, viewed overall, clearly singles out only the youngest female as a challenger. Hence it seems to be, at least equally, a story about the oppression of the weak by stronger and older well, while he gives his youngest to a pauper or a cripple. It is only through the girl's special efforts that this undesirable husband later succeeds. These tales end with protagonists' sweet revenge. The triumph of the weak and the small is a very important Indian theme. Though it is not uniquely South Asian, this motif does have an important expressive quality in a society where hierarchy is strong and the inferior very often is disadvantaged. The result is a wide range of stories where a junior partner is seen to succeed against great odds. Three nice examples of this that use animal motifs are L315.10, Mice Overcome Camel; Rabbit Slays Rhinoceros. It would be interesting to ask whether social hierarchies are especially rigid or elaborate, and

if their incidence decreases in areas where rank order is moderate or weak. Frame Two Frame two is very similar to frame one except that the relationships it encompasses are voluntary and not kin based. Here the key bond lies between two persons of rather different social positions. The characters involved are thus patron and client, advisor and pupil, or simply two acquaintances of unequal rank. Of these, the first two are especially prevalent. As in an interaction of elder with younger siblings, each senior partner is here expected to support and protect, while the junior is asked to aid and to serve loyally. There are three archetypical examples of such mutual bonds of loyalty. The first is that of a king and his minister, or a prince and a youth of lower rank. The two set out on a series of adventures together, during which the junior partner consistently helps and serves his senior. In 516A, the Sign Language of the Princess, for example, a youthful friend helps a prince to win a lovely high status woman. The Aarne-Thompson index

reports twenty stories of this kind and I have several more in my own collection. A second sub-type concerns a similar relationship between a king or a hero and his friend. Here the main figure is someone who is threatened by 302B, Hero With Life Dependent on His Sword. In that tale the protagonist's wife is coveted by a rival. He sends an emissary to steal her and to destroy the king's defensive sword. But the friend recovers and restores the hero's weapon. He also rescues the stolen wife and loyally returns her to his patron. A third variant involves a demand from a god, or the imposition of a curse, requiring that a hero make a great sacrifice. This theme is illustrated by 949, The Faithful Servitor, where a poor man befriends the protagonist and steps in to offer himself or his children in the king's place. The gods are pleased by these actions and later restore the willing sacrificer to life. An important variant of the faithful servant theme shows the protagonist as the servant of god himself. The particular god or goddess "tests" that follower's loyalty directly. A devotee, for example, may be required to wander in poverty, labour at menial tasks,

or to sacrifice in other ways for an extended period. At the end of these trials, the god or goddess is pleased and the devotee is restored to his former stats. This is tale type 939, the Offended Deity. In another sub-type, which seems less common, a man is helped by an amoral but sociable demon. The two enjoy a covenant similar to that which commonly exists between a devotee and a god, or a king and his loyal minister. That is, the demon serves the man and helps him to obtain personal ends (rescue a tormented wife, seek fortune, etc.) in exchange for various material rewards, that partnership, unlike previous examples, is quickly terminated by the senior member after his own ends have been accomplished. Nonetheless, the parting is amicable and the demon appears satisfied by the fair deal. This is tale type 1164D, The Demon and the Man Join Forces. Nine examples have been reported from India. One final variation in the use of frame two concerns a partnership between protagonist and animal. In 910H, Never Travel Without a Companion or Stay Alert, a

man decides to take a crab on a journey. Later, when that man unexpectedly becomes a king, this crab helps him in many ways, including killing several attackers. In another type,. 465D, or Animal Brothers Help the Hero, the protagonist has a special bull who helps him fight adversaries. In 535, The Boy Adopted by Tigers, various wild animals help a hero survive in the forest, and/or manage to arrange a marriage for him with a lovely woman. In 534, The Youth Who Tends the Buffalo Herd, buffaloes or cows help the protagonist. In 546, The Clever Parrot, a talking bird wins a princess for the king. Animals also help women under similar conditions. Now, however, the helpful tend to be childlike or small (a calf instead of a bull). Birds, though they also help men, are especially common assistants for women, as for example in tale types 670A, 674 and 709A. significant, too, is the fact that women are commonly said to understand animal speech, an ability not mentioned for males. However, in tale type 622 a man listens to an inanimate object (his bedlegs talking). These (squeeking) supports warn

him of impending danger or attempt to help him in other ways. This second frame can also be seen to cover less fortunate outcomes. In the most obvious and simple of these a senior member breaks his contract of protection and nurture. For example, in tale type 1532, The Voice from the Grave, two men connive to obtain the wealth of a recently buried man. The lesser partner in this crime hides near the grave while the more assertive one goes to talk with the relatives. He tells them that the dead man has left a major debt. Later, when relatives come to the grave to ask the advice of the dead man's spirit, a confederate calls out from hiding that the debt must be paid. The more aggressive partner then absconds with the payment and his hidden confederate loses out. This same theme also surfaces in many animal stories. Subordination for the weak, and a relative advantage enjoyed by the strong is also exemplified by various Indian examples catalogued as J420 through J429 in the Thompson motif index. For example, in J426.2 the friendship of a snake and a frog ceases when the snake wants to eat

the frog. Such stories reflect the darker realities of any hierarchically structured milieu. In a most of other tale types these themes of exploitation are carried to a still more extreme point. In some, the weaker member of the confederation is made a fool. In tale type 1692, The Stupid Thief, one of a band of robbers is sent into a house while the others wait outside. But there he is unable to grasp directions accurately (his confederates knew he was slow-witted), and ends up being caught. A major component of this and similar tale types such as 1693, The Literal Fool, and 978, Youth in the Land of Cheaters, is that the person taken advantage of fails to see behind superficial words or actions. As a result, confederates or patrons either take advantage of the innocence, or make fun of it, or both. Sometimes, as in 1534A, The Innocent Man Chose to Fit the Stake, the person made a fool is of high status (a king). In other tale types, specifically 875E, /875B2 875B3, a person giving an order is simply embarrassed by someone who makes him see the absurdity of his

demand. These reversals involve some element of initial trust in the words of a respected person. That trust becomes misplaced when those words are either (1) purposely spoken in a way they can easily be misunderstood, or (2) purposely calculated to embarrass and undermine the unsuspecting receiver. A prime example is tale type 1707, The Noseless Man. In that story a man who has lost his nose persuades others that they too will see God if they cut off their own nose in a similar fashion. The listeners are trusting and soon perform the painful act, whereupon the shrewd adviser laughs at their foolishness. What seems particularly Indian about these many examples is the great importance given to seeing through the superficial. As Hinduism often abhors a philosophy of life based on senses, so Indian folklore makes much of the fool who takes the pretended wise man too literally. Another twist given to frame two is provided by situations where a patron unjustly doubts the faithfulness of his loyal subordinate. I tale type 178B, The Faithful Dog as Security for a Debt2, a master

lends his dog to a wealthy creditor to help away thieves. This dog serves the creditor well and is finally returned with a letter of thanks. But the master, upon seeing the delegated dog at his door, the master kills it in anger. Later, the man reads a letter of thanks attached to the dog's neck, but it is too late to reverse his actions. Emeneau has linked this to a second wellknown story called the Brahman and the Mongoose. There a mongoose is killed for having blood on its mouth when the baby of the house is found missing. In reality the mongoose has killed a snake in a loyal attempt to protect the child. Several South Indian stories notably the epic story of Shilappadikaram, carry the same idea further by having a person die from grief over a similar error. Finally, frame two contains tale type 243, The Parrot Pretends to be God. Here, a pet bird breaks a contract demanding respectful service and either (1) decides a lawsuit against its master, or (2) reports on an infidelity in the household. The master then tries to kill the faithless pet but it escapes. The parrot now leads the former master to believe it is a god. When its

orders are followed, in front of an assembled crowd, the parrot uses this opportunity to ridicule its patron. This is the theme of the literal fool, but reversed so that the subordinate embarrasses a superior. Frame Three Frame three contrasts with the previous two in that all normal responsibilities of social actors are suspended. In situations covered by this frame an adversary simply appears on the scene. No prior social bonds are recognized that might temper that contest. The most noticeable Indian motif or theme in this category is disguise. In a large proportion of the available examples either the protagonist or the assailant takes a visibly unexpected form. Sometimes, instead of dressing up, a protagonist uses various deceptive props to trick his adversary. Consider tale type 951C, The Disguised King Joins the Thieves. Here a king, threatened by a group of people who wish to steal from him, joins the enemies after putting on a disguise. As this kind has no formal understanding with that gang, he is breaking no social contract by secretly listening to

their plans and boasts. He then encourages them to rob his place and meanwhile engineers their capture. In other examples it is the enemy who wears the disguise. In tale type 962A, a demon challenges the protagonist to say who is the true husband of the victim's wife. A judge suggests that whoever can enter a pot is the real spouse. The demon takes up this challenge, his true nature is revealed, and he is caught. In a third variant, tale type 1152, a man finds himself challenged by an ogre. To awe his assailant the clever hero claims that an even bigger ogre resides inside the house. To prove this, the protagonist pokes objects through his doors and windows. Displaying a rope he claims this to be a hair from the hidden ogre. Then a winnowing fan is claimed to be an ear, curds are said to be its spittle, and the beating of a drum is said to be sound emanating from the great monster who beats his chest. The challenger becomes intimidated when the hero continues in this fashion. In one further example, type 655S, four clever man successfully allay suspicions that they have stolen a camel. All of the above stories combine two key characteristics of a

special Indian value pattern: (1) great respect for intelligent, clever solutions to difficult dilemmas, and (2) great honor accorded those who can differentiate appearance from reality. One further sub-theme which appears in association with frame three concerns fate. In tale type 934D1, the adversary is seen to be fate itself. A protagonist is told that, though poor, he will always own one bullock. The man proceeds to sell his bullock each day so that the gods must replace it. Similarly, when the same man learns that his sister is fated to be a prostitute he advises her to demand a handful of pearls per customer. The god must come in disguise to visit the girl himself, since no ordinary human can afford her price. God soon tired of these regular duties and agrees to lift his fateful pronouncements. If fate is an important theme in Indian folk literature, however, so is the concept of sheer luck. In 1646, The Lucky Blow, a man unwittingly knocks off a king's crown. When a poison snake is found concealed within his headgear he believes that man has saved his life. In

this and similar way luck is also embedded in many Indian stories. In 165E, for example, a fool acquires a fortune by accidentally dropping animal entrails onto a prince seated under the tree he has climbed. The prince, frightened, flees with his followers, leaving behind all his goods. Various inverted outcomes for stories classified under frame three also fairly common. In 152N two thieves attempt to deceive each other. They exchange various things, but then discover that false claims have been made by both parties. It is a standoff and neither party ends up gaining the advantage. In a second sub-variant only one party to the contest tries deceit. In tale type 1168B a demon and a man come to an agreement that the latter will pay the former an annual sum. But the demon tires of this arrangement and soon tries to devour the man. The latter responds by striking the demon with a mallet. This severely frightens the adversary and the story ends with a standoff. Both endings remind one of mythological contests between demons and gods in Hindu myths. After the churning of the ocean neither the devas nor the asuras can be

declared winners. When it comes t the struggle of evil forces against good ones the Hindu perspective favors balanced outcome. Another variant of the perpetual contest idea is found in tale type 1962A. Here the confrontation is carried through an infinite regression, so that it finally becomes inconsequential in the wider view of things. When the great wrestler or eater in this story brags and challenges a skilled opponent the two find themselves: (1) wrestling on a woman's arm' (2) contesting on a handkerchief, and (3) finally battling in the eye of a princes. In the end she perceives the struggle as a simple speak of dust which momentarily affects her vision. Taking up the same matter from another perspective is tale type 910, never plant a Thorn Tree. This is rather like the old English proverb " don't throw stones if you live in a glass house". The man who plants the thorn tree (probably hoping to keep others off his property) ends up catching his own turban on the bars. Hence, if bragging and aggression tend to end in stalemate, a reasonable counter-strategy is to avoid inflecting difficulties on others. This

philosophy is also reminiscent of the Hindu emphasis on pacifism and self-restraint. Frame Four Frame four differs from three by taking the egocentric interests of one protagonist as its main reference point. Now personal interests are to be pursued no matter what outside-Thompson index (413, 467, 516B, and 856) use this frame. The key focus for all of them is a man who after one (or several) exotic women. All together 51 stories Are listed under these four tale types. In about half of the cases the protagonist first obtains some sort of magical object. In the other half he Os magically transformed, himself, using some sort of disguise to gain access to the woman he courts. Tale type 411, contains a variant of this seeker theme. Here a king marries a girl who is a snake woman. When the king discovers her true form he becomes frightened and has her burnt to death. But in the ashes a magic pebble is found that can turn anything to gold. The chosen lady must have been valuable after all. The snake transformation theme is particularly popular in

India. The larger concept of an inexorable male quest for magical and beautiful women, however, is something this culture shares with many other areas of the world.

A common variant of the quest idea is that several suitors (often four) woo a woman by various individualized means. The question then arises as to who shall be chosen as groom. The tale type is 653B, The Suitors Restore the Maiden to similar to a form Dundes describes as popular in Africa (1971, p. 182). The question as to who should marry the girl demands resolution and seems particularly suited to societies where legal cases are debated by village elders (as is the case in rural India). In 855, the Substitute Bridegroom a bride a whisked away by a man who intended to serve only as a stand- in for the groom at her wedding. She falls in love with the real groom, and later manages to identify him from a large group who each tell her a story. In 1525Q a woman is courted by two thieves. She promises to become the wife of the cleverest one and they type, 306A, makes the man the

chooser. This time the girl is preselected but insists upon hiding herself amongst others who are similarly clad. All of these provide variations of a basic male seeker theme. All further introduce a note of disguise, of cleverness, and of formal or legalistic martial reasoning. If the general story type is not limited to India, these motifs do point towards specially valued local ways of telling a popular romantic tale. There are many quest stories involving men who seek after women, but what about the reverse situation where a woman pursues a man? There are many fewer Indian tales that can be described this way. In one exemplary case, 433C, or the Serpent Husband and the Jealous Girl, a woman marries a snake who is later transformed into a handsome man. This neatly inverts tale type 411 where a man marries a woman who becomes a snake. Both serpent spouses are magical. But the male is frightened of his bride, while the woman is happy with her groom. In the latter tale type another girl is Jealous of the first one's good luck. She therefore tries marrying a snake herself. Alas, that woman is bitten and killed for her presumption. Two

of the three women in this tangle of motifs are killed at the hands of males for their affinities with, or attraction to, a reptile form. None of the males suffer a similar fate. As mentioned earlier, women are most often depicted as the victims of aggression rather than as aggressors themselves.

A more common pattern in Indian folk stories is the focus of a wife who is faithful to her husband through many adversities. Thee tales I would classify in this category are 881A, 888A, and 977. If the male quest is described as seeking after beautiful women, then in these faithful wife stories the female one can be labeled "holding onto one's husband". Without a husband there is a great "lack" for Indian women, to use Prop's terminology. In all the relevant tale types a woman's husband is threatened. As a result, her secure social position becomes endangered. All the magical techniques women use to revive their husbands from death, free them from the hands of enemies, or reidentify them after a long separation; seem to be directed at overcoming such a loss. If the males in

these stories are motivated by desire in the simple sense, then their female counterparts are driven by fear of a social lack of a more formal kind. A single tale, supported by one example only,1409C, speaks of an Obedient Husband who followed his wife's instructions and walked home slowly. Alas, he was thereby too late to find her lover visiting. Here, a trusting husband is made out to be a fool. The concern that women have in Indian folk stories with preserving their husbands parallels a similar concern for their children. A common thread in these tales is the fear of being disowned if barrenness continues. The classic examples is tale 459. here, a woman goes to the extent of using a doll's image of a child after being turned out of her husband's home for not bearing one naturally. She eventually informs the husband that she has a son, but that he must not see it. When the time for the child's wedding comes the woman then puts the doll image in a sedan chair. A god pities her and gives the doll life. Afterwards the husband agrees to take his wife back.

Various motif listings specific to India further indicate a special cultural concern with persecuted wives. These include: S411.2, Wife Banished for some Small Fault; S411.3, Barren Wife Sent Away; and S416, Queen Banished When She Defeats King in Argument. The fact of the rejected female partner is also vividly portrayed in many stories. A few motif examples are S436, Cast-Off Wife's Head Shaven; S437, Cast-Off Wife Sent to Herd Cows; and S438, Abandoned Queen Blinded. Such typical motif patterns seem to document female fears about losing a husband. Tale type 369, The Youth on a Quest for His Lost Father, also deserves brief mention. The search described features a juvenile male who seeks to retrieve a lost parent. This is a "lack" syndrome similar to that described above for females. A.K. Ramanujan has pointed out (1971) that South Asian Hindu stories favour inverted Oedipal themes. In tale type 369, for example, a young day seeks to restore his father to life. This lack provides a contrast with the focus on a son killing the father found in many Greek and European tales.

Many typical fourth frame stories also depict situations where a protagonist is unsuccessful in his or her quest. For males, a good example is found in tale type 896, The Lecheros Holy Man and the Maiden in a Box. Here a man falls in love with a beautiful girl but she spurns him. He continues to try all sorts of tricks, but the girl is finally rescued and the suitor killed. The difference is that his object of affection was totally inappropriate. Unlike the stories about an unwed prince who sets off to find a queen, a holy man must strive for sexual abstinance. The burning sexual desires of holy men stand out as a particularly Indian theme and is extensively documented by classical documented by classical Hindu mythology (O'Flaherty). Another type of male oriented tale emphasizes the fool. A dumb man may seek something unattainable (1250B, A Visit To the Sky), and fail through some silly error, or an incompetent son-in-law (1685A) may desire sustenance (and even sexual satisfaction from his mother-in-law). All are highly inappropriate desires. Tale 1295B*, where a man who orders his doorway broken down so that he need not dismount

from his camel in order to enter, belongs in the same category. Though successful in attaining a limited goal, this protagonist makes a public fool of himself in a wider context. Two other minor tale types, 926B and 1331B* also seem to belong in this group. Similar patterns exist where women are concerned. In 612A an ungrateful wife becomes a prostitute, receives a boon from a king who is pleased with her, and then asks that her husband be killed. He cleverly asks her to return what she has given him, however, and she ends up being murdered instead. This female variant contains several of the motifs mentioned above, including inappropriate desires that backfire or remain unfulfilled. It also places a high value on a clever escape from a tight fix. Two other tale types complete this category. They are 1511 where a faithless woman murders her husband, but is then spurned by her lover; and, 462 where an ogress pursues married men but is finally slain. This sole tale type where a woman openly pursues, a man depicts an ogress who operates in the forest. Furthermore, she is ultimately unsuccessful. The type is important, as there are 24

Indian examples reported. Notable, too, is the fact that sch ogresses commonly assume the disguise of young girls. By contrast, men do not flaunt their sexual identify when wooing women; rather they try to conceal it. This completes my discussion of the Aarne-Thompson folk tale, joke and anecdote types reported uniquely from South Asia sources. As a next step it will be helpful to take one popular folk tale as an example of how the materials in an individual folk tale collection can be usefully linked to this four frame scheme. The story I have chosen is a popular one in Southern Karnataka: The Arecanut Princes (Handoo, 1978). This fanciful tale falls easily into frame four: Action motivated by the Strength of Individual Desire. A prince is unwilling to marry the woman selected for him by his parents, and in that way is different from his complaint elder brothers. He then sets out on his own quest for a bride, determined that he will marry the daughter of an arecanut king. Along the way he acquires magical objects from several saints and then uses these objects, as well as the saint's advice and aid,

to ward off various monsters and fearful animals that threaten to block him from his goal. The Arecanut Princess Once a king had five sons. The elder four married but the youngest prince did not marry the bride shown to him. Hence he had to search for a wife himself. He departed, hoping to marry the daughter of Arecanut King. O his way, however, he met a saint who blessed him with magical lemon, a stick, coal and some bits of turmeric. The saint also advised the prince to meet his brother. This the prince did, and that second saint also give him magical agents. He then asked the prince to meet a third brother. This also the prince did. That saint gave the prince more magical agents and told him to use each one in turn if he got into trouble. This man also advised the prince not to place the arecanut (in which he would find the princess) on the ground once he had obtained it. The prince left, crossed seven seas and finally reached the Arecanut King's tree. There the princess lay inside an arecanut. When the prince was about to pluck the

nut, a RakÀasa appeared. The prince threw his magical lemon at it. The RakÀasa disappeared. At this point lions, tigers and other monstrous beings also appeared. The prince, out of fear, threw all of his magical things at them. But these animals and monsters killed the prince. The third saint then happened to see this dead, half-eaten prince. He brought him back to life, and gave him back his magical things. This time the prince plucked the arecanut and returned. The animals and monsters pursued him, but the prince escaped to a town with the help of his magical objects. Feeling tired, he then put the arecanut on the ground and retired into a fast sleep beside a well. While the prince was asleep, the princess came out of her arecanut. Soon a Kumbara girl came to fetch water and felt jealous of the princess; she then managed to change dress and jewellery with the princess and to push the latter into the well. Then the Kumbara girl assumed the position of princess and entered the nut. The prince, unaware of this, took her and walked home. Sometime later, however, the prince happened

to pass by the same well again. There he saw a beautiful flower. He plucked the flower and gave it to his wife. She recognized it as the real Arecanut princess and ordered it thrown into a ditch. A sandalwood tree grew from that blossom. Next she ordered the cutting and burning of that plant. However, the woodcutter hid a piece of the cut tree inside a huge pot at home. After some time the woodcutter and his wife saw that piece of wood change into a beautiful maiden whom they adopted as a daughter. Later, the prince went on a hunting expedition and overheard some girls narrating the Arecanut princess' story. In this manner the prince finally came to know the truth about what had happened. He then buried the Kumbara girl alive, married the real princess, and ascended the throne. (Adapted from Handoo, 1978, pp.82-5) Although there is a brief reference to a sibling group at the beginning of this story, the action never returns to a comparison between the hero and his siblings. The link to the helpful saints is also a passing one. This

illustrates the fact that several frames can be combined in one story (in this case all four are present: siblings, patrons, adversaries and a quest motivated by individual desire) but that one will be clearly dominant. In this case, the prince's quest for a marriageable princess is the key perspective (and hence frame) that binds the protagonist's many adventures together. The unifying effect of the quest theme in this arecanut story can be seen clearly in the second phase of the action. After prince meets the various challenges provided by his forest adversaries, he finally finds the sought after arecanut. He plucks it, but then fails to follow one saint's instructions. Next a jealous low caste girl comes along, finds the princess emerging from her nut. The conniving woman arranges to change clothes with the arecanut lady, pushes the princess into a well, and crawls into the nut to replace her. The prince wakes up unaware of this exchange of identities and takes the false spouse home.

Suggestive similarities exist with all four tale types listed under the lover-seeks-exotic-bride principle. Type 467, The Quest for the wonderful Flower, provides the closest fit. For "Flower", however, we must now read "arecanut". There is also tale type 413, Marriage by Stealing Clothing, since this is the way the low caste impostor makes herself the bride. Similarly, type 516B, The Abducted Princess, is important, since the arecanut woman is temporarily lost. And we cannot ignore type 856, where a youth is driven forth by his father when he announces whom he wants to marry. In the original tale type, furthermore, the price becomes an impostor in order to elope. The arecanut story provides a simple inversion of this when a female decides to act as an impostor. These links suggest that much tale type material can be grouped thematically. I shall call such groupings tale patterns. In the present case it seems reasonable to speak of a pattern called "Man seeks/wooes beautiful women". These patter, plus the four general frames bring us close to formulating a special iocotypes. Before completing the picture, however, I must finish the arecanut story.

Sometime after the exchange of a true princess for a false one, the prince happens to pass by the well in which his true spouse was thrown. The rival woman, who is now by the prince's side, sees a flower growing from the well. She recognizes this as the real princess. When the prince plucks it, she orders the flower thrown in a ditch. Later, when a sandalwood tree grows from the blossom she also orders it cut down. But the woodcutter saves a piece of the tree and hides it inside a pot. Later that wood chip becomes transformed into a beautiful young maiden. She is quickly adopted by the woodcutter's family. Still later, on a hunting expedition, the prince overhears some girls describing the adventures of an arecanut princess and they mention her current whereabouts. The prince understand s the truth about what has happened at this point. He then buries his present wife alive, marries the real princess, and ascends a throne. The end of this story provides a happy outcome for the male bride-seeker. His heart's desire is won and his early rebellion against his father becomes justified. Many colourful motifs in this story give this theme its

specific Indian flavor. For example, at least two of the tools the saints offer the hero are true cultural markers: the Lemon and a piece of turmeric. Similarly, the maiden is hidden in a series of magical containers: an arecanut, a well, a flower, a sandalwood tree and, finally, a woodcutter's pot. A series of other important motifs contained in this story are also listed in the chart below: CHART TWO : THE ARECANUT PRINCESS (A Tentative Oicotype)

Fra

Tale

Asso

me

patte

ciate

rn

d Moti fs

Acti

Man

Youn

on

seeks

gest

mot

/woo

brot

ivat

es

her

ed

beaut

beco

by

iful

mes

the

wom

king.

Stre

en

Saint

ngt

(speci

provi

h of

al

des

Indi

detail

magi

vid

s)

cal

ual Des ire

1) seeke r has patro n(s)

tools (Lem on, turm eric, etc.) Maid

2)

en is

wom

hidd

an

en in

soug

magi

ht

cal

has

cont

an

ainer

exotic

s

ances

(arec

try

anut, well, flowe r, sand alwo od tree, pot) Saint reviv es prota gonis t after his deat h.

Exch ange of ident ities: false and true spou se Buri al alive Disc over y

of

truth thro ugh liste ning

to

a

story

The concept of motif markers has, unfortunately, never been adequately defined. Thompson suggests that a motif is the smallest element in a tale having the power to persist in tradition (Dundes, 1975a, p.63). Baughman has further called the motif "a phenomena, a characteristic, a power, a happening, a creature, or an object" (1976, Introduction). In other words, a motif is a relatively simple and concrete story element. In this sense motifs are cultural markers. They indicate specific habits, beliefs, customs and settings. When motifs are described in a detailed fashion (a donor saint gives a piece of turmeric to a protagonist and calls it a magical object) they are culture-specific. An appendix to this paper provides a list of the most extensively indexed South Asian motifs. This list ranges from motif N451 (secrets overheard from animal conversation), which has been noticed in roughly thirty different sources, to T511.1 (conception

from eating fruit) which appears in about fifteen indexed accounts. None of the 142 motifs included in this list can be called unique to India in this crude form, but their special popularity in South Asia does add an important dimension to the oicotype concept and suggests a basis for further research work. A frame is a general value context upon which a large number of folk tales, jokes and anecdotes draw for significance. A frame adds meaning to a story and gives it some bearing upon our understanding of the human condition in general. Frames vary significantly from culture area to culture area. Yet, without a reference to specific tale patterns and motifs, a given frame is too abstract to constitute an oicotype in itself. In order to build up culture and group-specific themes we must flesh out a set of general frames by linking them to more specific units of description. This is the purpose of the tale patterns, which indicate particular social settings and social interaction structures. Tale types are sub-units of more general tale patterns. They focus on typical action sequences. Motifs provide

the concrete and culture-rich details that add local color to a give account. In order to define specific oicotypes successfully, we must search for a association of specific frames with specific tale patterns, tale types and motif clusters. The chart describing the tale of the arecanut princess, approaches what I mean by an India oicotype. It could be fleshed out further by discussing other variants. The final chart provides a rough outline of a number of other South Asian oicotypes. This table summarizes the discussion of our basic frames presented in the body of this paper. In it each tale pattern can be considered a separate, nascent oicotype, in relation to a general frame (on the left) and to a cluster of specific motifs (on the right). Each resultant pattern needs to be further explored individually. The arecanut story, for example, fills out one of the tale patterns contained by frame four. Much work needs to be done in linking motifs with specific tale patterns and frames. The appendix to this paper describing popular motifs in the Thompson-Balys index should be helpful in this task.

CHART THREE : A SUMMARY OF AARNETHOMPSON POLKTALE, JOKE AND ANECDOTE MATERIAL REPORTED SOLELY FROM SOUTH ASIA Frames

Tale Patterns

Motifs

1

2

3

1) Bond

Sibling

A

set

of

brothers A

special

devotion

becomes

king,

elder

chooses

retreat husband’s

between and

sister A

brother

Mistreatment

expressed brother

Younger

weak

by

his

wife

there

brother are

disadvantaged

magical

junior sibling

interchanges

tries harder

sister

A sister blessed her

or

of

Siblings

or

other

steal

from each other Sibling cannibalism Women

die

themselves,

men

succeed in killing others Triumph of the weak

or

small

against elders 2)

A

Patron/Client

between king

person’s

and minister

and

or prince and

rewards him

Bond

his

loyalty

a

loyalty

eventually

Woman helped by set out

on adventures b)

tries

friend

who: a)

Diety

are

challenged by

birds or youthful/ small animals Women

an adversary

understand

c)

animal speech

must

meet

A person is made

demands from a god or deal

with

a

curse A

loyalty a

person

and

some being

or

animal A partnership is exploited by senior

member

junior

behind superficial

of

wording A senior unjustly castigates

or

murders a loyal

supernatural

Roles

cannot see truth signs or a literal

between

its

a fool because he

a and

subordinate

senior partner get reversed

3) Threat of

A

king

an Adversary

contests: a)

with

thieves b)

with a

Great

value

placed

on

intelligent

or

resourceful solution

demon

Great

c)

placed on seeing

with fate

A man gains benefits sheer luck

by

value

through superficial appearances A

context

is

unresolved

and

ends in a balance A

confrontation

ends in an infinite regression

to

inconsequentiality 4)

Action

A

man

Attempted

Motivat-ed

seeks/wooes

seduction

by

beautiful

stealing

women

woman’s clothing

Strength

of Individual Desire

one

woo woman

and she must choose A

wife

a

Use of disguise,

Several suitors

by

cleverness, formalistic reasoning

in

matters pertaining

is

and

to

weddings

faithful to and

Description

attempts

to

cast-off,

preserve

her

prosecuted

of or

husband

barren wife

despite adversity

A

female-snake

A woman goes

(or

to

transformation

great

lengths

to

obtain a child

male-snake)

occurs A

progress

Child seeks a

pursues a man in

parent,

a forest

especially the son seeks a father A

A holy man is found

person

full

sexual desire

seeks something inappropriate and fails to obtain it Some of the more interesting questions that can be asked using this chart concern the variable popularity

of

of various frames, tale patterns and motifs by South Asian sub-region and social group. Is the sibling bond frame, for example, particularly prominent in Dravidian areas? Is the patron/client frame particularly popular with peasant groups? Will relations by social class relate to differing kinds of resourceful solutions? Linking popular patterns to particular areas and groups will also help us to learn more about the social norms, mores and ideals of varied types of people who make up the South Asian culture area. Finally, there is the question of genres. I have dealt with ordinary folk tales, jokes and anecdotes. Animal stories need to be studied for parallels and for differences. And what about myths? Can mythical material be fitted into these same frames? I am not sure. Myths tend to bend into each other more than stories do, so that discrete beginning and end points are harder to recognize. Weaker action sequences and stronger motif patterns characterize the myth genre myths also tend to focus heavily on nuclear family bonds and particularly on parent/child or

husband/wife interactions. Neither of these two issues loom large I these present tale types. Other genres, such as the proverb, also seem to place more emphasis on nuclear bonds. They need to be re-examined too. This paper has focussed solely on folk tales, jokes and anecdotes described in the Aarne-Thomson tale-type compendium. It represents a small first step. Others must now build on these findings. We are still a long way from finding a set of internationally viable oicotype patterns for the Indian culture area. NOTES 1) This issues to be largely related to myth, as in the Laksmi/Alaksmi motif, or in stories about the seven sisters/seven mantrikas. 2) Here is an example of an animal tale, not included in the tale type listings 300 - 1999, but which shows a theme present in the later corpus clearly projected into the animal domain. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Baughman, E.W 6

Type and 196

Motif Index of the Folktales of England and North America. Indiana Universit y Folktale Series, No.20, The Hague: Mouton.

Beck, Brenda E.F.

“The Kin 1974

Nucleus in Tamil Folklore”

1982

,

in

Thomas Trautma n (ed.), Kinship and History in South Asia. Ann Arbor: Universit y

of

Michiga n Center for South and

Southeas t

Asian

Studies, pp.1-27. The Three Twins: The Telling of

a

South Indian Folk Epic. Bloomin gton: Indiana Universit y Press.

Brown, W. Norman

“Escapin 192

g

one’s

Fate”, in

0

Studies in Honor 1921

of Maurice Bloomfie

1927

ld. New Haven: Yale Universit y Press. “Vyaghra mari

or

the Lady TigerKiller: A study of the Motif of

Bluff

in Hindu Fiction”, America n Journal of Philolog y (Baltimo re), Vol.XLII “Change of Sexes: A Hindu Story Motif”, Journal of

the

America n Oriental

Society (Boston) , Vol.XLII . Claus, Peter J.

“The Siri 1975

Myth and Ritual: A Mass Possessi on

Cult

of South India”, Ethnolog y, Vol.14, No.1, pp.4758.

Dorson, Richard

“America

M.

n

1978a

Folklore 1978b

Vs. Folklore I America”

1980

, Journal of

the

Folklore Institute, Vol.

15,

pp.97112. “Boosteri sm

in

America n Folklore” , Journal of

the

Folklore Institute, Vol.15, pp.181182. “Rejoind er

to

‘America n Folklore Vs. Folklore in America’ : A Fixed Fight?” Journal of

the

Folklore Institute, Vol.17,

No.1, pp.8589.

Dundes, Alan.

“The 1

Making and

971

Breaking of 1975a

Friendsh ip as a Structur

1975b

al Frame in African Folktales ”,

1975c

pp.177188

in

Pierre 1975d

Maranda

and Elli Kongas Maranda (eds.) Structur al Analysis of

Oral

Traditio n. Philadel phia: Universit y

of

Pennsylv ania Press, pp.171188. “From Etic

to

Emic Units in the Structur al Study of Folktales ”, (reprint of 1962) in Analytic Essays in Folklore. The Hague: Mouton, pp.6172. “Structur al

Typology in North America n Indian Folktales ”, (reprint of 1963) in Analytic Essays in Folklore. The Hague: Mouton, pp.7379. “The Study of Folklore I

Literatur e

and

Culture: Identific ation and Interpret ation”, (reprint of 1965) in Analytic Essay in Folklore. The Hague: Mouton, pp.2834. “Thinkin g Ahead:

A Folkloris tic Reflectio n of the Future Orientati on

I

America n Worldvie w”, (reprint of 1969) in Analytic Essays in Folklore. The Hague: Mouton, pp.226-

38.

Emeneau, M.B. 0

"A 194

Classical Indian Folktale as a Reported Modern Event, The Brahman

1941

and the Mongoose ", "Proceedi ngs of the American Philosophi cal Society, Vol.LXXX III. "The Faithful Dog as Security for a Debt", Journal of the American Oriental

Society, Vol.17.

Handoo, Jawaharlal

“Morpholo

.

gical 1978

Analysis of Oral Narrative” , in Current Trends of Folklore. Mysore: University of Mysore, Institute of Kannada Studies, pp.61-103.

Hart, George L.

The

III.

1975

Poems of Ancient Tamil. Berkeley : Universit y

of

Californi a Press O’Flaherty,WendyDonige

Asceticis

r

m

1973

and

Eroticis m in the Mytholo gy

of

Siva. Oxford: Oxford Universit y Press. Ramanujan, A.K.

“The 1971

Indian

Oedipus” ,

in

Symposi um

on

Indian Literatur e. Simla: Indian Institute of Advance d Study. Shulman,

“The

David

Tamil 1978

FloodMyths and

the

Cankam Legend”, Journal of Tamil Studies,

Vo.14, pp.14-31. Thompson, Stith

Motif1955-

Indix of Folk-

58

Literatur 1961

e,

6

Vols., 2nd ed. Bloomin gton: Indiana Universit y Press. The Types of the Folktales ,

2nd

revision (based

on original work by A.Aarne) ,

FF

Commu nications 184. Helsinki: Suomala inen Tiedeaka temia. Thompson, Stith and

The Oral

Jonas Balys

Tales of India.

1958

Bloomin gton: Indiana Universit y Press.

Thomson, Stith and

Types of

Warren e. Roberts

Indic Oral

1960

Tales: India, Pakistan and Ceylon. Helsinki: Suomala inen Tiedealat emia Academi a Scientiar um Fennica.

APPENDIX

I. Folktale Types Indexed in the AarneThompson Compendium that are Linked Exclusively to South Asian Sources : Ordinary Folk Tales 302B

Hero with Life Dependent o his Sword.

306A

The Pursuit of the Heavenly Maiden

315A

The Cannibal Sister

369

The Youth on a Quest for his Lost Father

411

The King and the Lamia

413

Marriage by Stealing Clothing

433C

The Serpent Husband and the Jealous

Girl 450A

The Brother Transformed to a Snake

459

The Make-Believe Son (Daughter)

462

The Outcast queens and the Ogress

Queen 465D

Animal Brothers Help the Hero

467

The Quest for the Wonderful Flower

(Jewel) 516A

The Sign Language of the Princess

516B

The Abducted Princess

534

The Youth Who Tends the Buffalo Herd.

535

The Boy Adopted by Tigers (Animals)

546

The Clever Parrot

567A

The Magic Bird-Heart and the Separated

Brothers 612A

The Ungrateful Wife Restored to Life

622

The Talking Bed-Legs

653B

The Suitors Restore the Maiden to Life

655A

The Strayed Camel and the Clever

Deductions 670A

The Woman Who Understood Animal

Language 674

Incest Averted-Talking Animals

709A

The Stork's Daughter

780A

The Cannibalistic Brothers

855

The Substitute Bridegroom

856

The Girl Elopes with the Wrong Man

872B2

Converting a Moslem into a Hindu

875B3

Moving the Well

875E

The Unjust Decision: The Oil Press Gives

Birth to a Colt 881A

The Abandoned Bride Disguised as a Man

888A

The Wife Who Would Not be Beaten

896

The Lecherous Holy man and the Maiden

in a Box 897

The Orphan Girl and Her Cruel Sister-in-

law 910H

Never Travel Without a Companion or

Stay Alert 910J

Never Plant a Thorn Tree

923B

The Princess Who was Responsible for

her Own Fortune 926A

The Clever Judge and the Demon in the

Pot 926B

The Ring to be Cut in Two and Divided

Equally between Two Quarreling Persons. 934D1

Outwitting Fate

9391

Offended Deity

949

The Faithful Servitor

951C

The Disguised King Joins the Thieves

976A

The Thief Exposed by a Story

977

The Eloping Couple and the Robbers

978

The Youth in the Land of the Cheaters

1152

The Ogre Overawed by Displaying Objects

1164D

The Demon and the Man Join Forces

1168B

The Tree-Demon Pays the Man to Save

the Tree Jokes and Anecdotes 1250B

The Fool Dangling from the Elephant's

Tail 1295B*

Man on Camel has Doorway Broken

Down so that he can Ride In 1331B*

Letters too small

1409C

Obedient Husband Walks Slowly

1511

The Faithless Queen

1525N

the two Thieves Trick Each Other

1525Q

the Two Thieves Married to the Same

Woman 1532

The Voice from the Grave

1534

A The Innocent Man Chosen to Fit the

Stake (Noose) 1633

Joint Ownership of the Cow

1646

The Lucky Blow

1653E

The entrails Dropped from the Tree

1685A

The Stupid Son-in-law

1692

The Stupid Thief

1693

The Literal Fool-The Burning of Lanka.

Pots Broken, Fire Set 1707

The Noseless Man

1962

A The Great Wrestlers

Animal Tales 56C

170A

58

176

59

178B

64

223

68

233A

122C

233B

122H

239

122Z

241

131

243

157A

248A

Formula Tales 2013

2034D

2023

2034E

2028A

2042

2029A

2042B

2029B

2042C

2029C

2042D

2031C

2045A

2031A

2045B

2031B

2047

II. Most Extensively Indexed Motifs in the Thompson-Balys Volume on India: (The column on the left indicates the number of lines devoted to listing sources: roughly three sources are cited on each line) No.of

Motif

Lines

Mo

Descrip

Requi

tif

tion

red

Nu

toList

mb

Sourc

er

es 1

3 2

13

N

Secrets

12

4

overhea

11

51

d from

L

animal

16

(demon

1

)

Z

convers

71

ation

.1

Lowly hero marries princes s Formul istic number ; seven

10

D

Transfo

2

rmatio

31

n: man

E

to

8

stone

0

Water

K

of

18

Gods

11

(saints)

S

in

31

disguis

S

e

14

mortals

3

Cruel

life

visit

stepmo ther Abando ned in forest 9

D

Disenc

7

hantme

21

nt

.3

destroy

E

ing skin

6

(coveri

31

ng)

J

Reincar

by

11

nation

7

in plant

2.

(tree)

3

growin

K

g from

8

grave

4

Ungrat

2

eful

K

animal

17

returne

15

d

to

captivit K

y

21

Dupe

11

persua ded to

K

take

2

prisone

21

r’s

1

place in sack Weak

animal (man) makes large one (ogre) believe he has eaten many of

the

large one’s compa nions Potipho r’s wife: Woman makes vain overtur es to a

man and then accuses him of attempt ing

to

force her Treach erous brother (usuall y elder brother ) 8

B

Helpful

4

servant

91

Animal

.1

s

B

perfor

57

m tasks

1

for man

H

Tasks

3

assigne

5

d

5

suitors

H

Quest

13

for

8

vanishe

5.

d

3

(mistre

K

ss)

21

Slander

15

.

.2

Woman

Q

has

11

given

5

birth to

T

objects

11

Reward

.4

:

.1

boon

W

that

wife

Any

15

may be

4.

asked

2.

Love

1

throug h sight of hair of unkno wn princes s Rescue d animal threate ns rescuer

7

B

Knowle

21

dge

6

animal

B

languag

3

es

6

Animal

0

s

B

grateful

5

for

0

rescue

5

from

D

peril of

6

death

3

Magic

0

object

D

receive

18

d from

12

animal

.3

Transfo

.3

rmatio

G

n

8

disench

of

and

4

antmen t at will

K

Future

1

reveale

0

d

51

dream

in

Fee-fiK

fo-fum:

13

Cannib

3

al

5

returni

K

ng

19

home

11

smells human

K

flesh

2

and

21

makes

3

exclam

N

ation

6

Diving

81

for

sheep. N

Dupe

6

persua

8

ded

3

that sheep

N

have

71

been

1.

lost

1

the

N

river

81

Seducti

7

on

Q

wooing

2

)

41

stealing

S

clothes

2

of

6

bathing

0.

girl

1

The

S

false

in

(or by

2

bride.

6

An

2

impost

S

or takes

4

wife’s

51

place without detecti on Treach erous wife Husban d (lover) arrives home just as wife (mistre ss) is to marry

another Strange r acciden tally chosen king. Picked up

by

scared elephan t Prince finds maiden in woods (tree) and marries her Deity

as helper (usuall y

in

answer to prayer) Adulter y punish ed Human sacrific e Periodi c sacrific es to a monste r Outcast e

wife

at

last

united with husban d

and

childre n

6

B

Flying

41

horse

.2

King of

B

Serpent

2

s

4

Animal

4.

nurse

1

Tabu:

B

Lookin

4

g back

5

Forbid

0

den

C

chambe

3

r

31

Transfo

C

rmatio

61

n: Man

1

to

D

serpent

19

(D 391

1

= serpent

D

to

6

person,

21

4 lines)

.1

Animal

D

by day,

6

man by

7

night

2

Obstacl

D

e flight

1

Magic

0

ring

7

Magic

6

wishing

D

ring

14

Resusci

7

tation

0.

by

1.

arrange

15

ment of

E

number

3

s

0

Resusci

E

tation

11

by

3

blood

E

Life

7

token:

61

Tree

.3

(flower

F

) fades

5

Serpent

8

damsel

2.

Victims

1

rescued

F

from

91

swallo

3

wer’s

G

belly

5

Help

3

from

0.

ogre’s

2

daught

H

er

9

son)

(or

4

Identifi

H

cation

17

by ring

1.

King

1

selecte

H

d

3

elephan

4

t

6

bowing

H

to him

9

Princes

31

s given

H

to man

12

who

12

can

H

heal

12

her

3

Tasks

5

assigne

J

d

16

order

3.

to

by

in get

4

rid

J

hero

11

Quest

12

assigne

K

d

51

order

1

to

get

K

rid

of

51

hero

2

Success

of

in

ion

of

K

helpers

5

on

2

quest

2

Good

K

counsel

5

s

4

bought

3

Clever wife

K

Uriah

9

letter

41

change

.1

d. Order

K

of

18

executi

3

on

7

Compa

K

ssionat

19

e

11

executi

.2

on:

.2

Servant

K

charge

2

d with

21

killing

2.

hero

2

(heroin

M

e),

3

arrange

7

s

0

escape

N

of latter

81

Escape

2

by

N

shamm

8

ing

31

death

.1

Biting the

S

foot:

16

Fox to

5

bear

T

who is

11

biting

.2

his foot

T

–

15

are

T

biting

16

the tree

T

root

2

Cows

4.

killed

2

for

T

their

you

21

hides

1.

when

2.

large

1

price is

T

reporte

51

d

1.

trickste

1.

r

3

Disguis

T

e

5

woman

4

in

8.

man’s

1

clothes

W

True

15

bride

4.

pushed

8

into

by

of

water by false Treach erous

sisterin-law Vain attempt s

to

escape fulfillm ent

of

prophe cy Giant or ogre as helper Mysteri ous housek eeper. Men find their houses

mysteri ously put

in

order (by girl) Mutilat ion: Putting out eyes Love throug h sight of picture Love at first sight Man falls in love

with woman he sees bathing Swooni ng

for

love Wife throws herself on husban d’s funeral pyre Concep tion from eating mango Child born in

answer to prayer Gratefu l animals : Ungrat eful man

5

B

Helpful

4

cat

2

Helpful

2

tiger

B

Helpful

4

parrot

31

Man

.3

carried

B

by bird

4

Animal

6

wins

9.

wife for

9

his

B

master

5

Transfo

5

rmatio

2

n: Man

B

to

5

Repeat

8

ed

2.

transfo

1.

rmatio

fly

1

n

D

Transfo

18

rmatio

5.

n

1

combat

D

Person

61

disench

0

anted

D

Resusci

61

tation

5

Repeat

D

ed

7

reincar

0

nation

0

Separa

E

ble soul

0

in

E

parrot

6

Evil

7

spirit

0

possess

E

es

71

person

5.

Weddin

1.

g

3

mortal

E

and

7

fairy

2

Tower

8

to

F

babel:

3

Remar

0

kable

3

tall

F

tower

77

designe

2.

d

1

reach

G

sky

7

Starvin

2.

g

2

woman

G

abando

5

ned in

of

to

3

cave

0.

eats

1

newbor

H

n child

11

Help

H

from

11

ogre’s

.1

wife

H

Recogn

17

ition

5.

throug

1

h story

H

telling

3

Recogn

2

ition by

4

telling

H

life

13

history

3.

Recogn

5

ition of

H

son by

13

gushing

8

up

5.

milk in

4

mother’

F

s

11

breasts

91

Suitor

.1.

test

1

choosin

of

=

g J

princes

2

s from

2

others

3

identic

3

ally

J

clad

2

Quest

41

for

5

marvel

J

ous

2

flower

51

Quest

1

for

vanishe K

d

11

husban

.1

d

K

The sea

3

is

3

fire—

5.

not

1.

more

1.

absurd

2

than

K

the

5

decisio

3

n about

3

the colt

on

Logicall K

y

9

absurd

41

defence

.2

s Foolish

K

imitatio

13

n

21

lucky

.1

men

K

The

17

silence

15

wager

.1

(one

K

become

18

s angry,

3

scolds

6

and

K

loses

21

the

12

wager)

K

Race

2

won by

2

decepti

4

on:

8

Relativ

L

e

1

helpers

0

Cow-

of

L

hide

11

falls on

1.

robbers

4

from

L

tree

16

Wait

2

till I get fat—

M

captive

21

persua des captor

N

to wait

7

and

N

fatten

1

him

0

before

1

eating

N

Dupe

11

burns

1

house

N

because

3

trickste

4

r

7

reports

N

high

4

price

51

paid for

.1

ashes Man

N

disguis

4

ed as a

5

woman

2

admitte d

to

Q

woman’

11

s

2

quarter

Q

s

21

Weak

1

animal

Q

shows

2

strong

8

his own

5

reflecti

Q

on and

4

frighte

3

ns him

2

Disguis

R

e

1

man in

0.

woman’

1

s dress

R

Woman

11

slander

.1

ed

R

adultre

14

ss

6.

Treach

1

erous

of

as

ministe r Victori ous younge r

son

Orphan hero Lowly heroine marries prince (other way around has about ½

the

entries) King hears judgem ent. King flattere d

by

elder daught

ers and angere d

by

seemin g indiffer ence of younge st banishe s

her

and favors eldest Trained rat upsets pieces in gambli ng game

Inexora ble fate Inexota ble fate Luck though of as a goddes s Innoce nt man acciden tally suspect ed

of

crime Secrets of animals (demon s) acciden

tally overhea rd from tree (bridge ) hiding place Secret of remedy overhea rd

in

convers ation of animals (witche s) Half of Kingdo m

as

reward Murder

punish ed Cruelty punish ed Punish ment: Banish ment or exile Princes s (maide n) abducte d Princes s (maide n) abducte d

by

monste r (ogre) Abando nment in well

STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF A BENGALI FOLKSONG Mazharul Islam Rajshahi University The idea that folklore belonged to the past, that it originated in the minds of primitive people, that it is the ramble of the by-gone ages, that it belongs to the illiterate village people, that it lives only in oral tradition and so on, are no longer accepted as valid and justifiable notion. The vast area of folklore is stretched from the past to the present. Folklore is a rich treasure of cities as well as of villages and it belongs to literates and illiterates alike. It is not languishing in nothingness, rather its creation is a continuous process. As civilization progresses, it will grow and adapt to the changing shapes and patterns of the culture. Folklorists have spent a long time and their valuable energy to trace the origins of folklore. But now that "past-oriented" enthusiasm has softened down and the attention of the folklorists has been diverted to other

directions. The methodologies followed in the structural analysis of folklore are the results of this new consciousness and trend. The study of folklore which was diachronic for a long time, has now embraced synchronism with the development of new methods of analysis as a consequence. It is obvious that folklore changes in subject matter and theme, but its structure remains almost unaffected. There are certain patterns through which folklore is shaped and these patterns are followed repeatedly by the creators of folklore. Vladimir J. Propp, a Russian Folklorist, was the first to nice the adherence of Russian folktale to a set pattern. This led him to the serious study of the Russian folktale in terms of its structural patterns. Propp's results appeared in his book Morfologiye Skazki (1928). After the pioneering work of Propp, Western scholars such as Claude Levi-Strauss, Alan Dundes, E. Kongas Maranda, P. Marada and William O. Hendricks have attained a remarkable level of sophistication in structural analysis of various folk genre so far as Bengali folklore is concerned, structural analysis has

not yet even begun. It is a matter of regret that the scholars of folklore in Bangladesh and India are still hesitant to adopt this method and prefer to remain in the dark age of the diachronic study of folklore. In this short paper, I have, due to reasons of space and time, selected one Bengali folksong for structural analysis. Bit I am convinced that this method can be successfully applied to hundred of Bengali folksongs of various categories. This particular song comes from the hand of a great folk poet Pagla Kanai who was born in the district of Jessore, a southwestern district of Bangladesh. He sang most of his songs between the fourth and eighth decades of the nineteenth century. All his songs are still found in oral tradition. In fact his songs became so popular that one can collect them even now from almost half of the population of Bangladesh. I myself, collected over 500 songs, (Islam, in press). Pagla Kanai was one of the prominent mystic folk-poets known in Bengali as Baul. This particular song has mysticism in it which is reflected in its structure. Its analysis should concentrate on those

aspects which are most common in all the mystic songs prevalent in Bengal oral tradition. A Bengali Folksong of Pagla Kanai A peculiar vessel was made And then the Creator set the vessel on the earth It does not glide on water, But floats on soil surface Its helm is in the hands of the mind-helmsman? It moves by two oars. What a miraculous mechanism is there in the Vessel! It floats on the ground, but within it is the water. Besides water and fire there are valuable contents in it, O brother helsman! Be alert and upright, Do not loose your grip The Vessel may sink under water any moment! Pagla Kanai is deeply concerned As to what will happen to the vessel When it will lose its strength The joints of the vessel would be loosened, too; And the water will enter in to its body.

The six senses, as the hemsmen, would take leave And then the vessel will get drowned even in the ground (Then the vessel will go to eternity) I would like to explain three aspects of this song before taking up its structural analysis. 1) Narration : the narration is simplified in this song in active sentences where we get the subject and the object, the actor and the action. There are also functions containing the subject for indirect object and direct object. In the functions of the main character, the vessel, helped from behind by the Creator, initially we find goodness, but soon after it starts functioning, it compromises with badness. The Creator creates the vessel, which is the human being, with his body to be guided by his mind. With good intention, he sends it to the earth. But after coming to the earth, the vessel leaves the Creator and accepts worldly things. In spite of the caution, the vessel comes under the grip of evil force and is ultimately drowned. This is apparently the end of the physical being, but from this end a new life

begins. Thus although the evil forces seem to have won, they really do not; goodness ultimately prevails. In almost all the Bengali folksongs, this conflict between the good and evil is usually noticeable. 2) Personal opinion of the poet : The poet here, while narrating the song comes forward with his own comments and opinions. For example, he makes a caution, "O, brother helmsman, be careful, the vessel may get drowned". He is also personally concerned about the future of the vessel. This personal feeling of the poet forms one of the basic characteristics of Bengali folksongs. 3) Description : Besides narration of the main theme, the poet gives some descriptions of natural surroundings and actions outside the narration. The description of the vessel floating on the ground, for example, ironically reminds us of the reveraine landscape of Bangladesh where hundreds of boats float everyday on the rivers. Besides these three aspects, there exist some dramatic elements in this song. Without any preface, the song

starts from the middle of the narration: "A peculiar vessel is made". The vessel then proceeds to embrace conflicts, conflicts fro within the helm and the oars. The poet puts an end to this narration in a dramatic manner and reveals his own anxiety about the future of the vessel in a very short but effective sentence. Immediately after giving the hint of his own concern, the poet narrates the decrease of the vessel's strength, the loosening of the joints of the vessel and flow of water entering the body of the vessel causing its ultimate sinking and that too o the ground! The six friends who were friends of better days, finding the distressed condition of the vessel, now depart heartlessly. "The friends in need are the friends indeed", has a parallel proverb in Bengali which says "many people will become your friends when you are in good position, when the position is lost, you will lose those friends". The poet has dramatically depicted this truth in the betrayal of six friends. The end of the vessel is described through a dramatic expression. The deepest tragedy of human life is thus expressed through this short but poetic description.

These dramatic elements can also be noticed in other Bengali mystic (or Baul) songs and some other types of Bengali folksongs including the ballads. The structure of this song can be shown in the following diagrams: First Stanza: The numbers indicate the sentence numbers T

T

T

T

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h

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h

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0

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4

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6

M i n d h e l

5

m s m a n

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T

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C

A

D

h

h

h

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g

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T

T

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e

a

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It may be admitted that there are differences of opinion about the methodology of structural analysis. But the aims and objectives of all the methodologies followed by different scholars so far are directed towards a common goal. Propp's observations seem rational and reasonable in this respect: (1) "Function is understood as an act of a character, defined from the point of its significance for the course of the action". (2) "Functions of the characters serve as stable constant elements in a tale, independent of how and by whom they are fulfilled. They constitute the fundamental components of the tale". (3) "The number of functions known to the (fairy) tale is limited" (1968 : 1). Before analyzing the song on Propp's lines, I would like to find out its inner meanings through the following manner: The Creator

a

creates the

(C,V)

vessel The Creator gives favour to the vessel He sends it to the earth The vessel leaves

-a (V,C)

Creator The vessel likes worldly things

a (V,W)

The vessel is in the

c

company of

(W,V)

evils The vessel has no

m

purpose, it

(W,V)

is misled The Creator

a

is

(C,V)

mysteriously inside the vessel The vessel loses its

c

strength, it

(W,V)

gets old The Creator calls the

m

vessel from

(C,V)

within Worldly things leave the vessel

a (V,W)

[Abbreviations: C = Creator, V = Vessel, W = Worldly affairs; for lower case letter, see below] The letters used on the left side of the brackets indicate the strength of the first symbol within the brackets. These abbreviations may be explained in the following way:

1st a =

the predominance of the functions of the

Creator 1st -a =

the vessel is predominant, Creator's

function has delayed 2nd a =

the vessel gets into the worldly affairs,

the real functions of the vessel and worldly affairs begin. 1st c =

the functions of the worldly affairs are

predominant, the vessel also functions. 1st m =

predominance of the functions of the

worldly affairs, vessel is in the grip of evils. 3rd a =

the Creator enters and functions, the

vessel also functions in its own way 2nd c =

worldly affairs exert heavy influence on

the vessel, vessel functions in the helpless manner. 2nd m =

in the conflict between worldly affairs,

representing evils and the goodness, the Creator comes in the guise of goodness and functions; the vessel also functions, but it has no ability to satisfy goodness only. 2nd a =

the departure of the worldly affairs. The

vessel functions to satisfy goodness and succeeds.

The structural analysis symbolically represented by brackets and letters above demonstrates that the Creator who created the vessel to the earth, but does not leave it completely. The physical frame of man has some similarities with the steam vessel or a steamer. Man cannot exist and move, like the steamer, without fire and water in him. Although the Creator exists in man in the guise of the mind-helmsman, the man abandons Him and accepts worldly affairs as his best friends. He thus comes within the grip of the worldly evils. Then the conflicts begin. The poet expresses a word of caution. But this proves no good. We find the victory of the worldly affairs over man. This results gradually in the worn-out condition of the man when the worldly affairs or the evil forces abandon him. Then the man becomes free of the possession of the worldly affairs and the Creator's predominance is again established. The end of physical existence of man gives him the freedom from the influence of the worldly affairs and evil forces and allows him an opportunity to be with the Creator.

Thus, the Creator is the main force in this song who guides and controls the course of the theme and functions of the song and the destiny of the main character, the vessel, i.e., the man. Man plays, in this song, a role of the performer in between the Creator on the one side, and the worldly affairs and evil forces o the other. In the conflict, man abandons the Creator, but later on, he himself is abandoned by the worldly affairs and evil forces. With friends gone, forlorned as he is, he comes back to his own abode, the home of Creator. There are lacks (L) and liquidations of lacks (LL) in this song: 1. The earth suffers from the lack of vessel - L 2. The Creator sends the vessel - LL 3. The vessel does not float and move on the ground L 4. The vessel floats and moves on the ground - LL 5. The vessel does not move with only two 6. The vessel moves with two rows - LL 7. If the helm is abandoned, the vessel is drowned - the

Lack of a helm - L 8. The helm is not abandoned and the vessel is not drowned - the presence of the helm - LL 9. What will happen with the Vessel? A sense of lack of Security - L 10. Pagla Kanai is concerned, lack of unconsciousness out of a sense of insecurity - L 11. The vessel loses strength - lack of - L strength, gets loose breached joints - - L lack of tightness of the joints; the - L joints do not prevent water from entering

the vessel -lack of preventive force - L

12. Six friends, the passions, do not remain present; lack of Presence - L 13. The vessel gets sunk on the ground - lack of power of the Vessel to keep itself from sinking - L The figurative representation of the lacks (L) and the liquidation of lacks (LL) formula would thus be: 1)L 2)LL 3)L 4)LL 5)L 6)LL 7)L 8)LL 9)L 10)L 11)L 12)L 13)L

The figure here shows the upward and downward trends of the vessel I its course of life keeping I view the good and evil as the main forces of guideline. Too much lack brings the vessel to its fatal destination. Upto line 9 steady trend is indicated. But from line 10 onwards the "lacks" bring it downwards. Following Propp, the structure of the song may be delineated in the manner as below: The initial situation : (d) 1) There Is No Vessel On The Earth, The Creator Feels The Need of Making One: Absence: (B) (i) A vacuum exists as there is no Vessel

-

(B1) (ii) Not only a vessel, there should have been a peculiar vessel, but it does not exist (B2) 2) The Creator Makes A Peculiar Vessel:(C)

-

(i) The Creator creates the Vessel and sends it tothe - (C1)

earth

(ii) That Vessel moves not in the water but on the ground

- (C2)

(3) Interdiction : (i) The Creator determines certain norms - (y1) (ii) Interdiction is addressed to the vessel - (y2) (4) Violation: (b) (i) The interdiction is violated and the vessel comes comes closer to worldly affairs - (b) (5) The Villain’s Reconnaissance: (E) (i) The Satan starts functioning in the guise of worldly affairs

- (E1)

(6) The Villain Receives Information About His Victims: Delivery : (z)

(7) The Villain Attempts to Deceive His Victim In Order To Take Possession of Him: (i) The Villain starts to deceive the vessel and makes an attempt to take away the vessel’s best assets, the good qualities

(f1)

-

(ii) The villain slowly persuades the vessel -

(f2)

(iii) The villain applies his magical power, as a result the possibility of the vessel’s drowning becomes visible, the poet alerts the mind-helmsman

-

(f3)

(iv) Besides application of magical power, the villain attracts the vessel with worldly beauty and spreads his influence over vessel’s mind and thus makes way for the vessel’s destruction -

(f4)

(v) The villain proceeds with utmost carefulness (f5)

-

(8) The Victim Submits To Deception And Thereby Unwittingly Helps His Enemy : Complicity: (O) (i) The vessel accepts all the conditions of the villain and becomes a worldly figure - (O1) (ii) The vessel favourably reacts to all the alluring acts of the villain

-

(O2)

(iii) The vessel mechanically reacts to the employment of the magical or other means - (O3 O4) (9) The Villain Causes Harm Or Injury To The Members Of Vessel: Villainy : (A) (i) Taking advantage of the old age of the vessel, the vessel, the villain causes loosening of the screws of the joints and eats up the edges of joints of the

vessel

(A1)

(ii) The six comrades of the vessel are allured by the villain and they are compelled to leave the vessel -

(A2)

(10) The Members Of The Primary Lack Something: Lack : (a) (i) The screws lack strength -

(a1)

(ii) So far the six comrades received some advantages, but now the advantages are lacking, so they leave -

(a2)

(11) Misfortune or Lack Is Made Known To Vessel Through Caution: Caution: (B) (i) A call for being careful of the villain is given to vessel

-

(B1)

(ii) Misfortune is predicted -

(B2)

(12) The Villain And The Vessel Join In Direct Combat: Conflict: (h) (i) The vessel starts conflict with the help of mindhelmsman (h1)

-

(ii) The time and oldness of the vessel join their hands with the villain, as a result, the vessel loses its strength

-

(h2)

(13) The Victory Of The Villain, Destruction Of The Vessel: Defeat : (m) (14) The Ultimate Victory Of The Vessel: Victory: (I)

(i) Death is not the end, it marks the victory of the spirit

(I1z)

-

(ii) when the worldly things leave the vessel, the villain is defeated and the vessel gets back to its original abode (eternity) to live there with peace.

-

(I2)

Since it is a mystical song, death here signifies the death of the evil forces and victory of the soul. The abbreviated symbols used here may differ to some extent from Propp. This is because Propp used the abbreviations in the analysis of folktale, while I have used them for analyzing a folksong. One may differ from the procedure I have followed above in analyzing this song, but it is evident from this experimentation that Propp’s method is applicable to folksongs besides the tales. The model may be represented in the figure given below:CLICK HERE in this model I have tried to follow Propp, Dundes and

Hendriks. The song is a mystical song and I had to bring out some hidden truth from the expressed and unexpressed language of the song. In doing so, I must say that I have immensely profited by the methods of these three scholars. I would not claim that my presentation is flawless. But I made a sincere attempt to prove that there is great potential in analyzing the vast and varied field of Bengali folksongs using the structural models of these three scholars Models may, of course, differ. But through the structural analysis of folksongs of Bangladesh as well as of Indian Bengalispeaking area I am sure, some truth, hitherto unknown to us, will be revealed. Our emphasis should be now on the importance of synchronic study of Bengali folklore along with the diachronic study which we have been pursuing for a long time, largely devoid of any strong scientific basis. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chomsky, Noam

Syntactic 1957

Structures.

1963

Hague:

1964 1978

The

Mouton

“Structural Typology of North American

Indian

Folktales”. SouthWestern of

Anthropology,

19, The

Journal 121-130.

Morphology

of

North

American

Indian

Folktales. Helsinki: Folklore Fellows Communications 195. Essays Folkloristics.

on

Meerut:

Folklore

Institute.

Dundes,

The Study of

Alan

Folklore.

(ed.). 1965

Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall

Handoo,

Current Trends in

Jawaharlal

Folklore. Mysore:

1978

Institute

of

Kannada Studies. University Mysore.

Hendricks,

Essays on

William O.

Semiolinguistics

1973

andVerbal Art.

of

The Hague: Mouton.

Islam,

The

Mazharul.

Pagla

(In Press)

Dacca: The Bangla

Songs

of

Kanai.

Academy

Katz, and

J. J.A.

“The Structure of a

Semantic

Fodor

Theory”,

1963

Language, 39.

Levi-

“Structural Study

Strauss, C.

of Myth”, Journal

1955

of

American

Folklore. 68 Maranda,

Structural

P. & E.

Analysis of Oral

Kongas

Tradition.

Maranda

Philadelphia:

(ed.). 1971

University

of

Pennsylvania Press Maranda,

Soviet

P.

Folkloristics.

(ed.)

1974

Structural

Vol.1. The Hague: Mouton

Propp,

Morphology of the

V.J. 1968

Folktale.

Austin:

University Texas

of Press.

[Originally published

in

Russian

as

Morfologiya Skazki (1928)].

THE CHAKMA PROVERBS: AN ETHNOSTRUCTURAL INTRODUCTION Dulal Chaudhuri Folklore Akademi, Calcutta A proverb is a saying in more or less fixed form of shortness, sense and "salt". Proverbs are the wisdom of a community: the essence of thoughts and philosophy that a group of people acquire through the ages. Sometimes proverbs serve as impersonal vehicles for personal communication. These neglected fragments of wisdom still offer many interesting insights to a people's past both to the philosopher and the historian. The proverbial phrases survive the ruins of empires and civilizations and are like wildflowers, which outlive ruin, and mark the flora of the regional ecology. Proverbs, in short, reflect the social usages, the time-long experience of an age and people crystallized in pithy aphorism. The Chakmas are a tribe living in the Chittagong hill tracts of Bangladesh and in the Tripura area of India.

Physiologically, they are short statured, pale-faced and hardy. They belong to a Sino-Tibetan linguistic group, but they speak a corrupt form of Chittagong dialect of Bengali. The Chakmas believe I Theravada Buddhism on one hand and in animism on the other. The rural folk, especially, continue to practice animism, but also attend the temple of the Lord Buddha. Presumably, the Chakmas were originally all animists, but due to the impact of the spread of Buddhism in Chittagong and its hill areas, most have embraced Buddhism at least nominally. The Hill tracts of Chittagong are surrounded on the west by the maritime coastal area of Chittagong; on the south and east, as far as the Blue Mountain, by the province of Arracan, Burma; and on the north by the Fenny River, which divides thehill tracts from Tippera. In the course of their history, a group of Chakmas migrated to Tripura (India) and settled there. In the State of Tripura, Chakmas form the third major ethnic group now. They form the largest Buddhist community in Bangladesh.

The people of the Chittagong hill tracts are ethnically different from the settled populace who live in the plains of Bangladesh. They have closer ethno-historical links with the hilly peoples of the vast region that extends from Tibet to Indo-China, or Southeast Asia. "Anthropologically" says Bechert, the Chakmasbelong to the peoples of Southeast Asia. There are a number of customs which hint at a form of 'animism' which is very similar to the religion of the peoples of theBurmese and Shan groups before their conversion to Buddhism" (1973). The Chakmas form a majority among the various tribal settlers of Chitagong hill tracts who exhibit physical affinities with the "Monogoloid type of people". The Chakmas are locally known as "Thek" or "Task" by theBurmese and "TuiThik" by the Kukis. Captain Lewin, an authority of Chittagong hill tracts and surrounding areas broadly classifies the tribes into two categories: "Toungtha" (children of the hills) and "Khyoungtha" (children of the rivers). Conflicting traditional stories are told regarding the origin of Chakmas. According to some, they originally

came from the Malay Peninsula. On the other hand, in some traditional narratives their ancestors are linked with the Chaus-Bansi Kshatriyas of Champanagar in Hindoosthan, who invaded the Hill Tracts at the end of the 14th century. They are also, according to some legends, believed to be the descendants of the survivors of a Mogul army sent by the Vazir of Chittagong to attack the king of Arakan. However, available literary references suggest that the Chakmas migrated from Thailand border known as Chiang Mai. The Chakmas, as do the other tribes of equal antiquity, have an ancient cultural tradition. The folklore of these people bear the testimony of their laws, customs, beliefs, food, habits, the art of making dwelling, dress, home-life, education, marriage, taboo, patriotism, social justice, agriculture, weather and everything that connects folklife and ancient wisdom of these people. Proverbs are echoes of history, religion, and ethos of the people who speak them. Furthermore, proverbs are not only a powerful vehicle for communication in a folk society, they also integrate the group which

creates them. Therefore, it becomes imperative for scholars to examine these traditional communicative aspects of proverb lore. Needless to say that such studies are possible only when alongside the proverb lore, the folk who is responsible for the creation of such lore are also studied with equal seriousness. In this paper, I shall present a few proverbs of the Chakmas which were collected in 1974 from Rangamati, Chittagong hill tracts, Bangladesh. These proverbs, as we shall see, are a great resource for understanding the Chakmas. 1. Autte khand/ara jumat udhe (which is edible, produced in abundance in the Jhum field). It means: the jhum cultivators get everything whichthey eat from the jhum. 2. Vadah madye/giring, Maja madye/chiring (Girling, a fine rice, is as good as chiring, is a riverline fish).

Girling and chiring are two favorites of the Chakmas. The analogy is very popular. 3. Bara ganga/chay para. Ranga kahdiay/dhoy para. (I shall se the Karnaphuli, and at the same time wash my red breast-cloth) It means: to achieve two things at the same time. 4. Dhingee swarge galoeo/bara bande (The indigenous husking apparatus husks in heaven, too) It means: the working man works everywhere. 5. Chigan bareng gua/lare chare (A light basket is used for many things, here and there). It means: the light baskets serve best for carrying. The Chakmas are traditionally agriculturists and practise jhum and terrace cultivation. Originally, the Chakmas used to live in traditional tong (bamboosupported wooden house built on hill-slopes); but

most of them now-a-days live in modern houses of wooden frames and with tile roofs. In one above proverbs we find a reference to jhum which is a traditional tribal mode of cultivation of paddy, pulses and green vegetables. A piece of bushy land is selected every year o a hill for jhum cultivation. The lands for this type of cultivation are not personal property of any one of the Chakmas. The leadman of mouza discharges the duties of an arbitrator as a legal agent of the Chakma king in any dispute arising out of lands for necessary jhum cultivation in Chakma locality. Now the Bangladesh government has taken over all the lands for legal distribution among the cultivators. Similarly there is a reference to a particular kind of rice named giring in another proverb. This kind of rice is grown in Chittagong District which, however, according to folk belief, yields more produce if cultivated by Jhum method. Whatever the truth, giring is a favourite rice for the Chakmas. Chiring is a riverine fish which is very tasty. These are found near their

locality. Ranga khadi is a red breast-cloth used by the Chakma maidens. The Karnaphuli river flows down quietly along the valley of the Chittagong hill tracts. Ranga khadi like any other cloth is being woven by the girls and women out of the indigenous fibres and weaving apparatus and coloured with the juice of wild creepers and plants. It is interesting to note that a married or unmarried girl of Chakma tribe can be distinguished from her counter part in other tribes by the patterns of her garments. This semeotics of dress and design is a special characteristics of tribal groups such as Chakmas. Dhingee is an indigenous husking apparatus made of wood. Therural population, throughout Bengal use this husking apparatus. The Chakmas, it seems, might have adopted this useful tool from the people of Chittagong valley after they came I cultural contact wit them, long after their final settlement in Chittagong hill tracts. Dhingee, because of it's usefulness, has become a cultural methaphor for the essential success of work in both worlds as one notices in the proverb.

Dareng is a basket made of bamboo collected from the forest nearby. Dareng is used for carrying essential goods of daily use. In fact it has no many uses in this culture and therefore has become a symbol of necessity and usefulness. Baskets are an essential items for tribal's life. The fact that a basket (phool bareng) is gifted as an important item in marriages underlines this theme as is clear from the above proverb in which its essentiality is symbolically compared with the human service itself. Every community is best known, besides other things, by the folklore it creates and transmits. The above proverbs of the Chakmas evidence this fact. One can, of course, use materials from equally important other henres of folklore to make the point. The point is not which genre are more powerful in reflecting the folklife of tribal groups much as Chakmas - all put together might perhaps do it well - but that one might fail to get a true picture of Chakmas life without studying their folklore.

Having presented a general introduction of Chakmas and their proverb samples let us look at their proverb structures. "Structure", writes Marandas, "can be defined as an internal relationship through which constituent elements of a whole are organized. Structural analysis thus consists of the discovery of significant elements and their order" (1971). The key ideas of Structure are: (a) wholeness (b) idea of transformation (c) idea of units (d) significant elements (units) and their order or inner relationship A proverb can be morphologically divided into the following divisions: i. Topic ii. Comment A "topic" may be expressed as "head" (H) and a "comment" as "tail" (T) in a proverb. The prefix and

the suffix may be expressed symbolically in this manner: prefix as A1 and suffix as A2. H : T :: A1 : A2 Every proverb has one or more negative and positive statements. In order to analyse the minimal particles of a proverb, one can design a model as follows : H:T - Positive/Negative elements - A1 : A2 In other words, "a positive or negative head (± H) in a logical relation to ( ) a positive or negative head (±T) becomes () a proverb (p) consisting of two topics and two comments (t1 + c1 + t2 + c2) which draw from ( ) an analogical resource pool (p) in the environment (/) of a real social situation (the one with which the proverb will be analogous) made up of two aspects inlogical relation to one another. A1 ( ) A2 correlated with (x) two or more people (X + Y)". (Maranda and Maranda, 1971). An example from the Chakma proverbs is given below:

+ H marade giri na are aaj__ - T dhayede chaja na are chaj (A dying man never looses hope for life, as a migrating ploughman never forgets agriculture). It means "one's occupation is one's life". Here "marade giri" is a positive head (H) and "na are aaj" is a negative tail (T). similarly in all Chakma proverbs we get some positive and negative aspects. Analogous pool: marade giri: dhayade chaja: na are aaj: na are chaj: All proverbs are composed of two opposites and analogies. By abnegating the negative aspects of a statement, the folk society establishes a positive thesis and vice-versa. Human societies are full of contradictions and conflicts. These conflicts of ideas are aptly reflected in the folklore of a community. Proverb is a very small but powerful, explicit artifact for expressing sentiments. Every folk art form is deeply ingrained, even in its deep structure, by the life situations of a culture. In the deep-structure frame out of cultural artifacts one does not fail to notice the structural elements, opposed to each other, but

expressing a positive relation or aspect of the culture. This becomes more obvious when one examines the proverb structure. The Chakmas, as said earlier, were migratory people. While moving, they used to settle in the hills for Jhum cultivation. After a few months they had to abandon the area and search for new land. So they used this proverb to denote this migratory phenomenon: One never forgets one's skill of ploughing as a dying man never looses hope for life. Dundes (1975) describes a proverb as being made up of a minimal unit called a descriptive element. This I turn is made up of a topic and a comment. "The topic is the apparent referent …. The comment is an assertion about the topic, usually concerning the form, function, or action of the topic" (Dundes and Gorges, 1963). According to Dundes, the simplest form of the proverb would be two words like "money talks" where "money" is the topic and "talks" is the comment. If we look at this in context, however, a slightly different analysis must emerge. Two men go to a restaurant, but they

can't get in as they don't have reservations. They tip the head waiter and are taken to a table where one man comments to the others: "Money talks". What he actually is saying is that money persuades people to act. In effect, there are two descriptions here ("money persuades" and "people to act"), the second being understood. Dundes' analysis can thus be related to Milner's if we see each proverb as having two descriptions: a head (H) and a tail (T) each of which has a topic (T) and a comment [C]. Thus, H : T :: T : C. The formula for the entire process would stand like this: ± H ± T P[(t1 + c1) + (t2 + c2)] P[A1A2 X x + y)]. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bechert,

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THE RELEVANCE OF SOUTH ASIAN FOLKLORE A.K. Ramanujan University of Chicago PREAMBLE Folklore, both verbal and non-verbal, is an excellent quarry for "indigenous" systems 1. In non-specialized genres like proverb, joke, game, riddle, omen, or folktale, as well as in the more professional oral epic or folk-drama, such systems are embedded, enacted, transmitted from childhood -- especially in a still largely non-literate culture like South Asia. Yet, till recently, neither humanists nor social scientists have taken such materials seriously. This is partly because folklore requires an intimate knowledge of local dialects on the part of the foreign scholar, or a certain open-minded respect for the deeply familiar on the part of the native scholar -- both of which have been rare.

But in the last decade, a new wave of interest has swept the field both in India and in the U.S. The language programs of the 60's in this country have produced a significant number of field-workers capable of working directly in the languages of the area -- notably in literature, history, and anthropology. In India, the literature departments have begun to include linguistics and folklore, and become interested in notions of "region", "tradition", and "folk". Marga and desi, an old Indian pair -- loosely translated as "classical" and "folk", technical terms in native discussions of literature, music, drama and dance have been linked to, or reincarnated as, "Great and Little Traditions". These interests have naturally led to the collection and analysis of regional folk-materials. For instance, in a language like Kannada, over 200 books were published in the field of folklore in the last two decades (Nayak 1973); all the three major universities in the Kannada area have opened special departments and publication series for folklore. The data is piling up, and there is a great deal more to be collected.

American (and some British and French) scholars too are gathering this new/old data: to mention only a few in North America, Brenda Beck (Tamil), Gene Roghair (Telugu), George Hart (Tamil), Peter Claus (Tulu), Susan Wadley (Hindi). Ved Vatuk (Hindi, Punjabi), Kali Charan Bahl (Punjabi, Rajasthani), Karine Schomer (Hindi), A.K. Ramanujan (Kannada, Tamil), V. Narayana Rao (Telugu). These and other scholars have a great deal of material yet to be published, yet to be analyzed. This is the time to ask new questions of the data we have here, and, with our Indian colleagues, to make connections with wider points of view. I the study of South Asian conceptual/perceptual systems also, we think, this is the next step to take: from written, classical Sanskritic text, ritual, and commentary to the oral, ever-available texts of folklore that come with living contexts of use, exegesis and performance. II. WHY FOLKLORE? About two decades ago, the teaching and research of Indian civilization in the U.S. changed, because

regional languages like Tamil and Bengali were added to and required by our studies. (The causes for this shift were not entirely academic, and merit a separate inquiry). No longer were Sanskrit and classical India deemed enough to represent the "many Indias". Ideas like the "Great and Little Traditions" became important in anthropology, and the controversy over them stimulated the search for finer detail and more adequate conceptions. The next task to be undertaken is at least two-fold: (a) to deepen our work in the regional language, to go beyond literacy and text to the pervasive, non-literature, verbal and non-verbal 2, expressive systems: tale, riddle, dance, game, curse, gesture, design, folk-theatre, folk-healing and folk science; and (b) to integrate them, may be by contrast, may be by tracing possible underlying or over-arching connections, with our knowledge of classical systems carried both by Sanskrit and by the standard regional languages. There is, of course, the challenge of relating such materials to the human sciences -- which is leading us to think of new fields and topics like medical anthropology, or the relevance of Hindu

mythology of folklore to psychoanalysis, and vice versa. This may force us to re-examine the notion of the Great and Little Traditions carried by Sanskrit as a "father-tongue" and by the standard regional "mothertongues". Further complexities of difference and interaction and "affective presence" will be suggested when we enter the dialectal, so-called sub-standard, sub-literary world of folk materials, available everywhere in city as in country, among the literate and the non-literature. Would we find there just broken-down classical mythologies, garbled versions of what we already know, or inversions and transformations, or would we find alternatives, always quick and active, but never fully acknowledged by the written texts? I suggest, in this paper, that we might find co-existent "context-sensitive" systems in South Asia, held and used deftly and pervasively to perceive and solve the culture's special dilemmas. Different genres (as defined by the culture) like myth and folktale, epic, legend and anecdote, proverbial or

classical wisdom (whether in a Sanskrit subhaÀita or a Tamil kural), dance and systems of everyday gesture, may all affect each other, and yet have different contextual functions. They may contradict each other (as different proverbs do, within a language) when treated as a single facetless systems, but they would be seen as viable, flexible "strategies" when treated in context. In cultures and in languages, there are rules of structure and there are rules of use: novel is only onehalf of creativity; appropriateness is the other half. This context-sensitivity is, I think, systematic; not just piecemeal and opportunistic, as a whole Western sociological tradition suggests, beginning with Max Weber, ("rationalized Vs. traditional"), or made famous here recently by Levi-Strauss' bricolage, the ghost of which lingers in Sherry Daniels' useful "toolbox" notion (1977; see also Ramanujan 1980 on context-sensitive systems). Folklore (where ethos, aesthetics, and worldview meet) is an excellent place to examine such notions. For instance, classical texts like the Ramaya¸a and Cilappatikaram present no unchaste women; or, where

they are presented, they are chastened by unchastity (ahalya, etc.). But folklore is full of ingenious, promiscuous betrayers of the ideal. I legend, women saints break every rule in Manu's code-book, disobey husbands, take on divine liaisons, walk the streets naked. Such contrasts between 'classical' and 'folk' materials may imply more than one system; they are crucial to our very ideas of conceptual/perceptual systems in a culture. One may summarize some other features of folklore, that make it especially useful in comparative and other studies: (a) Folklore displays similar surface structures, with different functions, uses, meanings: a proverb like "It's dark under the lamp" occurs in hundreds of versions, within and outside India, and it means different things in different cultures, even in different contexts within a culture. Bibliographic tools like indexes of types and motifs, are available on a world-wide scale, and also for South Asia. Based on these, sensitive crosscultural, cross-regional, cross-media comparisons like

the ones we are suggesting here, need to be done. I turn, such comparisons may question and revolutionize the indexes, types etc. in the study of folklore. (b) Text and context are available at eh same time. The new pragmatics and semiotics should find South Asian Folklore particularly exciting. (c) Intertextuality - a synchronic body of 'texts' can be reliably collected for person, class, place, time or area. (d) Functional differentiation can be studied for different genres, types etc., and according to sex, age, occasion and so forth. (e) A great range of connections and interplay can be explored not only among folk-genres, but between folklore and other parts of the culture (medicine, economy, conceptual schemes, classical texts etc.) (f) Individual oral exegeses, by the composers, tellers, as well as listeners can be collected and analyzed.

Contrasts with other kinds of material (like written literature, historical records) are obvious and need not be labored here. We have known for some time that we need to test various "Western/universalistic" schemes against new materials. South Asian folklore is a good place for such testing. For instance, Freddian and Piagetian schemes of emotional or cognitive or moral development could be tested against Indian folktales, child-rearing practices, and the role of folklore in indigenous methods of education. What kinds of tales are told or not told to children of certain ages? How do Indian Oedipus tales look? One may examine many Indian Lear-tales that have sons (instead of daughters) as the Cordelia-figures; and in the Kannada "Narcissus-tale" the hero is androgynous, marries his own left half (like Adam?), and is destroyed by her. How do these tales square with (a) other Indian patterns and values and (b) Western schemes (e.g., psycho-analysis) of understanding familial relations? Does Hsu's notion of the importance of different dyads (husband/wife, mother-son, etc.) for different cultures fit Indian

culture? Do classical and folk materials agree in this respect? A triangulation, a comparison between South Asian and Western materials as well as a comparison between folk and classical materials, would be instructive. New research could explore many other relationships: folklore and history; the effect of theoral/written modes on cognitive styles, and on each other; the adequacy of our present notions of oral and written media (e.g. Goody 1977): folklore as a source of central metaphors; metafolklore (e.g., tales about tales); and conceptions of narrative, poetry and aesthetics. In this working paper, I shall examine five of these questions in detail. My examples will be drawn mostly from me and my colleagues' fieldwork in the Kannada area. I hope what is presented here will serve to point to similar, as well as new, questions, doubts, terms and materials elsewhere. I shall close this section with a couple of my biases: (1) We said earlier that aesthetics, ethos and world view meet in expressions like myth and folklore. In our

discussions of myth and folklore, very little is usually said about the first term of the three. Without aesthetic impact, expressive culture would have neither its immediacy nor prevailing power. I studying Indian concepts like Karma, we have necessarily studied explicit categories of thought - but not ways of feeling. We have studied world-view without ethos, ethos without aesthetics, strands without texture. Folklore items have an aesthetic presence that must be experienced, and thereby explored, for themselves. Every folk-text, even a verbal one like a proverb, is a performance. One should not be too quick to "rescue the said from the saying", but dwell on the saying in its oneness with the said, before we extract the latter. This is, of course, best done in the original language and in performance. Unfortunately, this is only a paper, and in English. Here we can only point to the original knowing full well that "the pointing finger is not the moon". (2) Things like folktales are not merely illustrative, but creative of values; not a repository of "indigenous systems", but cultural forms in their own right, which

participate in other cultural forms. Having a density of their own, they refract as well as reflect. It would be useful to begin by assuming the independence of folklore (especially in its oral forms) as evidence for cultural inquiry, and not subsume it as an instance or component of other or larger or better known systems till we find reason to do so. While it is reasonable to believe that oral traditions share certain basic ways of thinking, certain metaphors, motifs, favorite logical devices of the "entire" culture -- I would like to hold such beliefs lightly, and not as prove or a priori truths. For there is plenty of reason to suspect that oral traditions may contain themes, emphases, stances, and categories not easily found elsewhere in this culture. (3) We need to favor a soft-hearted structuralism, with thoughts like Wittgenstein's "form is the possibility of structure" - attentive to individual forms and texts, yet seeking structure, continuity, universals, but seeking them as St. Augustine sought chastity: "Make me chaste, Lord, but not yet". I. METAFOLKLORE

There are metatheorems in mathematics and logic, ethics has its Linguistic oversoul, everywhere lingos to converse about lingos are being contrived, and the case is no different in the novel … in which the forms of fiction serve as the material upon which frontier forms can be imposed. (Gass 1970 : 24-25) Anyone interested in native categories must look for the native categories that comment on native categories - the native metalanguage. Users of folklore, like the users of other forms of communication, have a number of ways of talking about folklore. Following logicians and linguists (Jackbson 1960) folklorists have begun to recognize a metalanguage, a metafolklore which is internal to the folklore they are studying (Dundes 1966, Babcock 1977). There are metafeatures within a genre like narrative, and there are metaforms that take narrative, and there are metaforms that take narrative itself as their subject. There are proverbs about proverbs, stories about stories. There are also elements in the context or the telling of a tale, proverb, or riddle that remind us that we are in the presence of a tale,

proverb or riddle, -- elements that frame them and implicity name them as certain generic forms. Confining ourselves to narrative forms, there are at least five kinds of metafolklore that one could attend to, that tell us how to 'read' such folklore. Metafeatures: a) Elements in the text: e.g. opening and closing formulae; repetitions; framing devices; forms like prose, verse, song; identifying devices like names of persons; other textural elements like shifts in tone and register. b) Elements in performance: e.g. gestures, asides to the audience, by which tellers separate themselves. c) Elements in context: e.g. festival, puja (worship) performer signified by caste-marks on his forehead, costume and language. d) Distinctions and names of genres: e.g. myth/folktale, marriage riddles, mother-in-law tales. Metaforms:

e) Tales about tales, about their forms and functions. f) Oral exegesis and evaluation by performer and audience: e.g. favorite tale, notions about what makes one tale better than another. For Indian materials, we have very little information about this kind of self-orienting metalanguage. I shall illustrate here just two kinds of data: labels and classes of Kannada songs, and tales about tales. There is no traditional Kannada term for "folklore", just as there are no terms for what in English would be called 'nature', 'myth', 'religion'. Recently a Sanskrit term has been adopted: janapada. Nor are there clear terms for distinctions between 'oral' and 'written' literature. There is, however, a distinction between marga and desi. Marga means 'the (royal?) road; desi, 'of the country, local'. 'Folklore' would fall under desi, but not all desi song or literature would be folklore. And there are genre-labels for what in English we would call a proverb (gade), riddle (ogau), folktale (ajji kate 'grandmother's tale'), tale in verse (lava¸i) -- but none for genres like jokes or marchen for instance,

though one may collect items that fit a broad description of these types. Unlike English, Kannada has a number of song-types which are restricted to women (he´gasara ha·u 'women's songs') -- songs sung while milling and pounding grain, putting the child to sleep, nuptial songs, marriage songs, satiric songs against new in-laws, as well as songs sung during women's festival and ritual (e.g. for the goddess Gauri) -- with special names for each song-type. So too there are men's songs sung while threshing, bringing grain home, ploughing, as well as male festival songs (e.g. Holi). There are, of course, songs common to both sexes. Furthermore, there are verse narratives sung by male professionals, genres named often after the instruments (e.g. cau·ike, a one-strong instrument) or the caste-name of the singer (e.g. Gondaliga). Such genres are cultural categories. The same tale, (e.g. The Tar-baby Type) can be 'ethnical fable' (nitikate) in The Panchatantra, a 'birth-tale' (jataka) about the Buddha, a trickster myth in Africa, and when exported in Uncle Remu's Brer Rabbit Tales a 'children's story for bedtime, or retold in comic books

and Disney movies. The division between myth and folktale too is a generic one, and the line is drawn differently by different cultures. To my present knowledge, in Kannada and Tamil, they seem to correspond to a pair of complex categories best named by the classical Tamil terms akam ('interior') and puram ('exterior') - which subsumes distinctions seen in these songs of male/female and lay/profession. Folktales (mostly told by women to children) have to do with akam themes - family, household, sibling rivalry, growing up, love separation and reunion myths deal in puram themes -- society, war cosmos. There are no mother-in-law tales in Hindu mythology; and there are no epic wars the Churning of the Ocean in Indian folktales. I have written elsewhere about akam and puram distinctions in classical Tamil poetry (Ramanujan, 1967, 1971; and 1980; see also Egnor, 1978 for its relation to conceptions of male and female in Tamil culture). More recently (Ramanujan, 1979) I have spoken of its relevance to a typology of Kannada narrators. This distinction might prove useful to other

Indian areas, and may even be suggestive of new distinctions in other areas of the world. The akam/puram, interior/exterior, distinction is not to be mistaken for the English private/public distinction Akam may include the notion of privacy, domestic but not individual privacy -- of which there is little of it in Indian folklore or literature. It is better translated here by terms like 'familial, domestic'. In topic, theme, setting, clientele and kinds of tellers, Kannada folk-genres seems to be distinguished by akam/puram divisions. Here's an example.

The song-types and enumerated earlier could be similarly distinguished. They give us a clue to the underlying central cultural distinction that we have tentatively called akam/puram after the classical Tamils. One of the important characteristics of akam or interior poetry is that there are no names of places or persons in it; in puram, names are obligatory. One finds a similar difference between Kannada folktales (akam) and (puram). Furthermore, as the same tale moves from the domestic akam teller and sphere to a

public context when told by professional bard, the style and motifs (but not always the central structures) change. For instance, the tale of the Three Golden Sons (Type 707) is told by both women at home to children and by itinerant bards. I shall compare the opening sections of a tale from my collection and from the bardic rendition in Paramasivaiah (1971 : 27-45). A king has five queens and all of them are childless. The king, one day, finds and marries a young woman who bears him a child. In the domestic version, there is no preamble: There was a king. The king had four wives. He was fearfully rich. He used to eat from a golden plate, drink from a silver pitcher. Even though he was so rich, he didn't have any children. Even in Paramasivaiah's summary, the opening section of the 'public' bardic version runs to several pages. The main features are the following:

Prayer to Siva. Apologies to audience for possible errors. Description of the city. Opening incident: a mendicant refuses to take alms from the five queens, because they are barren and insuspicious. So the king does on a quest. He finds Kadasiddamma, his future queen in a temple her story is told in detail. Throughout the recitation the main teller is followed by an assistant, an 'answer', who holds a dialogue with him, asks him questions, and sings with him when he sings. The answer behaves as a representative of the audience, dwelling on the right emotions, expressing their suspense, joy, horror, etc. All the characters have names, even the midwife - all except the five wicked queens, characterized by an effectively amorphous anonymity in the context of all the names in the tale. Thus akam and puram not only characterize topics, and tale/myth distinctions, but certain moods and

techniques as well. For further details see Ramanujan, 1979. I would like to close this section with three tales about tales -- each illustrating a different aspect of folklore. The first one comes from untouchables who live outside the village; they believe they have a greater treasure of tales than anyone in town. When my friend (Sesha Sastri, 1975) asked them why they would have more tales, they told him the following: People in the world were bored. So they went to heaven (sarga) and brought back a cartload of stories. As they approached the village the cart broke down and spilled most of the stories near the untouchable colony. The people of the village did get the cart moving, and did get some stories into town but they were very few. The story speaks of certain compensation that the untouchables find or fancy for themselves for being untouchables and being outside the town. In this context, it may be worth remembering the traditional association of untouchable castes with music,

drumming, magic, song and story -- the name paraiyan in Tamil is derived from parai 'drum'. Many of the classical Tamil bardic names are the names of untouchable communities -- e.g. pan?an (Hart 1975 : 125). There is the notion that tales get fewer as you get into town, and that tales physically came from heaven, no less. It would be interesting, in the light of this story, to collect and compare the tales of this community with those within the village. The second story (from Dharwar, Li´gan?n?a 1972 : 50-51) speaks of the need for telling stories. A housewife knew a story. She also knew a song, but she kept them to herself, never told anyone the story nor sang the song. Imprisoned within her, the story and the song wanted release, wanted to run away. One day, somehow the story escaped, fell out of her, took the shape of two shoes and sat outside the house. The son took the shape of something like a coat and hung on a peg.

The woman's husband came home, looked at the coat and shoes, and asked her - "who is visiting?" "No one", she said. "But whose coat and boots are these?" "I don't know, she replied. He wasn't satisfied with her answer. He was suspicious. Their conversation was unpleasant. The unpleasantness led to a quarrel. The husband flew into a rage, picked up his blanket and went to the Monkey God's temple to sleep. The woman didn't understand what was happening. She lay down alone that night. She couldn't sleep for a long time. She asked the same question over and over: Whose coat and boots are those? Baffled and unhappy, she put out the lamp and went to sleep. All the flames of the town, once they were put out, used to come to the Monkey God's temple and spend the night there. All the lamps of all the houses were

represented there -- all except one, which came late. The others asked it, "why are you so late tonight?" "At our house, the couple quarreled late into the night", said the flame. "Why did they quarrel?" "When the husband wasn't home, a pair of shoes came into the verandah, and a coat somehow got on to a peg. The husband asked her whose they were. The wife said she didn't know. So they quarreled. "Where did the coat and the boots come from?" "The lady of our house knows a story and a song. She never tells the story, and has never sung the song to anyone. The story and the song got suffocated inside; so they got out and have turned into a coat and a pair of boots. The woman doesn't even know. The husband, lying under his blanket in the temple, heard the lamp's explanation. His suspicions were cleared. He slept peacefully till dawn and went home.

He talked to his wife about her story and her song. He discovered she had forgotten both of them. Here again the physical nature of stories, the necessity to tell them to keep them alive, as well as the atmosphere of suspicion and rancor bred by a story festering untold - are worth noting. It is also worth noting that even the flames of a lamp are not truly put out -- they just move to the temple for a gossip session. Neither story nor flame is ever destroyed -- they only change their place or shape, with interesting consequences. The gossiping lamp-flame motif is a common one in Kannada tales -- one of the devices by which secret information is revealed (like bird or animal talk overheard by the hero who understands animal languages, Motif B210). The various ways in which information is transmitted in these tales are worth studying (Propp 1970). The third story (from Tamil) is related to the second one. The psychology lesson contained in it needs no comment.

A poor widow was living with her two sons and two daughters-in-law. All four of them ill-treated her every day. She had no one to who she could turn and tell her woes. As she kept her tale of woe to herself, she grew fatter and fatter. Her sons and daughters-in-law mocked at her figure growing bigger by the day. One day, she wandered away from home in sheer misery and found herself in a deserted house in the outskirts of the town. She couldn't bear her miseries any longer. So she told all her tales of grievance against her first son to the wall in front of her. As she finished, the wall collapsed and crashed to the ground in a heap. Her body grew lighter as well. Then she turned to the next wall and told it all her grievances against her first son's wife. And down came that wall, and she grew lighter still. She brought down the next wall with her tales against her second son, and the remaining fourth wall, to, with all her complaints against her second daughter-in-law. Standing in the ruins, she felt light in body; she looked at herself and found she had actually lost all the weight she had gained in her wretchedness. Then she went home.

II. KARMA AND ITS ALTERNATIVES One of the straightforward sources of 'native categories' is an inventory of the explicitly named ones like karma, dharma, rasa (in Sanskrit), akam and puram (in Tamil). Any study of such categories requires not only a collection of loci classici but further analysis in terms of components (e.g. causality for karma, contexts (e.g. misfortune)), signifiers (in gesture, story, philosophic terminology, horoscope, etc.), and related terms (like dharma, or puruÀaprayatna, "man's efforts" etc.). Much attention has recently been paid to the technical category of karma (O'Flaherty, ed. 1980). The term is used and discussed widely, and variously, in epic, didactic, and philosophic texts in Sanskrit as well as in Tamil and other regional languages. It is often chosen as a, if not the, representative, pan-Hind, even pan-Indian, concept. Let's see how it appears in the light of Kannada folktales. "Karma" can be usefully analyzed into at least three independently variable components:

a) Causality : Any human action is non-random; it is motivated and explained by previous actions of the actors themselves. b) Ethics : Acts are divided into 'good, virtuous' and 'bad, sinful'; and former accrue pun?ya 'merit', the latter papa 'sin' (?), demerit. c) Re-birth or re-death, (punarjanma or punarmr?tyu): Souls transmigrate, have many lives in which to clear their ethical accounts. Past lives contain motives and explanations for the present; and the present initiates the future. The chain or wheel of lives is called samsara, release from it is mokÀa (salvation, liberation), nirvan?a ('blowing out'), kaivalya ('isolation') in different systems. Each of these three elements may, and often do, appear in India and elsewhere in different combinations. For instance, Freudian psychoanalysis depends on (a) but not on (b) and (c); utilitarian ethics on (b) and on a version of (a) in its 'calculus of consequences'. Biblical sayings like "Whatsoever a

man soweth, that shall he also reap", depend on (a) and (b), without (c). certain theories of rebirth may or may not involve(a) and(b): in ideas such as the phoenix rising from its own ashes, or Sa´kara's conception that 'the Lord is the only transmigrant' (Zeahner 1969). It seems to me that the combination of all these three elements category, as defined above, in Kannada folktales. Here is a folktale with variants recorded for six different districts, told by different castes: The Lampstand Woman (dipada malli) A king had a only daughter. He had brought her up lovingly; he had spread three great loades (kadunga) of flowers for her to lie on and covered her in three more, as they say. He was looking for a proper bridegroom for her to lie on and covered her in three more, as they say. He was looking for a proper bridegroom for her. In another city, another king had a son and a daughter. And he was looking for a proper bride for his son.

A groom for the princess: a bride for the prince. The search was on. Both the kings' parties set out, pictures I hand. On the way, they came to a river, flowing rather full and fast, and it was evening already. 'Let the river subside a bit, we can go at sunrise, 'they said, and pitched tents on either side of the river for the night. Morning came. When they came to the river to wash their faces, both sides mat. This one said, "We need a bridegroom"; that one said, "We need a bride". They looked the pictures over, and liked them. The bride's party said, "We've always spread for our girl three great big measures of flowers and covered her in three more. That's how tenderly we've brought up our girl. If anybody promises us that they will look after her better than that, we'll give them the girl". To that, the groom's party said, "If you spread three great measures of flowers, we'll spread six". There was an agreement right there. The rain gave them a sprinkle. The wind god dusted and swept the floors. They put up canopies big as the sky, made sacred designs on the wedding floor as wide

as the earth, and they celebrated the wedding. It was rich, it was splendid. And the princess came to her husband's palace. The couple were happy. They spent their time happily - between a spread of six great measures of flowers, and a cover of six more. Just when everything was fine, Mother Fate appeared in the princess's dream, and said "Hey, you, you've all this wealth. No one has as much. Who's going to eat the three great heaps of bran and husk?" so saying, she took away all the jasmine, and spread green thorn instead. The girl who used to sleep on jasmine, now had to sleep on thorn. Everyday Mother Fate would come, change the flowers, make her bed a bed of thorn, and then she would disappear. No one could see this, except the princess. The princess suffered daily. She suffered and suffered, got thinner and thinner till she was as thin as a finger. She didn't tell anyone about Mother Fate coming and going, nor about the bed of thorn she spread. "My fate written on my brow is like

this. Look what's happening to me", she said to herself, and pined within herself. The husband wondered why his wife was getting thinner by the day. He asked: "you eat very well. We look after you here better than they did at your mother's house. Yet you're pining away, you're getting thin as a reed. What's the matter?" The father-in-law, the mother-in-law, and the servant maids, all asked her the same question. When Mother Fate herself is giving her troubles that should never be given her troubles that should never be given to anyone, what's the use of telling it to ordinary humans? - it's better to die, she thought, and asked for a crater of fire. She insisted on it. She was stubborn. What could they do? They finally did what she asked. They robed her in a new sari. They put turmeric and vermilion on her face. They decked her hair in jasmine. They piled up sandalwood logs for the pyre, sat her down in the middle of it and set fire to it. Then, invisibly, a most astonishing thing happened. A great wind came, picked her out of the burning log-

fire, raised her unseen by others' eyes into the sky, and left her in a forest. "O god, I wanted to die in the crater of fire, and even that wasn't possible", she said, in utter sorrow. When the wind died down, she looked around. A forest. A cave nearby. "Let a lion or tiger eat me, I can die at least that way", she thought, and entered the cave. But there was no lion or tiger I there. There were three great measures of bran and husk heaped up -and a pestle, a pot. She wondered if this is what Mother Fate meant when she said in her dream, "Who's going to eat the three heaps of bran and husk?" What could she do? She pounded the bran each day, made it into a kind of flour, and lived on it. Three or four years went that way. Al the stock of bra and husk dwindled and disappeared. One day she said to herself, "Look here, it's three or four years since I've seen a human face. Let's at least go and look", and came out of the cave, and climbed the hill. Down below, woodcutters were splitting wood. She thought, "If I followed these people, I can get o a

town somewhere", and came down. The woodcutters bundled their firewood, and started walking towards a market-town, a town somewhat like Bangalore. As they walked on, she waked behind them, without being seen. As the men walked, the sun set in the woods. They stayed the night under a tree. She hid herself behind a bush. Then she saw a tiger coming towards her. "At least this tiger will eat me up. Let it!" she said, and lay still. The tiger came near, growling. But when he came very close, he just sniffed at her and passed on. She felt miserable and she moaned aloud, "Even tigers don't want to eat me". The woodcutters heard her words. They got up and look around. They saw a tiger walking away from where she was. They were stunned with terror. When they could find words, they talked to her: "What a fine woman you are! Because of you, the tiger spared us. But why do you cry? What's your trouble?" She begged of them: "I've no troubles. Just get me to somebody's house. I'll work there; it's enough if they give me a mouthful of food, and a twist of cloth. Please do that much, and earn merit for yourself". They said,

"All right", and took her with them. Nearby was a town, very much like Bangalore. The woodcutters went to the big house where they regularly delivered firewood, and asked the mistress for help "Please take in this poor woman as a servant here", they said. The mistress said, "All right", and took her in. the woodcutters went their way. She started work in the big house and did whatever they asked her to do. One day the mistress's son threw a tantrum. The mistress said to her, "Take this child out, show him the palace, do something to quiet him down". So she carried him out, and as she was showing him this and that to distract him, a peacock took the child's necklace and swallowed it. She did all she could to coax the peacock to return the jewelry, but she couldn't. She was in trouble. She came running to the mistress and told her what happened, how a strange peacock took her son's necklace. The mistress didn't believe her. "You thief, you shaven widow, you-re lying -- you've hidden it somewhere. Go, bring it back at once", she screamed, and gave her a beating. "No, no, I swear by god. I didn't take it. It's that bird, that peacock! It

swallowed the necklace", she cried. They didn't listen to her. The mistress said, "This one is a deep one, she won't budge for small punishments", and gave her a big punishment. She got the young woman's head shaved clean and naked; asked a servant to place a patty of cow dung on it, put an oil-lamp, on it, and light the lamp. So the poor woman worked at household chores all day. At night, she had to carry the lamp on her head, and go wherever they asked her to go. Everyone called her Lamp Woman. Lamp Woman. Time passed this way. One day, the mistress's elder brother came visiting. He was no other than the Lamp Woman's had happened. He came to his younger sister's house, dined there, and sat down to chew betel leaf and betel nut. The mistress sent the Lamp Woman to light the place where he sat enjoying his squid of betel leaf. The Lamp Woman knew at once that this man was her husband. She gulped down her sorrow and stood there, with the lamp on her head. He looked at the Lamp Woman, but

he didn't recognize her. He really believed that his wife had perished in the fire. He thought this was some woman getting punished for some wrong she had done. And he talked to her in a commanding voice. "Lamp Woman, tell me a story". "What story do I know, master? I don't know any story". "You must tell me some story. Any kind will do". "Master, shall I tell you about what's to come or about what's gone before?" "Tell me about what's gone before". "A story of terrible hardships". "Go ahead" The Lamp Woman told him where she was born, how she got married, how Mother Fate appeared in her dream and tormented her on a bed of thorns, how she thought she could escape it all by dying in a pyre of sandalwood, how the wind miraculously rescued her and carried her to a forest, and how she lived there for years on a meal of bran and husk. Then she told him how she came with the woodcutters to this place and

entered service; how, one day, the peacock swallowed the necklace when she was consoling the child, and she was called a thief and shave widow, and how she was condemned now to walk about as a Lamp Woman. All this she told the prince, in sorrow. As he heard the story, he began to see who she was; by the end, he knew he recognized her, this was none other than his long-lost wife, and he took down the lamp from her head. He scolded his young sister and brother-in-law for punishing his wife so cruelly. They fell at his feet, pleaded ignorance, and asked forgiveness. He put his wife on horse and left at once for his own kingdom. Everyone there was very happy to see that the princess hadn't really perished in the fire. After that, the couple lived happily. (Li´gayya 1971 : 16-20) The story of the Lampstand Woman is told in the Kannada, Tamil and Telugu areas. I have an example of each from Tamil and Telugu and six variants from several Kannada districts. Of the several things that can be said about it, what is relevant here is the

mainspring of the action. What happens to the heroine has nothing to do with her character. It is made clear she is blameless. There is no villainy, no fault. Mother Fate seems a bit jealous of her good fortune. Her speech in the girl's dream makes that clear: "Hey you, you've all this wealth. No one has so much. Who's going to eat the three great heaps of bran and husk?" a psychologically oriented interpreter might see in the Dream an expression of the heroine's guilt over her prosperity, a need to earn it by suffering and hardship. That is plausible, but the storytellers (when I ask them) tell me, it is all because of 'what's written in the forehead', and the will of Mother Fate (Vidhiyamma). Character is not destiny here, nor does the character have to 'learn through suffering' as in western (Greek or Shakespearian) drama. Vidhi or Fate is usually imagined as a woman, Vidhiyamma in South Karnataka; Seivitayi in Northern Karnataka and Maharashtra (Karve 1950). She writes on a newborn child's forehead all that is going to happen to him or her. Sometimes the Vidhi-function is performed by Brahma. Several expressions refer to this

writing on the forehead: talaividi 'head-fate', talaiye"uttu 'head-writing' in Tamil; ha¸eli barediddu 'what's written on the forehead', ha¸ebaraha 'the writing on the forehead' in Kannada; phalalikhita 'what's written on the forehead', brahmalipi 'Brahma's Script' in Sanskrit, and in the Sanskritized dialects of various Indian languages. Some of the former phrases like "vidhi", "talaividi", "talaiye"uttu" are also used as interjections and exclamations when misfortune strikes. In the Tamil version, the young woman brags she can manage her life with just one grain of paddy; so she is given one grain of paddy and driven out of the house. She toasts it very carefully on sand heated on a borrowed stove, makes a single huge spectacular piece of 'popcorn', and sells that, buys more grain, makes more popcorn, and so o till she gets rich and marries a merchant. But she is thrown out of her husband's house, because he sees one day a big green kamb½imas fruit under her bed, mistakes it for the shaven head of muslim, and suspects her of adultery. After some adventures, she ends up in a brothel where

she's suspected of stealing a necklace, and she is given the job of carrying a lamp on her head. One day her husband visits the brothel, and she recognizes him. That night, the lampstand woman takes down the lamp and tells it her entire story. He overhears her tales, understands it, and takes her home. In this variant too, there is no cause at all for her misfortunes -- in the first part, it is true she bargs, but makes good her brag. But she falls, at the height of her good fortune. A concept like time's whirligig (kalacakra) or 'fortune's wheel' seems to underline the action. In another Kannada story, "Shall I come at seventy or at twenty?" (Type 938B), a king, his queen and two children are at the height of their prosperity. On her way to the river, the queen is accosted thrice by a bird which says: "Ask your husband when I should come -at seventy or at twenty?" The husband decides, whatever it is it's better if it comes at twenty when their bodies are still firm and can endure anything. So he asks her to tell the bird he would prefer it to come

when he is twenty. When the bird hears this, it follows the queen to her palace, flies in through the front door and goes out through the back. And their misfortunes begin. Suffering defeat, exile, poverty, the king becomes a poor woodcutter. The queen works as a menial maidservant, is molested, abducted and imprisoned in a ship by a merchant. The king is disgraced and separated from his wife for many years. Finally one of his sons wins a kingdom, they meet up with the merchant's ship and rescue their mother from her abductor, and reunite with their father (Hegde 1976). In this tale, fate is not mentioned; only a sinister mysterious bird of ill omen brings misfortune. But it gives the king a choice of time, and he wisely chooses to suffer hardships in youth rather than in his old age. Here too, there is no sense of past causes or moral responsibility. Compare this with the Mahabharata where the characters act and suffer for reasons of past karma; celestial Urva¿i's curse makes Arjuna serve as a effeminate dancing master for one year in Viraa's court the exile itself is caused by Yudhisthira's wager at the

dice-game, which in turn is caused by Sakuni's vengefulness, and in some versions by the acts of his and others' past lives. The Kannada folktales depict action within the span of a single life, no more 4. Then, too, a god like Sani (Saturn) or a goddess like LakÀmi, if offended may bring misfortune. Many of the vrata stories and stories about Sani's power are of this type. This kind of tale, The Offended Deity, recognized as Type 939, a special Indian oicotype, is summarized by Thompson and Roberts (1960 : 119) thus: I. A king offends a deity. He loses his kingdom and his fortune and is forced to wander in poverty for a term of years. (a) His wife is stolen from him. (b) He must labor at menial tasks. (c) Taken in and helped by a friend, he sees a valuable necklace disappear before his eyes. Knowing he will be suspected of the left, he is forced to flee. (d) He is bought as a slave and is ordered to throw corpses into a tank and collect a fee. His wife brings the corpse of their son.

II. The king is eventually resorted to his former position. (a) His wife (and child) are resorted to him. Variants have been recorded in Bengal, upper Indus, Punjab, as well as in South India. The story of Hariscandra (Dimock 1963) who is tested and persecuted by Sage Visvamitra, the calamities that befall Cando in the Bengali Manasa narrative (Dimock and Ramanujan 1964), and the Raja Vikrama stories of South India (made into popular movies in Kannada and Tamil) in which the Raja defies Sani (or Saturn) are excellent full-fledged examples of Type 939. The Sani story is intimately related to astrological beliefs regarding the planet Saturn, and his seven-anda-half-year sway over a person's life. As a variant, some tales begin with an astrologer's prophecy of misfortune. The story works out the prophecy, despite the protagonists' struggle to escape it. The Indian Oedipus tale told on p. , begins this way. A girl is born and an astrologer prophecies she will marry her own son and bear him children. The rest of the story tells of the fulfillment of the prediction. The prophecies are

seen as indicators of future events and there is no question of inner or karma-like casuality or responsibility. Thus instead of past karma as an explanation of present action, exemplified both in epic story and philosophic debate, these folktales seem to depend on another set of explanatory notions; a) arbitrary vidhi or fate, who writes on the newborn's forehead, often personified as a goddess or a Brahma; b) an offended deity who wants a defiant person to toe his or her line; c) a prophecy that cannot be evaded. Even curses are quite rare, for they are often earned by the individual's own acts. The overwhelming impression is of the mysterious power of fixed fate, which can only be obeyed and allowed to run its course. Karma seems to belong to another system altogether -- with its complex interweaving of individual responsibility, previous lives, the inexorable chain of ethical judgement and causation. The characters of these folktales live in a different ethos.

Maloney (1974), corroborating an earlier paper by Harper (1959), and other even earlier observers (cf Elmore's quotes from Lyall and the Census of 1911, 126-129), note that notions like Karma and reincarnation are unknown in some sections of village society. In his Kanakkuppi½½ai Valasai, a predominantly Ve½½a½a village, people didn't know about the Vedas, nor had they heard about Sanskrit. This may be an extreme instance. And diffusion of Sanskritic ideas and patterns does not depend on knowing Sanskrit or even about it. We know that proverbs, riddles, tales, not to speak of gestures and beliefs, travel across languages, classes, cultures -- they are autotelic. All they require is a small number of bicultural bilinguals. They do not even require largescale migrations, only contact. Tale-type and proverbpatterns, like the words Karma and dharma 5, are 'borrowed', freely, but naturalized with local detail, pronunciation, in new contests with unforeseen meanings. A glance at Archer Taylor's world-wide parallels in this English Riddles (1951), or the Aarne Thompson tale-type index is enough to convince us of

that. Emeneau (1970) demonstrates Sanskritic poetic motifs in tribal Toda songs. On the other hand, what's astonishing is the absence of Karma in these tales -- and the tales are not confined to untouchables who haven't heard about Karma. The tales are widely current, shared by different groups and areas; the ones cited here were told by Havyaka Brahmans (Hegde 1976), as well as by Jainas (Dhavalasri 1968), who are fully exposed to notions of karma. "You! Prarabdha! Prarabdha karma!" meaning "you are my accumulated bad Karma!" is a common abusive formula among Brahman parents. Could it be that the Brahman and Jaina women share a view and culture in common with other castes (who may or may not have Karma in their repertoire)? Cold it be that they live in a 'split-level' world -- one Karmic another not? One is reminded of a South Indian wedding, in which there is a Vedic fire ritual presided over by Vedic priests and conducted in Sanskrit, and other ceremonies surrounding it conducted entirely by women where dialectal riddles are bandied about between groom and bride, satiric songs belted out at

the new in-laws, and nuptial songs known only to women: it is like the double plots of Shakespearian (or Sanskrit) plays, with multiple diglossia articulating different worlds of the solemn and the comic, verse and prose, the cosmic and the quotidian. Most of the women's tales are told to boys as well as girls, though there may be some gender-specific tales (I have no data on this, only a suspicion) -- so the men too live in multiple words. Though there are gross and subtle differences in languages and themes from community (yet to be studied), at least in this matter of Karma and its alternatives, Brahman and nonbrahman tales are similar. (My data consists of nearly 1000 tales, collected independently by about 12 collectors at different times, place and in different groups over the last 20 years). This kind of double or multiple perspective may be only one witness to a more pervasive pluralism. I have suggested elsewhere (Ramanujan 1980) that in Indian traditions, whether they be legal, medical, literary or whatever, we have 'context-sensitive' multiple

systems 6. these variant systems are elicited appropriately in well-defined contexts. For instance, one law does not universally apply to all men in Manu's code -- but according to the caste and circumstance of the offender or the victim. William Blake said, "One law for the lion and the ox is oppression", and the Hindus would have approved. Explanations are not judged by standards of consistency but of fir (aucitya). The Buddha once spoke of a man who, as he was drowning in a sudden flood, found a raft. And he was so grateful to the raft that he carried it on his back all his life. Methods and explanatory systems are no different. When V. Daniel (1979) asked his Tamil villagers if the stripes on a temple were white on red or red on white, he received different answers at different times. Sheryl Daniel found, in her inquires into legal reasoning, similar shifts of argument. She has also, independently, documented that Karma and 'head-writing' were used to explain different things. She calls this 'the toolbox approach of the Tamil to the issues of Karma, moral responsibility and human destiny'. I have preferred to

use a more systemic, linguistic analogy and called the approach 'context-sensitive', rather than 'tool-box' (Daniel 1977) or 'opportunistic' (Geertz 1973, after Weber), or bricolage (Levi-Strauss 1966). However we name it, we are in the presence of complexes and (sub) systems that are sensitive to context, and they are seen that way by the 'natives' themselves. We have yet to define thee eliciting contexts precisely. The recent work of Zimmerman on Kerala Ayurvedic medicine, the above mentioned work of V. Daniels (on the place of place), and of S. Daniels on Tamil villagers' explanations, and of Appadurai on the legal/social history of a Madras temple (1981) are helping us move towards a better understanding of South Asian contextualism. We are adding folklore (here, women's tales) as another such context-sensitive systems, or body of material, coexistent with Sanskritic (or lately, even British/Cosmopolitan) Systems. These (sub-) systems are not to be seen of as characteristic of different social strata (e.g. caste) but

as available to the same individuals within them, in different degrees. Together, the various (sub-) systems may or may not make a single super-system. This question is still open; new formulations like Marriott's (1976), may help us define it, if not answer it. Language models (as hinted, all along) may be pertinent. So far, they have depended on narrow views of what language is, if we include in our consideration of language, rules of structure as well as of use, a semiotics and an ethnography of speaking, a notion of speech repertoires for a individual or a community, -we may then have ways of talking usefully in linguistic analogies. The situation I've described regarding Karma in folklore and other kinds of texts (epics, philosophies, bhakti), may be closer to a coordinate bilingualism rather than to a compound one. In coordinate bi- (or multi-) lingualism, two language systems are held and used without too much blurring of systematic distinctions -- such speakers may speak English with an English accent and French with a French accent for

both -- e.g. an Indian's phonology for his English and his Tamil may be the same. Furthermore, different sub-systems like phonology, syntax or paralanguage, may be differentially affected and re-structured. I am suggesting that the old dichotomies of classical/folk, Great/Little, sacred/profane etc., may be such coexistent codes "switched" by rules of context -- like the speech varieties in a speaker's repertoire. I am also suggesting that such a conception of "system" itself is an indigenous one. Once we recognize such a concept and such a repertoire (Karma, fate, astrology, offended deities 7), we may look for a pattern. We have not found it yet. We are not yet there. Folklore is a reminder that we are not. That is one of its relevances. III. PSYCHOANALYSIS AND INDIAN FOLKLORE In 1971, I reported briefly on what I called the 'Indian Oedipus' (Ramanujan 1971). The four nuclear dyads -Father/Son, Mother/Son, Father/Daughter, and Mother/Daughter -- were the focus of the paper. I

suggested that in Hindu myth, regional folklore, and modern literature, there were many examples which reversed the 'Western' oedipal patterns: son as father's rival and assassin (Oedipus, Hamlet, Karamazov). In the Indian examples, we have Father or Father-figures as the sexual and political rivals of sons. In the Mahabharata, BhiÀma takes an oath of celibacy and lays aside his claim to the throne, sacrifices his sexual and political potency so that his father can marry a young fisherwoman. Similarly Yayati asks for and takes his youngest son's potency to renew himself sexually for a thousand years. Such sacrifices of youth and potency at the altar of age, to rejuvenate the Father, are greatly admired in India. In Indian history, there is a remarkable contrast between Hindu and Muslim dynasties. There are no stories at all of patricide in the Hindu dynasties, whereas patricide and aggression towards the father is rife in Muslim dynasties (ibid). If you include elder brothers and gurus as Father-figures (hence the capitals on Father, Son etc.), the pattern is wide-ranging. My 1971 discussion also included Fathers desiring (and also

marrying) Daughters; and Mothers marrying Sons. Many Kannada and Tamil tales have the Daughter fleeing an amorous Father (fathers, elder brothers, kings, gurus), often foiling his attempts. For details, I refer the reader to the 1971 paper, and shall speak here only of some things I have learned since, and of implications for our present inquiry. Folklore seems to be richer in this kind of material than mythology. Furthermore, the tales are current in the Kannada area (I have a variant or two for almost every district of Mysore, for the Mother-marries-Son tale) -- in a way the corresponding Sanskritic myths are not. The relevant Sanskritic myths widely current are those of BhiÀma giving up his sexual and royal potency for his father, of Yayati taking over his youngest son's sexuality, of VasiÀha the brahman sage resisting and finally subduing the rebellious sonfigure, the KÀatriya Vi¿vamitra. I am indebted to Goldman (1978) for his detailed further discussions of these myths, and for some of his insights: the FatherSon pattern should not only include the guru/disciple relation, but the Brahman/KÀatriya relation as well.

One of Goldman's best demonstrations concern Vi¿vamitra (KÀatriya, as Son), fighting with VasiÀha (Brahman, as Father) for the possession of the latter's wish-fulfilling cow (Mother-figure; cf. gomata); VasiÀha's defence and weapon is his sagely phallic staff (da¸·a) Goldman agrees that there are no clear and major instances of son rebelling against and overthrowing father, but points out rightly that there are many compelling instances of disciples besting and often killing, Oedipus-fashion, their gurus. The pa¸·avas kill Dro¸a and BhiÀma, one a guru, the other a great-uncle as well as guru. Even here, I would insist that the power of the Indian Father/guru is overwhelming. In both cases, BhiÀma and Dro¸a die because they give up the will to live, and allow their son-figures to kill them. In the VasiÀha- Vi¿vamitra case, VasiÀha is never over-thrown. What is clearly seen is the open conflict between guru and disciple, not the Son's passive sacrifices (as in the cases of BhiÀma and Yayati's son) to a father. Obviously cultural biases allow the possibility of a disciple fighting a guru rather than of a son fighting a father.

Further, certainly in the folktales, there is also clear admission of fathers desiring and marrying daughters, mothers (however unwittingly) marrying sons. Similarly, though there are no clear tales of motherdaughter conflict, there are scores of examples of mother-in-law, stepmothers and wicked elder queens who try to oppress, maim and kill daughters-in-law, step-children (usually female), and younger queens. Here the outcome and listener's sympathy is on the side of the victims. There are a small number of stories about cruel daughters-in-law (see p. earlier, for an example) persecuting the parent figure. The Motherin-law is a special Indian figure. The direction of aggression and desire in folktales is regularly from the elder towards the younger member of the dyad, unlike the European tales. Let me quote and discuss the Mother-Marries-Son tale in detail: A girl is born with a curse o her head that she would marry her own son and beget children by him. As soon as she hears of the curse, she willfully vows she'd try and escape it: she secludes herself in a dense forest,

eating only fruit, forswearing all male company. But when she attains puberty, as fate would have it, she eats a mango from a tree under which a pass-king has urinated. The mango impregnates her; bewildered, she gives birth to a male child; she wraps him in a piece of her sari and throws him in a nearby stream. The child is picked up by the king of the next kingdom and he grows up to be a handsome young adventurous prince. He comes hunting in the selfsame jungle, and the accused women falls in love with the stranger, telling herself she is not in danger anymore as she has no son alive. She marries him and bears him a child. According to custom, the father's swaddling clothes have been preserved and are now brought out for the newborn son. The woman recognizes at once the piece of sari with which she had swaddled her first son, now her husband, and understands that her fate had really caught up with her. She waits till everyone is asleep, and sings a lullaby to her newborn baby: Sleep O son O grandson

O brother to my husband Sleep O sleep Sleep well and hangs herself from the rafter wit her sari twisted to a rope. Variations occur, in the eight Kannada examples I have, at the following points in the sequence. In discussing them, I shall also point to their psychological significance. Variations occur, in the eight Kannada examples I have, at the following points in the sequence. In discussing them, I shall also point to their psychological significance. (1) Instead of a curse an astrologer's prophecy initiates the action; or we have vidhiyamma (Mother Fate) or Seivitayi 8, who writes their fates on newborn babies' foreheads. Her daughter discovers her mother's "profession" one night when she returns from a nocturnal visit to a newborn baby, accost her, and insists on knowing what she wrote on her own

daughter's forehead. When she hears that Mother Fate had written that she (the daughter) would marry her own son, she flies into a rage and proceeds to defy her 'life script'. The notion of a child's 'life-script' written by a mother should be interesting to psychotherapists, especially of the Berne-an persuasion. Resistance to a parent's injunction or suggestion yet fulfilling it willy-nilly as if under hypnosis, follows well-known patterns of compulsive behaviour There are also tales of 'outwitting Fate', finding creative solution by wisely using the very conditions laid down by Fate -- for instance, it is written that a girl is fated to earn her living each night by selling her sexual favors. She is advised by a clever friend to ask for a bushel of pearls as payment for a night, so that no one but a divine being (Brahma Himself, who 'wrote' her destiny) can be her lover; she is also advised to give it all away the next day by which she ensures both her own pu¸ya (accumulating merit) and the certainty of the nightly visit by her divine lover (Sastri 1968).

One should also examine the many stories of a Father or Guru giving his son three or more precepts which will be useful to him in crisis-situations like his wedding night, or when he is lost in strange places or is chosen to be king, or in the hour of danger. As these Precept-stories (Type 910) have variants in other parts of the world, they should be comparatively studied and the special Indian elements could be isolated. For instance, Type 910H-J Never Travel Without a Companion, Stay Awake, Never Plant a Moon Tree, seem to be special to India. Many of the parental percepts save the hero's life especially on his wedding night. In these stories the bride has poisonous snakes which issue from her nostrils; in one, his companion, a crab, kills the snakes; in another, he remembers and follows his father's precept to stay awake and so is able to kill the snakes and make his bride safe to live with. The Freudian gloss about the 'first night' is obvious. (2) In five of the variants the girl gets pregnant not be actual sexual intercourse but by eating a mango from a tree watered by a king's urine. In three other tales, she gets pregnant by drinking water from a pool in which a

king has rinsed his mouth. Either way, his body fluids (saliva and urine are two of the polluting body fluids mentioned by Manu - sweat, blood, semen, tears and mother's milk being the others) are treated as capable of impregnating the woman. In other tales, "blood, sweat, and tears" are all seen as capable of making babies. It is, as it were, no body fluid is non-sexual, at least non-procreative. There is also no distinction made between reproductive and alimentary channels, noted by Freud as characteristic of the child's view of reproduction 9. Folklore, here and everywhere, uses common, uncensored, childlike beliefs. (See also the American hospital joke about the nurse who swallowed a razor blade, and three doctors were circumcized as a result). (3) Not all variants contain the lullaby at the end (p.115) which describes the "unnatural" confusion of kinship relationship. Mother marrying son and begetting another son by him collapses generational differences: by this act, son and grandson become one. It conflates the differences between kin by birth and kin by marriage; son and husband become one, so do

mother-in-law and mother; and so on. The most fantastic of these kin-confusions is in Jain tales (my examples here are all literary). In some, a courtesan has twins whom she abandons; they grow up separately, meet and marry, but recognize their kinship by the rings they wear; the son travels far, becomes his mother's lover and begets a son; his spouse and sister, who renounces the world, acquires magical vision, comes to warn her mother and brother, sees their son, and addresses him thus: O child; you are my brother, brother-in-law, grandson, son of my co-wife, nephew, uncle. Your father is my brother, husband, father, grandfather, father-in-law, and son. Your mother is my mother, mother-in-law, co-wife, my brother's wife, grand-mother, and wife". (Jain 1977, Appendix-I, 566; for other examples, see Karve 1950; Ralston 1882). It is clear that in Jain examples, the point of the tale is not Fate; nor Oedipal patterns of Mother/son relations, but the destruction of the kinship diagram. Such a confusion of clear-cut kinship relations (son/husband, mother/mother-in-law etc.) would be-devastating to a child, would make a

shambles of his ordered family world. That seems to be part of the terror of the incest taboo, and the poignancy of some of the folktales. (The Jain literary tale de-fuses the charge of the tale by its clever elaboration and by overdoing the list of paradoxical relations). The characteristic response to such a disorienting sin in these tales is suicide (of the mother, the heroine) or a renouncing of the world by everyone concerned. Such a renunciation, a withdrawal of all relations, in Indian terms, is a kind of social suicide -one becomes a sanyasi by performing a funeral rite on oneself. (4) The end of the tale is interestingly different 10 in a small number of my variants (Sivakumar 1975) and in Karve's Marathi tale (Karve 1950); the latter was told by an illiterate Maratha woman to her daughter. Instead of the heroine killing herself or renouncing the world, she recognizes that her fate has been fulfilled, doesn't tell anyone about her incestuous marriage, lives happily with her husband, "blessed by her aged parents-in-law to whom she was always kind and dutiful". When Karve asked the illiterate Maratha

woman what she thought of it, she replied, "But what else could she do? You know, madam, it was written so". Not only that; "At the end of the tale my little daughter and the narrator were both laughing at the queerness of the happening" (Karve 1950). One of the notable things about this story is that it is told invariably by women and to girls. The protagonists of the story are women; the men are pawns in the story of women's fate. Karve's Maratha woman heard it from her old sister-in-law when she was about 15, and told it to Karve's daughter. All my Kannada variants were collected from older, motherly women. Obviously, fathers and brothers, the males within one's family, are seen as the first temptations for a woman, and vice versa. To withstand (a) the temptation of incest (within the family), and then (b) the temptation of adultery (ineligible men outside the family) seem to be the two successive tests for women before they can mature into wives and mother (Ramanujan 1982).

One of the objects of this exercise is to isolate, if possible, (a) specific Indian patterns, (b) patterns specific to folklore in India. So two kinds of comparisons are necessary; Indian with non-Indian materials, classical Indian with folklore materials. Such a 'triangulation' would show convergences and differences. I have discussed elsewhere a Cinderella pattern in European, Sanskritic, and Kannada examples (Ramanujan 1982). In my 1971 paper, I compared the Greek Oedipus myth with Kannada tale. The Greek myth is central to that culture; it is the object of much literary elaboration and phychological discussion (which is itself a sign of its importance). In it the killing of the father, Laius, is as important as the marrying of the mother. The story is told entirely from the view point of the male, the son: he is the cursed one, he is the one who tries to escape fate and yet fulfills it, he is the one who discovers the truth about himself. The Kannada tale, told by village women, is not the object of similar literary elaboration. There is no Laius-figure, and therefore no patricide, in any of the tales. The tale, in its episodic sequence, in any of

the tales. The tale, in its episodic sequence, is exactly the same as the Greek one, but it is told entirely from the woman's, the mother's point of view. To structural analysis, therefore, we need to add point of view, before we can interpret a tale. One may ultimately decide that such reversals (male to female, son fated to marry mother instead of mother being fated to marry son etc.) as structurally or psychoanalytically reducible to a single pattern. But the presence of such differences should be interpreted in the light of other parts of the culture. It is true that all humans have bodies, everyone has fathers ad mothers; but human also as invariably, live in cultures which rear them on body-images and parent-images. One cannot assume either invariance or uniqueness; they have to be tactfully, sensitively, demonstrated. Folklore with its universal forms (e.g. tale types , motifs, proverb patterns) and local, functionally significant variants, with its motifs and patterns shared both with classical Indian and with non-Indian texts, is specially important for the demonstration of characteristic 'indigenous systems'.

A few other areas of inquiry may be briefly suggested here. We know that patterns of toilet-training are significant in any psychoanalytic interpretation of culture and personality. We also know that Indian patterns of child-rearing are strikingly different from, say, American ones (Kakar 1978 : 103-104). Folktales told to children of toilet-training age (3-5) like the following are significant: Sister Crow and Sister Sparrow are friends. Crow has a house of cow dung; sparrow, one of stone. A big rainstorm washes away crow's house. So she comes to Sparrow and knocks on her door. Sparrow makes her wait first because she is feeding her children, later because she is making her husband's and children's bed. Finally she lets her in and offers her several places to sleep. Crow chooses to sleep in the chickpea sacks. All night she munches chickpea and makes a kaumkaum noise. Whenever Sparrow asks her what the noise is, Crow says, "Nothing really. Remember, you gave me a betel-nut? I'm biting on it". By morning, she has eaten up all the chickpeas in the sack. She cannot control her bowels, so she fills the sack with her shit,

before she leaves. Sparrow's children go in the morning to eat some peas, and muck their hands up with Crow's shit. Sparrow is angry. When Crow comes back that night to sleep, she puts a hot iron spatula under her and brands her behind. Crow flees, cyring, Ka! Ka! in pain. Children laugh a lot at this story - especially at the crow filling the sack with her shit, Sparrow's children getting their hands dirty with it, and at Sparrow's revenge. But it is an ambiguous story. Saparrow, obviously a tidy and successful housewife, is not given to incontinence; her house is firm, her routine wellordered -- analysts would relate these orderly virtues to anal continence (Jones 1918). Crow is disorderly, incontinent, her house of dung cannot withstand a storm; she can neither control her nightlong eating nor the morning's unloading of her bowels. She is punished by branding on her behind. On the other hand, I have always felt a certain ambivalence in myself, and in the tellers and the children, about Sparrow; she keeps Crow waiting in the rain, is not

generous in her hospitality. One feels she deserved, somewhat, Crow's untidy return for her grudging hospitality. Children laugh gleefully at Sparrow's discomfiture, and enjoy Crow's filling the sack with shit. We need to collect similar stories told to children of different ages, and also children's reactions to them. Riddles in America are favored by children at 5-6 when they are learning basic logical operations of a la Piaget. While that is true in the Kannada area too, and children used in adult occasions - wedding, festivals and competitive riddle-matches. Similarly, for Indian village adults, there seems to be a greater continuity of genres and games from childhood.

Folklore can be collected according to sex, age, occasion; and the co-variation in forms and contents can be studied, in a way classical textual myths usually cannot be. Furthermore, myths and classics would yield a great deal of psychological insight if they are given their oral contexts, variants and native exegeses-

i.e., if the Sanskritic mythology is treated as we treat local folklore, as a live changing expressive medium for thought and feeling. In studies verifying Freudian or Piagetian models of development for Indian a careful age graded ethnography of folklore would be invaluable

11.

IV THE GODDESS REVISITED Much has been, is being, and will be written about the so-called Mother Goddess and her many forms and names. The object of this section is not to rehearse the issues discussed already; they have been greatly illuminated by Richard Brubaker's subtle and eloquent dissertation, The Ambivalent Mistress (Chicago, 1978). The preoccupations in the literature have been dichotomies of various kinds: Aryan/Dravidian, Great tradition/Little tradition, Male/Female, Vegetarian/Non-vegetarian, Brahman/Sudra (and Untouchable), Chastity/Other kinds of power, the Terrible Mother/the Loving Mother etc.

I have two questions to ask: What would be lost if we didn't include the village oral traditions of folk-myths, of the kind that Oppert (1893), Elmore (1915) and Whitehead (1921) collected and summarized, on which almost exclusively, all later discussions have depended? What would be added, if we treated the folk-myths and cults as belonging to a separate systems and as (a) a part of a unified Hinduism, or as (b) village versions of the Devi/Kali/Durga complex, with which, of course, it interacts and mingles in many well-known ways? Before we go on, I would like to make two points which have been clear for some time: (1) The goddess, whether Devi or Mariyamman in their many forms, is not a mother. Amman and amma, as she is called in Tamil and Kannada, could mean either 'mother' or 'lady'. Her infliction, smallpox is called ammai (Tamil) amma (Kannada) in a propitiatory euphemism. (2) Amman stands clearly contrasted with consort goddesses like lakÀmi or Parvati, who are married,

auspicious; their shrines are a part of the larger temples devoted to their husbands. Even the consort goddesses, it must be noted are not true mothers. LakÀmi has no children in Sanskritic mythology, Parvati's are extra-uterine miracles. A brief summary of some remarks made elsewhere might point up further the contrasts between the kindly Breast Mothers (LakÀmi, Parvati etc.) and the fierce Tooth Mothers 12 (Ramanujan 1974): Consort

Amman

Goddesses

Married

Basically

subordinate

alone; if

to the male

married,

consort.

insubordinate

Related auspicious, life-cycle rituals-

to

or fatal to consort; male could be consort, brother,

weddings,

servant or

births,

guardian

pregnancies; and

good

fortune.

Crisis-deity, invoked when life-cycles are

Household

disrupted;

deities;

seen

as

temples

inflicting

as

within

well

as

village.

removing epidemics,

Wellsculpted faces

and

images. Not born of the

earth;

pure, chaste, with

claims

to universality.

femine

etc.

Leaving

one

alone is part of her grace. Temples often outside village boundaries, goddess brought into

Benevolent,

village

unless

on

offended,

occasions.

LakÀmī mortals

with

the

great god in VaiÀ¸ava

often faceless images; often objects other than

icons,

like pots.

bhakti; Pārvatī

special

Rough-hewn,

intercedes for

only

in

folktales

Of the earth, earthy, often literally.

Vegetarian

See

Kannada

Brahman or

names

brahmanized

Dyāmavva

priests;

(skt.

devotees all castes.

of

like Dyāvā

‘earth’), L°kavva (loka ‘world’). Seen myths

in often

as

lustful,

angry, coquettish. Associated, often despite the

names,

only with a village

after

which she is named. Ambivalent, dread,

an

intrinsic part of

the

devotion. Possession a part

of

the

ritual. Blood sacrifices (or substitutes)

demanded and offered. Mostly

non-

brahman priests, untouchable officiants, and may have Brahman clientale. There are minor exceptions to these well-known contrasts, and in particular cults there may be some crossing-over of features from one side or another: in myth, name, degree of benevolence or ambivalence. While these crossings have been studied for the Amman-figure, we know little about the few cases (seen in folktales where LakÀmi, usually on the lefthand side of our chart, moves to the right-hand side as an offended deity -usually, she afflicts a person or a household, never a whole village like the Amman. We

also need more study of ambivalent male folkgods like Sani who behave like Amman. What is important is that these crucial contrasts would have been entirely missed, if village goddesses and the folklore about them had not been studied, as fortunately they were, by missionaries like Elmore and Whitehead. Our knowledge of Hindu conceptions of deity would have been confined to the great pura¸ic gods (as it still is, in most of our Indian Civilization courses andbooks on Hindu myths). For instance, we no longer can think of the Hindu pantheon as consisting merely of gods and demons (deva and asura); we need at least a trichotomy of devaru or Sanskritic great gods, devate, village spirits, and deva or ghosts, to use Kannada terminology (Harper 1950). We can see the trichotomy paralleling the social one, of Brahmans, non-Brahman castes, and outcaste untouchables (Harper 1959, Beck 1969) with Durkheimian parallels between the social and mythic worlds.

A favourite way of integrating the village goddesses into a Hindu system has been to see them as avataras of Kali or relatives of Siva, as the village folk themselves often d: many of the Mariyammangoddesses are given legends and names that connect them with Parvati and Siva (e.g., Whitehead 1921 : 122). There are also studies that demonstrate a welcome continuity between the Sanskritic elements and the village ones; between the village sacrifices and the Vedic ones (Spratt 1966, Biardeau 1979). The buffalo-sacrifice, according to Biardeau, is seen to have many of the elements of the Vedic sacrifice (buffalo = bull, buffalo fat smeared on the buffalo's head = omentum smeared in the Vedic sacrifice, the lamp on the head of the buffalo = the sacrificial fire, the post representing Poturaju or Buffalo-king - the yupa post of Vedic sacrifice made of sami wood). The Amman killing the buffalo is seen as no other than the Devi killing the MahiÀasura, the Buffalo-Demon, in cosmic battle. Or themes of "male lust and female wrath" (Brubaker 1978), are seen as uniting the variety of Amman and Devi myths. In pura¸ic mythology, the

energies or sakti of every god is feminine, without a Siva (corpse). To the psychoanalytically oriented scholar this has meant the passive male's terror of the fierce castrating omnivorous female -- the beheading of the buffalo or demon is 'nothing but' castration. The ambivalence of the Goddess is seen as the ambivalence of mothers -- they are both loving and terrible. Jung was one of the first to identify this split mother in the figure of Kali (Jung 1938 : 334). The consort goddesses are the benevolent Breast Mothers, Kali and her various allomorphs are the Tooth Mothers. if we add the notion of the vagina dentate (Elwin1942) in folklore, the picture of the castrating female becomes clearer (For complexities, see O'Flaheny 1980). But, as we said earlier, neither kind of goddess fits a Madonna-Child archetype very well. Yet mothers or not, they seem to represent the two aspects of the Feminine. A Kannada proverb clearly says, nari munidare mari: "Woman, when furious, is a Goddess (mari)". Elmore, to the dismay of Whitehead (1921 : 15), comes out with it quite bluntly, without any analytic frills: "….the Dravidian deities are female

because the Dravidian women are specially quarrelsome, vindictive and jealous, and … their tempers and curses made people feel that it was wise to propitiate female spirits". Scholars have tended to ignore the specificity of myths, bypass the narrative career and the aesthetic impression, and to go directly to an extraction of cognitive categories. They have usually been content to cite over and over the same summaries by Elmore or Whitehead, forgetting that such summaries are already edited and biased. Trained folklorists would have insisted on full texts, or at least the native bias of native retellings, however summary. So, here, I would like to present a translation of a Kannada oral myth about a Goddess 13 :

A long time ago, elders arranged marriages for girls before they came of age. That was the custom. If a girl menstruated before she was married, they would blindfold the girl and leave her in a forest. This practice was chiefly among brahmans. Once a

brahman girl did get her period before she could get married. Her father blind-folded her and left her in a jungle. A Lingayat man watched him abandon his daughter in the jungle, and felt compassion. He said "Ayyo papa, poor thing!" and rescued the girl; he untied the cloth round her eyes, brought her home, and treated her as his own daughter. A Madiga (untouchable) saw her one day, and fell in love with her. He vowed to himself, "I must marry this girl, I must". He told his mother, "Avva, you'd better learn to dress like a brahman woman. Help me get this girl for your daughter-in-law". He persuaded her against her will, dressed himself in brahman-style cloths, went to the Lingayat's house, and asked for his foster-daughter's hand. The Lingayat agreed, because he too wanted to get this brahman girl married to a brahman. He arranged the marriage, and sent the girl to her mother-in-law's place. There she did all the house work and cooked for her husband and motherin-law. The mother-in-law liked the young woman's brahman cuisine, but would grumble now and then, "What food is this tasteless soup and stuff?" the

brahman daughter-in-law overheard this a few times and was puzzled by it. But she was afraid to tell her husband about it. Some years passed, and she bore who sons. The children - after all, they were boys were curious to find out what their father did all day. "What does Appa do, why does he go to the foot of the hills?" they wondered. One day, they followed him without his knowledge. They observed that he sat at the foot of the hill, measured people's feet, and sewed sandals for them. They came home and gathered broad banyan leaves and leaves of the milk-hedge. And they placed their feet on the leaves, took measurements, and cut out-lines along the curves of their feet. Their mother saw what they were doing; "Don't do such things, children!" But can boys keep quiet? They said proudly, "We are doing exactly what daddy does. He does just this all day under the hill". She knew now what her husband was up to. She realized what 'caste' of man she had gone and married. She also understood in a flash why her mother-in-law grumbled, and craved for sheep's flesh everyday.

As she thought of it, anger rose in her. It rose and rose in her body, and became a terrible rage that was all over her. She grew bigger and bigger, standing tall, joining earth and heaven in one body, and became a Mari (terrifying goddess). She put out her tongue and went in search of her husband. He saw her, and knew he had to flee. As he fled, she said, "I'll first finish of these children who were born to that man. Then I'll get him". The children were terrified by the Mari, their mother, and hid themselves into a couple of sheep that were around. The Mari broke off the sheep's heads, and went again in search of husband. The Madiga saw that the Mari was coming after him. So he entered a he-buffalo that was grazing in the field nearby. Mari saw him hid himself in the animal, and moved towards him making angry noises, taking dancing steps. And she cut open the he-buffalo, drank her husband's blood, and took a vow standing right there. "I'll cut you down every year, and get lamps lit from the fat of your body". Saying that, she came leaping forward. Saying "I've taken my husband as my ahuti, where shall I

settle down?" she moved forward. As she came, midway she met a Dasayya. This Dasayya was from Alsand. He would roam the town all day and sleep in the village chieftain (gau·a)'s cattle shed. He had a piece of coconut frondwith him. The village chieftain's daughter-in-law would watch over it in his absence. But one day, when he was asleep, she moved it somewhere. The Dasayya woke up next morning, looked for his coconut frond all over and couldn't find it anywhere. "Whoever has taken it, they'd better return it", he screamed. "Please", he begged, but nobody came forward to return it to him. He got exasperated, and saying, "I'll go get Mari. She'll get it back for me", he went in search of her. On the way, he saw an old woman picking dry cow dung and putting them in her basket. She was looking for someone to lift basket to her head. Then she saw the Dasayya walking that way in a hurry, she called him and asked him, "Come here, my man. Please help me get this basket on my head". The Dasayya said impatiently, "I've no time to help you with your

baskets and things. I'm looking urgently for Mari. I've got to get to her soon. Don't interrupt me". The old woman replied, "I'm the village Mari. Come here". The Dasayya didn't believe her. He scolded her: "Hey, old woman! Don't tell lies. I'll let it pass, and help you this time with your basket and go my way". But when he went near her, and tried to place the basket on her head, he shuddered with fear - because she had a coiled seven-headed serpent on her head for her basket to rest on (simbi). He knew this was Mari, and stood there in terror, not knowing even which direction he was facing. Then the Mari comforted him and told him: "You must never turn around and look at me. If you do, you'll be my third ahuti". The Dasayya agreed to do as he was told, and walked ahead. Behind him, the old woman changed into Mari, stood tall, joining earth and sky, put out her lolling tongue, and started walking. When they came near Alsandi, the Dasayya felt he couldn't hear the anklet sounds anymore. So he turned around and looked. He saw the incarnation of Mari, was dumbstruck, stood there shivering. The Mari was furious. She lashed out wither tongue at him,

rapped him to the ground, killed him, drank his blood andcame to Alsandi. There she wasted (nasa ma·u) the village chieftain, all the people of the village, destroyed the whole place, and left untouched only the lane where claves are tethered. Then she came to Beg£ru, and drank the blood of the people there, finished all the fodder and rice water (musare) that the Beg£r chieftain had stored for thousands of cows. Her thirst was still not quenched. At the boulder (nerigekallu), she shook the borders (nerige) of her sari, took it off and threw it at Mailigeha½½i. She struck the rock with her fist. As Mari's hand struck the stone, water sprang from it -- the earth goddess made it spring from rock. Mari drank from the spring, she went to Antaragae ("a bund with intervals") and stayed there, showing her long lolling tongue. This Mari hopped and hopped (antarisi) from place to place, and arrived at Antaragae. That's why she is called Antaragaamma. (Told by Smt. Sarvamangala after her grandmother's version, Mysore, 1977)

let us set it against a locus clasicus for the Devi myth, a passage from the Marka¸·eya Pura¸a (summarized in Shulman 1976 : 122): When Mahisa the buffalo-demon was lord of the demons and Indra lord of the gods, the gods were cast out from heaven by the demon lost. From the energy (Sakti) born from the anger of the gods, Devi became incarnate. The gods bestowed their divine weapons upon her and sent her to do battle with MahiÀa. Riding on a lion, she fought with the demon and finally placed her foot on his neck and pierced him with a spear; he half came forth from his own mouth, and the goddess cut off his head and killed him. The contrasts between the village story and the Sanskrit pura¸a should be noted. The folk-myth is not a tale of war. The woman is an ordinary housewife who, in an excess of fury at deceit and defilement grows in physical stature, and becomes a demonic goddess. Desecrated by her marriage to an untouchable, she cannot anymore be part of any household or community; so she destroys her house

(sets fire to it in some versions), children, husband and mother-in-law, and finally the village. Such acts are against very code of the wifely frame which she is now bursting through; violated, she violates in turn. And unlike Kali, she actually has children here, enacts both the loving and the terrible mother I two stages. Her acts give an actual village its name (Antaragae; "place of the goddess's leaps"), and in turn, gets her name from it (Antaragaamma): by the time we come to the end of the story, she is the village. Whenever an epidemic strikes, the village is seen as her fury; but only she can protect her village from it; and as the village herself, she also suffers her own fury. Thus is she many-phased and multi-vocal. Clearly there are homologies between Buffalo, Untouchable, and the Epidemic (that occasions the goddess cult) as forces of intrusion and disorder, as there are homologies between the gardens that buffaloes ravage, the brahman woman, and he village in the throes of an epidemic (Brubaker 1978 : 345). It may be useful here to resort to akam/puram concepts once again. The village story begins in the

akam mode as a folktale with no means of places or persons, with a household theme of marriage and family. It ends outdoors, as puram, with dire public consequences -- as the action destroys villages, creates and gives names to new ones. Meanwhile the protagonist herself gets a local habitation and a name. Here is one kind of folk-distinction between folktale (an akam, household, mode) and myth (a puram, public mode): in the present example, we see a movement from one to the other in the course of the telling. We see a myth being created before our eyes, even as a goddess grows out of an ordinary mortal, made numinous by uncontrollable rage. Such a movement from a household to a public realm is characteristic of many classical Tamil puram poems (Ramanujan, 1980a): Eulogy on a Young Warrior O heart sorrowing for this lad once scared of a stick

lifted in mock-anger when he refused a drink of milk, now not content with killing war-elephants with spotted trunks, this son of the strong man who fell yesterday seems unaware of the arrow in his wound, his head of hair is plumed like a horse's, he's fallen on his shield, his beard still soft. Ponmutiyar As you can see, the poem opens with a homely childhood scene (akam) and goes swiftly to a battlefield (puram), spanning a life-time, moving outward. None of the major Sanskritic myths have such a movement. From the point of view of a folk-repertoire

of oral traditions, the entire Sanskritic mythology would be in the puram or public realm. The emphasis in the Antaragaamma story is on the self-creation of a goddess (unlike the goddesses created by the Hindu great gods), and on her containment by villagers who try both to pacify her and to keep her out by giving her a dwelling-place, a nele, outside the village, by giving her a specific name, and a sacrifice (of her husband or buffalo-surrogate) she demanded. All this becomes possible and necessary because a woman is (a) desecrated, by (b) a marriage between brahman and untouchable, representing the two ends of the social and ritual hierarchy, both capable of special powers, one of brahmanical purity, the other of magical sorcery and dangerous pollution (Hart 1975 : 134). Such desecration, violence, and miscegenation are conditions for the eruption of demonic divinity. There are plenty of other instances for these conditions: the birth-stories of Aiyanar; the Re¸uka-Ellamma myths with the transposed heads of brahman and untouchable; the villuppattu narrative of

Muttuppattan, the Tinnevelly culture-hero, a brahman who loves and marries outcaste cobbler women, becomes chieftain of a cobbler village, is killed by robbers in battle and becomes a god 14. There is no talk of chastity and its powers here, as it is in classical Tamil or Sanskrit epics. Kannaki, in the Tamil epic Cilappatikaram, becomes a goddess of chastity (Pattini), following a pattern similar to our folk-myth. She is a quiescent, even colorless, wifefigure till she hears that her husband has been falsely accused and brutally executed, and she herself widowed. She then flies into a fury, flings her breast on the towers of Maturai and burns it down. She becomes a goddess, and people install her image and propitiate her. The story is often seen as a story about the power of self-control and in its tendency to start conflagrations. But the excess of rage, the power of an ordinary woman to become a goddess given a sufficient charge of anger, seems to me to belong to the potent underlying folk-pattern. It is also as much a theory of emotion as a theology.

There are many other aspects of this tale and its variants which deserve comment, but we shall leave it here for now. V. FOLK POETICS : TALE, THEATER AND RITUAL Aristotle, I his poetic (Solmsen, ed. 1954 : 226, 228), traces the history of Greek theater: from a single reciter, bard or chorus (who either remained the same throughout, or spoke at one moment in narrative and at another in an assumed character to the use of two actors in dialogue, with a reduction of the business of the chorus. In Kannada villages, one can see the whole range of such a variation, or stages of evolution if you will, right before one's eyes: the domestic teller; the single 'public' itinerant professional with a specific musical instrument (ex. Bu·ubu·ike 'handdrum', cau·ike 'a one string instrument') from which he gets his name; a chief teller with an assistant who plays; the role of audience, 'answers' and chorus; chief teller with an assistant as well as a chorus of two or more singers who add their instruments and voice at certain points.

I have reported on the range of tellers and their accompaniments elsewhere (Ramanujan 1979). What is relevant there is that, if we arrange them in order of complexity and 'publicness', we would have the domestic tale at one end of the continuum and a fullfledged theater form at the other. A diagram may be useful here : FIGURE In formality of language, instruments, stage props, we can see a clear continuity between the domestic tale and the public folk-play. We have also moved from 'akam' towards 'puram' in form and presentation: the characters and places acquire names, local kings and gods are praised and addressed, even the domestic theme is embellished by many episodes: the audience is cajoled, teased, apologized to, and particularly members mentioned in a scandalous way in the comic sections. Such inclusion of the listeners in various "indexical" ways in the focus of this part of the paper.

Kumbar (1972), in a richly detailed paper, pointed to the similarities between ritual and dramatic performances, and the way drama itself is a ritual in a North Karnataka village. I am indebted to Kambar's paper in what follows. During a jatra festival, devoted to village deities like the Seven Sisters the appearance of an asadi or low-caste story-teller is a kind of announcement. The next few days (three to seven), the asadi summons the elders, leads the procession and collects food from the villagers. He wears a sari, and mounts the temple cart with the goddess. After a procession, a buffalo is (or used to be) sacrificed. The asadi drinks the buffalo's blood and holds a snakehooded scepter. Soon he begins to tremble and shake. He is accompanied by two more asadis with drum and cymbals. They sing the glory of the goddess. The possessed priest (asadi) sings the first word of each line of a song, the other two complete it. They sing and he dances round the deity. They have also the custom of reviling the high castes, especially the brahmans, who not only accept but demand (often with ropes and whips) that they be

reviled. The asadi then foretells the future, promises to keep epidemics in check and to safeguard children and crops. At the end of the possession ritual, he lays down his staff and becomes dispossessed. The sequence embodies, according to Kambar, six elements of Kannada folk-drama, and I quote: 1) Prelude: the ritual involving the deity; 2) Make-up: the priest disguises himself as the diety; 3) Chorus and music: two singers with drum and cymbals accompanying the priest-actor's dance; 4) Dance : which is the spiritual and physical reenactment of what they sing; 5) Theme: the story of the deity sung by priest and chorus; 6) Mangala: the release of possessing deity and the close of 'play'. 'By their choral singing, the beat of the drum, and the impersonator's dance, the "actors" initiate their devotee-cum-spectators into an experience of bhakti, devotion, which is the basic function of [such] folktheatre', says Kambar (ibid : 7).

Professional castes like dasas specialize in story-telling and ballad-singing. They are devotees of different gods (e.g. dasa means 'servant' or a god); they sing, dance, narrate and impersonate; even when their medium is not dance but the spoken word, and the story is not about a god, the basic structure of the story-telling is maintained: invocation; story; blessing and audience. Thus ritual is the proto-form of a theatrical performance, even when the theme is not religious. Certain assumptions characteristic of ritual are also present in folk-theatre. For instance, notions of possession are never far the audience's mind. I have seen, in plays about Narasimha, the man-lion incarnation of ViÀ¸u disemboweling the demon enemy, the performance comes to a standstill when the Narasimha character appears on the stage. He is worshipped with flowers, coconut etc., so that he may not in his dramatic rage, actually disembowel the person playing the demon. Villagers tell stories of how previous Narasimhas forgot they were playing a role, were possessed by the god, and actually mauled and killed their opposite numbers. Such precautions are

taken also with the demons themselves (like Rava¸a), and with murder stories (like Sangya Ba½ya, based on a notorious village murder). Folk-poetics differ, therefore, from classical rasa poetics in important ways. Rasa poeticians take great care to insist that poet and character are distinct; the poet's feelings (bhava) are not the created characters. Nor are the character and the actor who plays him ever to be identified; nor the feelings (bhava) of audience and those of the poet (Dimock, et. Al. 1975 : 129). Thus the poet/audience, character/actor, poet/character dichotomies are the basis of rasa poetics and its theory of emotions. Bhavas are personal feelings, private, transient, inchoate; rasas are generalized (sadhara¸ikara¸a), composed, structured. One goes to the theater to compose one's bhavas into rasas. Folkpoetics, from all that we have said above, works on a different view of emotion: bard and character, bard and audience, bard and actor, actor and character are merged at crucial moments, and separated at ordinary times. One goes to the theater/ritual to experience such mergers in different degrees.

We can see how bhakti poetry and performances share such a view of poetry and emotion: Poets, beware, your life is in danger: the lord of gardens is a thief, a cheat, master of illusions; he came to me, a wizard with words, speaked into my body, my breath, with bystanders looking on, seeing nothing he consumed me life and limb and filled me making me over into himself. Nammalvar (Ramanujan 1981)

One should not assume that 'possession' is the monopoly of the "folk"; the Vedas had their vipras 'the quivering ones' and their invocations to their gods. The study of folk theater has much to tell us, both by contrast and convergence, about Vedic and classical ritual and aesthetics 15. THE 'TRAGIC' IN FOLKLORE It is often said that Indian Literature has no 'tragedy' as a genre. This would certainly to be true of Sanskrit drama and kavya narratives. Modern Indian critics have seen 'tragedy' in various stories of the Mahabharata, especially those of Kar¸a and Asvatthama (for instance, B.M. Srikanthayya adapted sophocles' Ajax as Asvatthaman in the 30's). One may consider the Tamil epic Cilappatikaram as 'tragedy', ending in the death of hero and heroine as well as their antagonists. There are many 'tragic' (not simple in the sense of 'sad, unfortunate') foknarratives and folk-plays - eg. the villuppaus or bowsongs of Tamil (Blackburn 1981), the pa·dana epics of

Tulu (Claus 1975, 1979). One should particularly attend to the ones that deal with the emergence of a local god out of a culture-hero (like Muuppattan in Tamil, Koi-Cannaya the twin-heroes in Tulu) or of a powerful local goddess emerging out of a betrayed or victimized female as Ka¸¸aki or Antaragamma (The latter does remind one of Medea). A dark desecration in the family, most often having to do with irreversible caste-pollution of a sexual kind, a growing recognition of it, the consequent rage, the violent bursting-through of ordinary bonds of role and domestic culture, the expansion of a household affair into a communal conflagration involving the whole village irrespective of caste and class, the rise of a goddess of terrifying power crying for vengeance and pacified by a ritual of animal sacrifice - these seem to be the main features of an Indian indigenous 'tragedy', certainly as indigenous to South Indian Villages as Greek tragedy is to ancient Greeks, is intimately related to a solemn, gory, and cleansing ritual for an entire community which experiences the purgation, the terror of the victim, the raging power of the

numinous goddess, a healing peace and joy (as often recorded) after the partaking of the sacrifice. It is not exactly Aristotelian, and we need new definitions that are neither classical Sanskritic nor Western. In classical Sanskrit terms, drama dealt chiefly with Vira ('heroic') and sr´gara ('erotic') themes, sometimes with karu¸a ('compassion'). Raudra ('rage') and bhayanaka ('terror'), without which there can be no tragedy, are minor in Sanskrit(ic) drama; death itself is one of the 33 minor themes. These 'recessives' are 'dominant' in some of the battle-scenes of the Mahabharata, in the classical Tamil puram poems, in the Narasimha or Man-lion story of the avatara cycle - a favorite of village plays. One also sees these rasas portrayed prominently in Kathakka½i performances in Kera½a, e.g. the unforgettable scenes of the vengeful killing of Kicaka, and of Draupadi at the end of the war smearing her hair with the blood of her disembowelled molester Dussasana. Bhasa alone, a maverick among Sanskrit playwrights, deals directly in violent episodes like the above. And his connections with Kera½a and

the kinds of materials we mention here are to be investigated. Especially, if the ethos does not include Karmanotions, but plays on Fate, offended deities, and undiscovered desecration, such an ethos can lead to Indian conception of the 'tragic'. TALES IN RITUAL There is another relation between tale, theater and ritual we must mention. It also related to metafolklore. It also points to the function of certain tales. It is wellknown that vratakathas are part of rituals of worship. Usually the tales are of the Offended Deity type (Type 939) we mentioned earlier. In some cases possession occurs while a tale is being recited, a tale clearly recognizable as a folktale in other contexts. The story of the Three Golden Sons (Type 707) we discussed earlier is the focus of a central Himalayan ritual (Leavitt 1979). In Gaborieau (1975), there is an excellent description of a trance ritual. There are two kinds of stories told, edifying stories

(called bharat, chiefly classical epics and legends of the nine Naths) and trance-inducing stories (called jagar). Trance-inducing stories have three formal characteristics that distinguish them from other kinds of stories. "They are told in the second person, the bard addressing them directly to the god whose story he is recounting; they are accompanied by the brass plate as well as the drum; and they are illustrated by the dance of a possessed medium, who goes into trance at the beginning of each story and mimes its actions. Jagar culminate in a consultation of the god and his dismissal…." (Leavitt's translation). Note the distinction made above, between the different aesthetic and ritual functions of classical and tranceinducing folktales. There is a Telugu story about such stories, which functions as an explanatory myth for the buffalosacrifice, which is also a Type 939 and which fuses character, story-teller, and the buffalo in the sacrifice of which the story is told. It is a meta-tale par excellence. Elmore summarizes it thus (119-120):

In the village of Oragallu a Brahmin refused to worship Matangi. All kinds of evils came upon his household. When he enquired the reason he was informed that it was because of his refusal to worship Matangi. He was ordered to arrange for a nine days' festival for her. He himself must be the bainedu, story-teller. His son must guard the light on the head of the buffalo, and his wife must take the place of the Matangi. All of these offices are performed by Madigas (untouchables). The Brahmin was further informed that later in the ceremony he himself must be killed, his membranes made into drums, his arms cut off and placed in his mouth, his fat spread over his eyes, and the usual features of the buffalo sacrifice performed. All castes were then to worship Mathamma in her Matangi Brahman was brought to life, and these various things were done to a buffalo. According to this story the buffalo sacrifice thus originated. This myth is about myth itself, of how myth generated ritual; how men re-enact myth in ritual, and how 'art imitates life, and life imitates art', as Wilde would say. The story-teller's life enacts and becomes the story.

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PERFORMANCE AS PARADIGM : A RHYTHM IN A TAMIL ORAL TRADITION Stuart Blackburn Dartmouth College, Hanover INTRODUCTION In recent years the study of culture has been increasingly directed toward the examination of systems that order peoples' lives. It is felt that these systems, variously termed belief systems, hypotheses, root metaphors, cognitive maps, world views, cognitive systems (Black 1973), are the assumptions from which culture emanates and that their apprehension would provide new explanatory keys. Concomitantly, there has been also an increased awareness of the need to use native terminology and concepts to gain access to those systems. However, despite this concern to avoid distortion of a system's content, there has been a serious misrepresentation on the more fundamental level of its conceptualization. The coherence of the reality (and often even encountered) and later

represented as thought, with the consequences that those systems are assumed to be cognitive only. Since the publication of the Griaule team's studies of Dogon though and the several expositions of LeviStrauss, the complexity of the logic of non-western cultures is no longer in doubt. That such cognitive systems for ordering the chaotic mass of perceived reality exists cross-culturally and in diverse formations is established. What I want to suggest in this essay is that there is, in addition, another kind of system which is, primarily at least, not cognized but enacted. In other words, the organization of reality I structured not only in cognitive categories, but in behavioural patterns as well. Accordingly, this essay intends to demonstrate that performance, in a Tamil oral tradition, is interpretable as cultural paradigm. In advancing the interpretation of oral performance as cultural paradigm, the present argument draws on both performance theory and model analysis. The formulation of a performance approach to oral literature has been developed over the past decade

chiefly in the discipline of folklore (Abrahams 1968; Ben-Amos 1972) and secondarily in the allied field of socio-linguistics (Hymes 1974, 1975). Although there is consensus that the fundamental premise of the performance approach is event over text, or process over product, it has been employed with a diverse range of emphases. The most recent and comprehensive statement of performance analysis (Bauman 1977), by one of its original proponents, is written with the "language in context emphasis of the ethnography of speaking school. It thus signals a return to formal analysis and a de-emphasis of the original behavioural slant of performance theory" (e.g. Lomax 1968). Somewhat independent of this development of folklore, but linked to it by a shared debt to K. Burke's dramatistic perspective, a similar dynamic interpretation of cultural behaviour emerged in anthropology (Geertz 1973; Peacock 1969; Turner, 1974; and earlier, Bateson 1936). One branch of symbolic anthropology, this approach is not concerned with the specific issue of performance in oral tradition,

but with the larger question of how behavioural sequencing may be, I and of itself, a symbolic domain. Particularly influential to the present argument is the position developed by Geertz (1973 : 443-53) that certain cultural behaviour, e.g. ritual or festival, may be understood as the way people represent reality to themselves. In this sense, performance is a symbol paradigm, a medium for a culture's interpretation of itself. The conception of performance forwarded in this essay differs from that proposed by Hymes (1975 : 18) which has general currency in the field: conduct for which the doer assumes a responsibility to be evaluated. Although the notion of responsibility is useful, in living oral traditions one need not be so troubled, as was Hymes, about when performance begins and when it ends. Allowing local definitions to identify performance , the present conception is more restricted and includes only those recurrent behavioural segments, ritual and secular, involving two or more persons which are locally regarded as culturally significant. Its function, and it is thus more

akin to Turner's "social dramas" (1974), Singer's "cultural performances" (1955 : 27), and Schieffelin's "cultural scenarios" (1976 : 3) than to Bauman's "interpretive frame" (1977 : 11). It is, furthermore diametrically opposed to the idea of performance in Chomskyian linguistics as an imperfect realization of an ontologically prior meaning. This is inverted to assert that performance itself is the vehicle of meaning; the paradigm lies not in competence, but in performance. In presenting performance as paradigm, "paradigm" is also conceptualized differently than it is in its standard usage as an abstract set of rules, as a scientific world view directing cognition (Kuhn 1962 : 43-51), or as an exemplar for comparison (Black 1962 : 156-69). The present intention is to demonstrate that in performance the instrumentality and the intelligibility of the paradigm are brought into closer alignment (cf. Schieffelin 1976 : 2). Indeed, the position toward which this essay moves is that the paradigm does not exist outside its enactment in performance. Perhaps that is one reason why performance occurs at all

without it the paradigm would not even be operative. Austin (1975 : 6-7, passim) has identified as "performative" those words which by their very utterance, perform an action (e.g. "I beg you"). Correspondingly, a performance paradigm may be understood as one which enacts meaning. One more point of clarification concerns the "model of/model for" distinction which is frequently invoked in the discussion of cultural models. Although that distinction is useful to indicate a model's complexity, it should not obscure the fact that any model or paradigm is inevitably both a description of social reality (on some level) and a sanction for it (cf. Ortner 1975 : 135). Moreover, these two aspects of a model are not passive as in a stencil extracted from behavioral patterns and for which subsequent patterns are cut out. Instead, we must learn to see that the performance paradigm, like speech, organizes the world while it describes it. Turning more directly to the study of Indian culture, model analysis in this field carries the same

assumption of a cognitive medium that it does in the study of culture generally. In reviewing the field, Das faults an over-emphasis on observable behavior and urges attention to the "way in which people impose order upon the world" (1977 : 4). She then demonstrates how these cognitive systems are extractable from Sanskrit texts. Marriott has presented a sophisticated explication of a transactional model generated from a behavioral base, but it, too, is ultimately concerned with "cognitions of reality" (1976 : 113). Implicit in these studies is the assumption that people organize reality only, or primarily, by means of cognitive systems. While crucial social issues are often ordered cognitively, they are also ,I argue, made sense of in behavioural systems. An almost extraneous statement from Singer (1959 : 145), is especially germane: "Whenever Madrasi Bramans (and non-Brahmans, too, for that matter) wished to exhibit to me some feature of Hinduism, they always referred to, or invited me to see, a particular rite or ceremony in the life cycle, in a temple festival, or in the general sphere of religious and

cultural performances as links in the levels of civilization and not "as performances", his remarks indicate that they do serve to organize meaning for people at least in the city of Madras. While the cultural performance concept was thus first applied in the study of India, paradoxically performance theory has been since utilized in that field only infrequently (Blackburn 1979; Wadley 1978). In proposing the interpretation of performance as paradigm, this essay seeks to make a contribution not only to the study of Indian folklore, but to the study of oral tradition and expressive culture in general. Both the performance approach and the cultural model approach have been utilized in the analysis of oral tradition, but their conjunction has been rare (Schieffelin 1976; Geertz 1973 : 412-53). By combining the two techniques, performance theory is extended to the discernment of cultural paradigms and model analysis is brought into the interpretation of oral performance. The goal of this theoretical stretching is to demonstrate that meaning is not only expressed in

and perceived in behaviour, a proposition most would accept, but also that it is ordered by behaviour. THE VIL PËÙÙU TRADITION The bow song, or vil p¡u tradition, is found only in the two southernmost of Tamil Nadu, South India. The material presented here refers to Nancil Nadu, a traditional region within the area, although most statements apply equally to the vil p¡u tradition at large 1. Nancil Nadu has a 2,000 year old history, covers nearly 4.00 square miles and stretches to the southern tip of the sub-continent at Kanya Kumari (Cape Comorin). The tradition takes its name from the enormous how, or vil, six to twelve feet long, that is set up in front of the performing group and upon which the lead singer plays. The group consists of a minimum of five persons, and as many as eight or ten, each with a percussion instrument. Until recently, few women have restricting their public behavior, particularly selfexpressive behavior. During the past ten to fifteen years, women have become increasingly popular as lead singers (and always in pairs because a single

women on display is less acceptable), but they still never perform other roles in the troupes. The performers are semi-professional, earning only a part of their income from singing and only during a few months of the year. Most are functionally literate, and a few male lead singers, though not educated beyond primary school, are well-versed in the literature of vil p¡u. Generally, performers are not distinguishable socio-economically from their audience of peasant villagers and townfolk. They come from the middle-level castes in the areas, the same castes among which the tradition is currently active 2. vil p¡u is not patronized by Brahmans, or by some segments of high castes that intimate them, for reasons of social prestige, nor is it patronized by the lowest and most oppressed groups for reasons of financial scarcity. Vil p¡u songs narrate the history of the gods and goddesses installed in a particular temple and worshipped during its festival. Most of the songs are currently available in palm-leaf manuscript, originals

or copies of semi-learned poetry written 150-350 years ago. Some song texts have been printed and sold locally in pamphlet form. Texts in the tradition vary in length from 500 to 5000 lines or more (one text of a local Ramaya¸a is 13,000 lines long), and performance varies in duration from 30 minutes to six hours or more. The singing summons the deity propitiated during the festival and thus has a central ritualistic role, integrally connected with the spirit possession that eventuates when the deity appears. The only performing context for Vil p¡u is the koai (lit. "offering") festival which is distinctive to the area covered by the tradition. The koai occurs once a year (usually between February and May) at each of the several hundred local temples in the area. These temples are "locally" controlled by family, lineage, or clan groups and located predominantly in villages, but also in the mono-caste quarters in the few towns in the region. The koai is the only function in thetemple to which every constituent unit of the temple community, usually the controlling kin group, contributes materially. Ci¤appu is a variant koai, financed by a

single family in fulfillment of a vow, in which Vil p¡u performances are also included. Documentation of Vil p¡u, excepting a few fragmentary early missionary reports, is absent outside the Tamil academic world and only very sparse within it 3. However, for the several million people living within its geographic spread, Vil p¡u performance in the koai festival is the most important public event in their lives. A marriage or pilgrimage to an all-India famous temple site may be more personally consequential and expensive, but those events are idiosyncratic and private. By contrast, in the Koai festival everyone in the temple community contributes financially and theoretically shares in the benefits generated. Either as passive audience, or as active petitioners of the deities worshipped, everyone (with exceptions of course) participates. Roles are differentiated: performers, auditors, spirit possession mediums, and temple officials; but all are face-to-face with one another in the same event. Significantly, that event is remarkably uniform throughout the vil p¡u region and is frequently repeated. Although each temple conducts one koai per

year, plus additional ci¤appu, a medium-sized village will contain as many as 10 or 15 temples, and thus hold that number of koai. Moreover, if one wishes to visit koai in neighbouring villages, as many local people do, the number of festivals one may experience in one year is considerable. In order to demonstrate how the performance of this event operates as a cultural paradigm, the essay is divided into essentially two parts. The first part examines the key taxonomic distinctions that structure the tradition outside performance, i.e., as a cognitive system. The second part describes how those distinctions are re-structured in performance, i.e. as a behavioral system. A concluding section summarizes the argument and draws out its broader implications. PART I : THE COGNITIVE SYSTEM In the conceptualization of vil p¡u as a cognitive system, i.e., in the non-performance mode, there are several planes of classification. Three planes, the local pantheon worshipped in the tradition, the temples I which they are enshrined, and the koai festivals in

their honour, form one set that is concerned with the spatial and temporal dimensions of the event, or context. A fourth taxonomic plane organizes the oral contents of the event, the sung stories themselves. Beginning with the first set, pantheon, temple and festival, the central classificatory criterion is sexual gender, bifurcating each plan into male and female divisions. The local folk pantheon in Nancil Nadu includes over a hundred deities, many of whom are deceased ancestors, each with a separate, though sometimes related, history. This disparate array of figures is catalogued in local speech by a binary set of female goddesses and male gods of amman and madan. Amman is cognate with a group of words in the Dravidian languages meaning "mother" and is used throughout the Tamil areas to mean "goddess". Madan on the other hand, is a peculiar word found only in the vil p¡u region where its usage derives from the name of the principal male deity, Cualai Madan. Most deities whose cult has developed beyond a small kin group (and many that have not) bear either the

explicit title amman or madan in their name, e.g. Muttar Amman, Ponni¤attal Amman, Cualai Madan, Karai Madan. Other deities not nominally designated as amman or madan were, nevertheless, consistently identified by those labels in the solicited and unsolicited speech of local people. When the identity of such a deity was questioned, the answer would be, "Oh, he's one of those madans", or "You know, she's an amman". The only exceptions to the amman/madan bifurcation are those figures assimilated into the vil p¡u tradition from pan-Indian mythology. They include Perumal Cami ( a Tamil name for Visnu), Ka½a Cami (a minister of Yama, god of death), Vairava Natan (local pronunciation of "Bairava", a form of Siva), Kaai Ó¤um Perumal ("he who ascends the funeral pyre", or Harischandra), and Sasta (Harischandra, Aiynar). These deities are all male and, except for Sasta, are only satellites, especially to an amman, and never central figures in a temple. Turning to the temples in the vil p¡u tradition, they all belong to the terminological set koyil (lit. "King's house") which designates all worship sites of supra-

human powers in the Tamil area, from a large towered complex to a small stone. Vil p¡u is not performed I the largest temples, but among those in which it is performed there is still a tremendous variety of physical form. The minimal requirement for a vil p¡u temple is a place in which the deity resides and/or to which it is summoned during the festival 5. This place may be a shaped icon, a painted stone, a tree, an ant-hill, a painting or smeared spot on a wall, or a spot on the ground marked off by white powder during the festival. The temple may be structural, i.e., the deity's place housed within a permanent building (usually a single room), or nonstructural, i.e., the deity's locus exposed to the open air. During a festival, sometimes the addition of sheds constructed of banana tree stalks and palmyra thatch transforms the non-structural temple into a structural one. The amman/madan distinction is the main classificatory criterion for this diversity of temples, reducing it, like the disparate folk pantheon, to a

dualistic system. In the speech of local people, again solicited and unsolicited, a particular temple was consistently identified as either "amman/koyil"), indicating that the plane of deity typology has been added to the frame of reference. In addition to the gender distinction indicated by their labels, the amman and madan temples, are also partially differentiated by physical and iconographical features. The prototypical amman temple is structural, with a anthropomorphic icon, while the madan temple is characteristically not structural andis without an anthropolorphic icon. The amman icon, if in status form, is known as cilia and is recognizably a variant of folk iconography found throughout India. By contrast, the madan icon, which resembles an obelisk, is known by a separate term (pitam) and is unique to the vil p¡u region. It is made of clay and brick, covered wit lime paste and stands 3-8 feet tall on a small rectangular platform of the same construction. Finally, the amman/madan contrast informs classification on a third plane in the vil p¡u tradition,

the festival. vil p¡u is performed only in a koai, a class of festival distinct from others, vila and usava, in the area. The term koai is a peculiarity of the tradition, although the general elements of the festival are cognate with those of festivals in other parts of South India. The koai is divided into two sub-categories, amman koai and madan koai, depending on the temple type in which it occurs. Significantly, the separation between these sub-categories is not only terminological, but temporal: amman koai may occur only on a Tuesday and madan koai only on Friday. To recapitulate, a distinction based on sexual gender, amman/madan, is the primary classificatory axis on the planes of patheon, temple, and festival in the vil p¡u tradition. The amman/madan contrast is clearly a binary set as evidenced by the fact that the terms are commonly used in opposition to one another. Thus, for example, "That's not an amman temple, but a madan temple", and the converse are frequent statements. It should be pointed out that although the contrasts on each plane were each recognized and articulated locally, they were never inter-related in the manner

presented here. Sometimes in speech solicited situations, those terms were used to reference a specific item, often in contradistinction to its binary partner. The most taxonomic system and that given here is that in the former the amman and madan categories were never described as generically female and male. When that interpretation was made by the researcher in conversation with local people, it was, though never denied, accepted only reluctantly. The amman/madan distinction, however, is not the only classificatory criterion for the vil p¡u pantheon. These categories of gender conjoin otherwise disparate and separate otherwise similar deities. Thus, cutting beneath their loose grouping is another binary set that organizes deities according to the nature of their birth and their death. In local terminology, every deity in the pantheon is either teyva vamsam ("of divine descent") or veupatta vatai ("a cut-up malevolent spirit"). These terms indicate the definitional role of birth (divine descent) and death (cut-up) respectively for the pantheon. The first distinguishes deities by their birth, through the agency of Siva in his celestial abode or its

heroic variant, suicide. Conversely, the first group (teyva vamsam) is also defined by their death - they do no die; and the second (veupatta vatai) are defined also by their birth, which is earthly, human and painful. Each deity has thus either a divine, painless birth in Kailas and does not die (hereafter type A), or has a painful, human birth on earth and suffers a tragic death (hereafter type B) 6. The classificatory power on the birth episode for type A deities is illustrated by the variants of the story of the two most pervasive deities in Nancil Nadu Muttar Amman and Cualai Madan story, performers claim that there are seven variants distinguished by as many different kinds of birth, although they are able to identify only two. Even the terms by which these two variants are known employ the word "birth": viz. "birth in the lamp" and "birth (in the sacrificial fire of) Takka Raja". For the Muttar Amman story, the major variants are actually stories of nominally distinct goddesses who collectively comprise a composite amman. These stories are then known by the name of the specific goddess they celebrate, but it is, in fact, the

birth episode which differentiates them. Thus, Muttar Amman is born of the sweat of Parvati or in an egg; Ka½I Amman is born from one of siva's eyes or formed from three women; and Uccinimaka½i Amman is born from Siva's third eye or from his head. Beyond this variation in birth episode, these nominally separated stories follow a similar, sometimes identical, narrative sequence. Under the rubric of type B (earthly birth and tragic death) stories, there is not a similar systematic subcategorization based on the nature of death. However, a single such sub-category, cumai ta´ki or "load bearer", does exist. Cumai ta´ki refers to those women who die in pregnancy or delivery and are later deified and housed in stone structures, of the same name, placed by the roadside for bearing the loads of travelers. Again, in local speech the terms for type A (teyva vamsam) and type B (veupatta vatai) showed consistent usage as generic categories in the identification of deities. Like amman/ madan labels,

they were used both independently and as a contrast set. However, their definitional criteria of birth and death, like sexual gender in amman/ madan, were never made explicit; only the terms themselves were spoken and understood. The relationship between these two taxonomic distinctions I the pantheon, amman/madan and birth(A)/death(B) is unclear, and they appear to operate independently. The amman/madan contrast is more frequently verbalized, but the A/B contrast was not less known or understood when mentioned. The later represents a slightly higher level of abstraction and functions on the fourth and last classificatory plane, on which amman/ madan is absent, of the vil p¡u story corpus. The entire domain of story in the local area is divided into two categories: keka katai and cami katai, or "story to be heard" and "god's story". These labels are context-oriented since the same story potentially belongs to either category. keka katai designates stories told outside the temple festival context. They are not intended as worship, no ritual is involved, no possession ensues and the raconteur is not paid. For

each of these statements, the reverse is true for the cami katai. Popular keka katai stories are never performed in veupatta vatai, e.g. the pan-Tamil stories of Cirutondar, Kovalan and Kannaki, Nalla Tankal, and some that are occasionally performed in the tradition, e.g. stories from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. All stories performed in vil p¡u belong to the cami katai category since, as a form of worship in the festival, they have at least a minimal ritual function. Within the vil p¡u tradition, stories are classified by the A/B distinction already shown to define deity type (by the birth and death episodes in their histories). That point is extended here to detail how the stories themselves are classified by the A(birth) and B(death) categories. It is most significant that those categories are found within the stories as explicit type-markers. Starting the gross plot structure of each category, it is possible to learn how they, together, form a symmetrical cognitive system. First, at the end of the fixed-phrase invocatory verses that introduce the vil p¡u story (in palm-leaf), printed

pamphlet, or oral performance), the name of that story is mentioned for the first and only time. This name marker includes the name of the deity and either of two modifiers: piranta ("born") or iranta/i¤antappaa ("died"). The invocation thus concludes with either of two lines: "We sing the story of X's birth" or "We sing the story of X's death. Following this invocation, the first segment to be mentioned I the narrative sequence of each story type is the initial setting. In this section, which initiates the narrative proper (or varalaru), again somewhat fixed verbal formulas serve as clear markers of which story type is to follow. Type A begins with the fixed phrase "in golden/silver Kailas Siva ruled", and the line in type B stories is "in the land of all lands". Stock descriptions of each setting then follow: in type A the power and beauty of Siva's court, and in type B the prosperity of the land. In type B, this general description moves quickly to specific and known details, identifying the particular region, a named village, a caste and usually the personal names of

persons in one family. The date of the action, however, is never mentioned. The birth of the deity in this initial setting further differentiates story sequences A and B. although in both childlessness is the lack that is liquidated by a birth, the nature of that birth, as discussed above, is quite different. Type A involves a painless, miraculous birth and type B is painful, human birth. Furthermore, the events that lead up to the birth in each type distinguish them. In type A, the painless birth is preceded by any number of idiosyncratic events and the deity appears rather abruptly. In type B, by contrast, the painful birth is preceded by a standard series of events, pilgrimage to temples, penance, a month-by-month description of the pregnancy, the summoning and arrival of a mid-wife. After the birth event, the story types follow different paths to a similar key episode, the central conflict. In type A stories, the deity completes certain tasks set by Siva and then requests, and eventually receives, boons from him. Fortified with these special powers,

designed to control humans on earth, the deity descends from Kailas to the earth, an episode known in the tradition as "the descent from Kailas". Once on earth, the action moves toward one central conflict which pits the deity against a powerful enemy whom he subdues. Characteristically, this conflict is male/female, either overtly sexual, e.g. rape, or covertly sexual, e.g. the goddess slaying the demon. In type B stories, the birth of the deity is followed by more patterned minor episodes, taking him through education, various martial arts training, and optionally, marriage. However, in the case of goddesses in this category, this prefacing material is severely curtailed or omitted altogether. After these fixed sequences, the narrative progresses until a particular problem develops which eventuates in the deity's death, by murder or by suicide. For a male deity, this problem is inevitably an inter- (or intra-) caste conflict or open war. Very often this fatal conflict is created, or is believed to have been created, by a male/female sexual antagonism, e.g. a rejected demand for a bride. In other case, it is not the conflict,

but more directly the death of the hero already embroiled in it what is believed to be caused by a woman, e.g. by her underlying cause of her death. She is either the innocent victim of masculine aggression, abducted and killed, or its powerful opponent in a war in which she is subdued and then commits suicide. In type B stories, then, the incident which precipitates the central conflict and/or leads to the deity's death is either war or sexual confrontation or their conflation. This same homology between war and sexual conflict was briefly noted in type A stories. Although it is there less pronounced because the deity does not die, nevertheless sex and war are the interchangeable instruments by means of which a female both conquers and is conquered. Following this central conflict in Type A stories, the deity creates havoc and coerces various groups of people to worship him or her. In his way, the cult proliferates and the story ends as the deity comes to reside in his or her most famous temple (in performance this is the particular temple in which the

story is being sung). In type B stories following death, the deity goes to Siva in Kailas, asks for and receives boons, returns to earth, and by means of the boons established his or her worship. Specific boons are received to wreck revenge on those responsible for the deity's death. The guilty are killed and relatives or neighbours, to avoid a similar fate, erect a temple to the fearsome spirit and institute a koai festival in its honour. The outline of the episodic sequence of these two stories type is summarized in a linear format in figure 1 below: Figure 1 Diagramming the directional movement of the same episodic sequences, the following figure results : Figure 2 With the aid of Figure 2 it is possible to summarize the vil p¡u narrative corpus with reference to its taxonomic categories. In one category, deities are born on earth

and after death go to Kailas, receive boons and return to earth for worship. The composite figure shows that after the death and arrival of the deity in Kailas, type B stories follow the same sequence as do type A stories. There is thus a fit between the two story sequences that forms a cyclical movement between the divine and the earthly realms, between deities and humans. As a consequence, if the past-death segment in type B (although it is less important) were to gain prominence over the pre-death segment, the story could be historically transformed into a type A story. Also, a transition from type B to type A, within this cyclical fit could be effected by what I termed elsewhere (Blackburn 1978) the "substituted birth", i.e., an historically subsequent ascription of a prior divine birth. As a result of this prior divine birth in Kailas, the human birth and life of the deity, the tragic aspects of the story, become ontologically secondary and eventually recede into a background. Viewed synchronically, for present purposes, this cyclical fit illustrates how the two story types form a symmetrical taxonomy for the vil p¡u tradition. That

taxonomy, which describes a flow movement between cosmo-geographical regions (Kailas and earth) and their inhabitants (deities and humans), is pegged to crucial narrative themes. First, categories within that taxonomy are identified by "birth" and "death" verbal markers and as narratives themes: birth dominates type A and death dominates type B. Secondly, in both story types a homology was noted between armed conflict and sexual conflict, is central in both story types, but in A it is less ominous, more auspicious and often connected to a birth, while in B it is the cause of tragedy and death 7. The consistent and broad contrast between story types A and B, to which all this material points, is underlined by the difference in spatial setting between them. Type A is set in Kailas, a mythical place, and type B transpires in this world, in known places, involving local groups of people and events. Correlating these differences, in type A the setting is distant, problems are painless, and the general tenor is fictive. By contrast, in type B the setting is proximate, problems are painful, and the general tenor is "real".

To summarize Part-I of this essay, the central points are two: (1) the structure of the non-performance taxonomy of the vil p¡u tradition is binary, and (2) that structure organizes the crucial problems, birth, death and sexual conflict, into a cognitive symmetry between type A (distant and fictive) and type B (proximate and real). PART-II : THE BEHAVIORAL SYSTEM The translation from the first part of this essay to the second part marks a shift in perspective from vil p¡u as performance event. A cognitive model (the organization of the tradition by cognitive categories) is complimented by a behavioral model (the organization of performance by behavioral patterns). Significantly, this shift of perspective corresponds, in fact, to what happens in a vil p¡u performance itself. In part I two types of narrative (A and B) were identified on the level of content. On a higher level of abstraction, however, any story of either content type exists potentially in two models defined by the behavioral criterion of whether or not they are in performance.

Succinctly, when a story is not being performed, it is referred to as katai; and when it (the same story) is being performed, it is known as p¡u 8. Thus, in Part I the classification presented pertained to the katai mode, the stories outside performance. In this second part, we adopt the indigenous viewpoint and consider the tradition in its p¡u mode, as performance event. First, concerning the performance context, it was stated earlier that the koai festival occurred only on Tuesdays for amman (female) and only on Fridays for madan (male) deities. It is now necessary to point out that those days refer only to the central day of the festival, when the temple's chief deity is worshipped. The traditional duration of the koai is three days, one before and one after the central day. Thus amman koai begins on Monday and ends on Wednesday, and madan koai begins o Thursday and finishes on Saturday 9. This three day program provides the framework for the sequencing of the major vil p¡u performances in the festival. The center day, on which the main deity is

worshipped, is marked by the performance of his or her song. The first and third days are likewise by one major performance. The festival is thus structured syntagmatically as a three slot motifemic sequence in which each major performance constitutes a slot. The isolation of the three "major" performances from among the total number of performances (as many as ten or twelve) during the festival is facilitated by their very sequential position. The center performance is obvious because it sings the story of the principal deity on the center day. The other two major performances are similarly obvious because one opens the festival and the other closes it. In addition to this positioning, other criteria serve to distinguish major from minor performances. First, major performances are conspicuous by their extended duration, from three to eight hours, while minor performances last only ½ hour to one hour. Secondly, some performers and other knowledgeable persons, when asked what stories would be performed at a particular festival, would list three, the same three that

then fell into the slots identified here, and in the same order. Furthermore, this tripartite infra-structure of the koai festival, marked by its major performances, is constant even when the festival is less than or more than three days. When low finances permit only a one day koai, the three major performances surface more clearly because sometimes they are the only performances. Similarly, when resources allow an expansion of the koai from three to nine days, the tripartite framework of major performances is still identifiable by their extended duration and the deity they celebrate. In these expanded sequences, amman koai commences on Monday and continues through the following Tuesday. The first slot in the tripartite sequences occurs on the initial Monday, the second a week later on the second Tuesday, and the third follows on the same day. In the less common instance of an expanded madan koai, the same rules apply. The nine days begin on Thursday with the first major performance and end on the second Friday with the center and last performances. Within the expansion and contraction

of the koai, in both amman and madan variants, the motifemic sequence remains constant. This is presented in figure 3. Figure 3 Monday

(amman) Wednesday

Tuesday Tuesday

Thursday

(mādan) Saturday

Friday Friday

3 day ko¶ai

x----------------x-----------------

---x 1

day

9 day ko¶ai

ko¶ai

x-x-x x-----------------------------------

--------------------------xx This linear representation depicts the horizontal ordering of the vil p¡u performance event, but is not an adequate description of the entire event. To its syntagmatic dimension another must be added that records the affective aspect of the behavioural sequence. That dimension is the dimension of depth 10. "Depth" is used here to refer to the relative

intensity of the event, the festival or its constituent units, that eventuates in spirit possession . In as much as spirit possession is believed to be caused by the presence of a deity, induced by worship and song, the term "ritual depth" will be used. Ritual depth culminates, in its "deepest" instances, in a possession dance, or cami aam (lit. "god-dance"). The depth of the possession dance is manifest in that, for the audience, it is the most meaningful segment of the festival. It receives the most attention, the largest crowd. During festival days, the question is always: "Which deity is coming next?" This means not which song, but which deity's dance is next. It indicates a focus not on the oral behavior (song) summoning the deity, but on the kinetic response stimulated by his presence. Present concern is however not with the possession per se, but with the fact that it indicates a culmination of ritual depth in the performance event. Suffice it to mention that the dance comes to that person (usually a man) who is designated as the dancer (cami ai, cami

ko¸ai, K°marattai) for the particular deity and, not infrequently, to any number of others in the audience. It may not infrequently, to any number of others in the audience. It may take the form of convulsive jerking, more active leaping and rolling, or a more controlled and regular pattern of movement that approximates the English word "dance". The dance may also involve props marking the identity of the possessing deity, particularly weapons, knives, swords and poles for males. Incorporating this dimension of depth into the representation of the festival sequence, the following diagram results: Figure - 4 As figure 4 illustrates, ritual depth steadily increases as the sequence approaches the central performance at which point a possession dance ensues. Possession occurs also at other points in the sequence, but that associated with the central performance is the most intense. After this culmination, ritual depth gradually

recedes and, by the end of the festival, returns to its pre-festival level. Before detailing how this basic performance structure (figure 4) is elaborated, its tripartite and ritual nature immediately invite comparison with Van Gennep's (1960 [1908]) classical paradigm, of which it is a variant. Moreover, an explanation of the relationship of the three major performances to the ritual depth that runs vertically and sequentially through them is suggested by his theory of liminality. Through its association with spirit possession, ritual depth entails contact with suprahuman powers and therefore the element of danger. Those powers are dangerous because they are uncontrollable and because contact with them involves a transition from one realm to another. Van Gennep has shown in his vast array of examples that such a transitional or liminal state in ritual is bounded on either side by separation from social reality and then reincorporation into it. In other words, the transition from one world to another itself requires antecedent

and subsequent transitions. These are boundaries that create fixed thresholds and reduce the ambiguity inherent in liminality. The applicability of Van Gennep's schema to the vil p¡u sequence should now be obvious. The three major performances that define the festival framework are organized so that the first and last provide boundaries for the centre one in which ritual depth and danger is greatest 11. Finally, to restate Van Gennep, it should be noted that the boundaries in ritual operate in both directions from its interface with social reality 12. not only do the boundaries protect normal reality from dangerous contact with supra-human powers, but by encashing the liminal state they also protect it from the incursions of normal reality. We are now in a position to examine how the binary typology of narratives worked out in Part I fits into this tripartite performance sequence. The first slot in the sequence, whether amman or madan koai, is always filled by the Sasta story, a pre-eminently type A story. Although it commences in Kailas, like all type A

stories, unlike them it does not move to the earthly realm of nau 13. Rather the story remains in the mythic world, alternating between the home of the gods and that of the demons, emphasizing the fictiveness and psychogeographical distant that characterize type A stories. The other prototypical feature of type A stories, the dominance of the birth episode, is also prominent in the Sasta story. In fact, this story, which in other oral traditions and in printed forms recounts the entire history of the god, in vil p¡u performance ends abruptly with his birth. Furthermore, the birth event is also the point at which ritual depth is greatest in the performance. It is also when possession occurs; i.e., the appearance of the deity in oral performance is enacted in dance. During the oral performance, preparations for the worship of the soon-to-arrive god are made nearby, in or around the temple. The performing group must synchronize with these preparations bringing their story to the birth of Sasta just as they are finished and possession is to ensue. This possession dance, in the first performance slot, is relatively short, is not intense and

is usually restricted to the god's known medium. Also, there is no random occurrence of possession in the audience. The next major performance, in the center slot, and the possession it engenders, is the deepest point of the push for ritual depth in the entire festival program. The story performed in this slot, because it is dedicated to whoever the principal deity in the temple might be, may be either type A or type B. Nevertheless, if the first slot emphasizes aspects characteristic of type A stories, this slot emphasizes those associated with type B. In the case of a type A story in this slot, mythic action in Kailas is overshadowed by the emphasis given to the episodes that deal with life in nau, or this world. Performances of type A amman stories in this slot, for example, bring her quickly to earth and elaborate her attempts to coerce worship from various caste groups in the local region. A more specific indication of this "real world" emphasis is that among several possession dances that occur during this central performance, the most intense occurs when the goddess takes up

residence in the particular temple in which the festival is being held. Her birth in Kailas, the definitive episode for type A narratives which is also emphasized in the first performance slot, does bring possession in this second slot, but in a mild manner. The other point at which intense possession regularly occurs is the destruction of the city of heretics (Tripuram), a deathoriented episode that further illustrates the type B accent of this slot. Similarly, the performance of madan type A stories in the center slot focuses on the action after the god descends from Kailas to the earth. For example, the divine birth of Cualai Madan, like amman, does evoke possession, but the most intense dances result when he confronts his riva, a spirit conjurer, rapes that persons, daughter and forces him to sacrifice her to him. This tendency toward type B aspects of death and tragedy in the real world would suggest that the greatest ritual depth is reached when a type B story is, in fact, performed in the center slot. And, indeed, this is the case. As noted earlier, these stories are local

historical legends that recount the life history of a person who died a tragic and/or valorous death and is later apotheosized. Although type B stories involve a cyclical movement between Kailas and nau, the events on earth receive the greatest attention. The portions subsequent to death, that take the soul to Siva and then back to earth as a deity, are not elaborated and are sometimes omitted altogether. Moreover, in these performances possession breaks out at several points, but predictably it is most violent at the point of the hero's death. This possession dance is the most powerful in the entire vil p¡u tradition, lasting often for several hours and involving forms of self-mutilation, e.g. lashing oneself with a chain or rope and striking oneself with a sword. This possession dance is not confined to the regular medium; it occurs also among persons in the audience (a phenomenon sometimes, but not always seen in other situations). After this climax, the ritual depth of the festival steadily recedes as it approaches the third and final major performance. At the ebb flow of ritual depth,

performance in this slot is not necessarily considered a form of worship and need not sing of a deity enshrined in the festival temple. Consequently, there is no possession dance, and sometimes even a portable cinema (in wealthy villages) will substitute for a vil p¡u performance. A regular exception to this pattern occurs when the koai is conducted at a divine amman temple in which Cualai Madan is enshrined. In this instance, that god's song is sung in the third performance slot as worship, but a mild possession arouses little excitement. Other stories which fill this slot are chosen for their entertainment value. The most popularly sung stories include two from the Ramayana and a local narrative of a Brahmin-untouchable love marriage (Muttuppattan). The performance of these stories, Cutalai Madan, the Ramayana and Muttuppattan, in the third slot renders them in a fashion that highlights type A aspects. In the cualai Madan story, in contrast to the earthly adventures and death episodes underscored in the center performance slot, events in Kailas, his birth and mischievous escapades, are ventilated I this third slot.

Moreover, like performances I first performance slot, the possession dance, albeit mild, occurs at his birth. The tendency of third slot to emphasize type A aspects is even more apparent in the case of the Muttuppattan story. This story is a characteristically type B madan tragedy of love and is tremendously popular in the vil p¡u area. When this story is sung in the center slot (at temples in which Muttuppattan is enshrined), the performance builds to the tragic death, at which point the intense dance erupts. However, performed not for worship but for entertainment, when it is sung in the third slot it is cut conspicuously short at the marriage of the hero and the sorrowful segments are not sung. Although stories from the Ramayana are performed only in the third slot and thus no basis for comparison exists within the vil p¡u tradition, considering which segments of that epic are sung, a similar selection process is observable. The only two segments that are sung describe Rama's birth and his marriage to Sita; their suffering and separation are rarely, if ever, performed in vil p¡u.

This ability of performance slot to alter story content was first made clear while recording a festival during field work. In the third performance slot, the singers decided to sing the story of Muttuppattan who, although not worshipped at that particular temple, was worshipped in several temples in the vicinity. The audience was therefore used to hearing the entire story performed in the center slot, in which it would climax at his death and lamentation of his widows. When the performers began to end their story at the marriage of the hero, as is appropriate for the third slot, several persons in the crowd objected and asked them to continue. The singers, however, refused explaining that only if possession ensued would it be proper for them to sing to the tragic end of the story. Some countered that this logic was reversed and that possession would result only if they sang that tragic part others pointed out that it was necessary to close the festival with a "good" event, i.e. the marriage. Eventually this reasoning was accepted and the performance and the festival ended.

In addition to these examples of how the third performance slot transforms story content, two examples adduced above from the other slots are pertinent. In the first slot, it was pointed out, the Sasta story is curtailed at the god's birth. I the second slot, type B stories climax at death and omit or deemphasize the remainder; and type A stories slight the divine and birth events in favor of earthly and death events. To summarize, the first and third performance slots end on or emphasize the auspicious events of birth and marriage, and the second slot ends on or emphasizes the tragic event of death. In other words, the opening and closing slots shape performance toward elements definitive of type A narratives, while the center slot shapes performance toward elements characteristic of type B narratives. This positioning of specific narratives and their typological category in the tripartite festival sequence for both amman and madan koai, and their condensation into a single pattern is diagrammed I figure 5 below :

Figure 5 Thus, the performance sequence is structured by the same type A and B categories that structure narrative typology. However, the present argument would stress two important points of divergence between these systems that organize the performance and nonperformance modes in the vil p¡u, the fictive, distant and painless world, at either end of a behavioral sequence, encases a real, immediate and painful one in the middle. That relationship between the fictive and the real in performance may be represented thus Figure 6(hhjghjgdjgfsd) a figure that describes the basic performance structure in vil p¡u. in attempting to understand the significance of this basic structure, two of its properties must be made clear. First, since the festival is a temporal sequence, figure 6 describes movement, the movement of the entire koai. Secondly, it is a movement toward, and then away from, the point of greatest ritual depth.

A point indicated by a possession dance associated with a tragic human death. The association of ritual depth and possession dance with other events, birth and sexual/armed conflict, has been mentioned periodically in the foregoing discussion. The following table collates information gathered from local people (mostly performers and dancers) and from observation of festivals concerning the narrative events associated with possession. TABLE 1 : Association Between Certain Narrative Events and Possession Dance (Number of times recorded) Even

Solici

Obs

ted

erv

asso

infor

ed

ciate

matio

beh

n

avio

t

d with poss essio n

r

Deat

10

18

h

7

17

Birth

8

13

Sexu

5

4

al confl ict /war Othe r The consistent connection between the events of death, birth and sexual/armed conflict and possession, demonstrated in Table 1, confirms what figure 6 summarizes: movement in performance is toward problems in the real world. The evidence suggests that on the broad level of content (though probably not on more detailed levels), there is a rather direct relationship between oral literature and social reality (cf. Fischer 1963 : 262). Pertinent here is Jacobs' Thesis (1959 : 129-30) that content emphasizes in oral Literature unresolved socio-psychological problems.

The problems isolated vil p¡u performance are so fundamental that no resolution is possible, and it can be expected that there will always be tensions surrounding them. The steady increase of ritual depth toward certain problematic events may be interpreted as a push or a drive toward an expression of the tensions they represent. Superimposing this explanation upon the basic performance structure (figure 6), the following figure results. Figure 7 Figure 7 explains, on the level of the entire festival, how the basic performance structure organizes the expression of unresolved social tensions. In this concluding section of Part II, it will be shown that this organizational structure is replicated on other performance levels as well. Beneath the level of the festival, in order of decreasing temporal span, the next unit for analysis is the single performance. Each performance is introduced by a formal series of invocatory verses that removes it from the plane of normal reality and, as the Sasta story does

for the entire festival, establishes a certain psychic distance and fictive tone. Following the introduction, as the narrative proceeds toward its climax in a problematic events, ritual depth increases, reaching its deepest point in the center performance, and usually manifests as possession dance. When the narrative climaxes in a marriage [as some-times happens in the third performances slot] and no possession occurs, the relative increase in ritual depth is still identifiable by obvious paralinguistic [ululation, or kuravai] and musical (rhythmic pattern) features 14. After this release, the intensity returns quickly, sometimes almost immediately., to its pre-performance level. Figure 8 illustrates how the movement of each of the three major performances is the same as that of the festival and how they collectively contribute to it. In other words, these constituent units individually organize the expression of tension just as the festival whole organizes it. The greater ritual depth reached in the Friday (madan) koai represents a tremendous intensity associated with the death event in the

performance of a few male type B stories in the center slot. Figure 8 The next level on which this movement pattern, or organizational structure, is to be isolated is the constituent unit of the single performance, the single episode. Here again the sequence is organized by the movement of ritual depth toward a problematic event, In addition to birth, death and sexual/armed conflict, other events which constitute a single episode and mark an increase in depth include: pregnancy, commencement and completion of learning, commencement and completion of martial arts training, coronation, and women bathing in apool 15. Except for the first, these are rarely associated with the onset of possession, but are marked for depth by the paralinguistic and musical features noted elsewhere. Finally, consonant with the analyses of the levels of performance, ritual depth is greatest in those episodes which centre on birth, death and sexual/armed conflict and which are closest to (1) the climatic event of a

single performance and (2) the centre performance slot of the festival. The deep event in the single episode is, like that on other levels, encased in the centre of the sequence. However, an important difference is that the segment immediately preceding the event is not characterized by the fictive element, but by fixity. As the story nears any episodic sequence there is a marked increase in the usage of fixed verses (as opposed to the less constrained prose commentary that is also used) and fixed series of verses. Thus, for example, it is conventional to precede a sequence that culminates in connection with a series of set verses describing the woman's penance for a child. The actual birth is prefaced by another series of fixed verses detailing her month-by-month bodily condition. Implicit sexual conflict, likewise, is preceded by a formulaic scene in which the man or woman asks for betel nut from the other. Sexual conflict may also be introduced by a fixed description of a woman and her friends going to bathe in a pool and their play while bathing. Death scenes are somewhat more idiosyncratic, but are also

preceded by an increase in fixed versification. After culminating in possession and/or paralinguistic and musical features, ritual depth moves back to its earlier level. Figure 9 illustrates how the single episode sequence exhibits the basic performance structure and how it forms a unit within the single performance sequence. Figure 9 The importance of fixity in the basic performance structure on this level is explained by the short duration of the single episode. In the longer sequences of the single performance and festival, the push of ritual depth is articulated as a tension between expression of unresolved problems (the real world) and avoidance of such expression (a fictive world). In the smaller episode unit, the conflict that is diffused over those larger units is compressed and thereby heightened. The push toward expression of real problems remains constant, but the avoidance in a fictive world is quickened into a fixity, or restraint, against it in this unit, that is closest to the actual point

of greatest depth, the terms of the conflict are clarified and the essential role of the fictive element changes from a counter-balance to the real world to a more active force straining against entrance to it. Although this co-relation between fixity and ritual depth is most obvious in the episodic sequence, it is evident also on the level of the single performance 16. those performances that involve the greatest depth, and most intense possession, also require the most fixity; sometimes they require a verbatim reading. To bring this discussion full swing back to the macro level on which it began, the very koai festival itself is, as is all ritual on one level, a fixity. It is a predictability required to stabilize indeterminancy, to safeguard the danger, involved in its central purpose, contact with supra-human powers. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS In the vil p¡u tradition there are two organizational systems in which the categories and the relation between those categories are constant, but in which their configuration differ. Within the cognitive system,

the typology of temples, festivals, and the folk pantheon (on one level) is organized by a distinction between sexual gender amman (female) and madan (male). In the folk pantheon there is another level that classifies deities by a contrast in the nature of their births and deaths: one group, type A, is painless and immortal in a fictive world and the other, type B, is painful and mortal in the real world. A similar distinction between birth and death, explicit as verbal tags and as thematic foci, divides the narrative corpus into the same types A and B. Birth, death and sexual gender are the key semantic distinctions which are split into the terms of a contrast set to form dualistic categories. A fictive birth is opposed to a human birth, the absence of death to a tragic death, birth to death, and female to male. The organizational principle of the cognitive system is thus binary and symmetrical. The vil p¡u tradition, however, is not only apperceived by cognitive categories; it is also enacted in behavioral patterns. In performance, the basic organizational structure differs from that in the cognitive system in two important respects: it is tripartite and it includes a

dimension of depth. Conflicts that are neutralized in the bi-polar equilibrium of the cognitive system require another configuration, the tripartite sequence, in performance. The key distinction between the fictive and real worlds, that bifurcates the folk pantheon (at one level) and story typology, is re-structured so that one polar term (type B) is encased in the centre of a sequence that begins and ends with the other (type A). The performance moves through this sequence not only on a lateral dimension, but also on a depth dimension that indicates relative ritual intensity. The greatest points of ritual depth are marked by possession dance and are coincident with the events of birth, death and sexual/armed conflict in the sung narrative. The push and recession of ritual depth represents a tension between a drive to express these unresolved problems in a real world and a need to avoid them in a mythic world. The interpretation of the real/fictive distinction in vil p¡u provides a possible understanding of how it operates in other contexts. As native ascriptions of

belief and non-belief, the real and the fictive have been standard criteria for the classification of folk literature. In most Western cultures the distinction between legend and ballad, on the one hand, and tale, on the other, is that the former take place in a real world and the latter in a fictive world 17. moreover, in some African cultures all oral narratives are divided into two categories: what is believed to be true and what is thought to be fiction (Bascom 1965). The foregoing discussion suggests that these categories for classifying oral (and literary) genres may be understood as different but complimentary frames of reference between which a culture alternates myth, which is believed to be true but in a distant, fictive world, would then represent a compromise between them. In a recent article, narrative scholar Degh contrasts legend and tale in terms sympathetic to the present essay: "The tale takes place in the 'once-upona-time' 'never-neverland' on a different level of existence, whereas the legend brings its fearsome mysteries down to earth. It happens here and now … The tale gives relief from anxiety; the legend arouses it

and leaves man alone with his anguish. The tale … is very useful. The legend … is very dangerous" (1979 : 99). The particular patterning of the fictive/real conflict in vil p¡u suggests also a reversal of its standard psychological interpretation. The "relief" of the fictive tale and the "anguish" of the real legend implies, as has been historically assumed, that the prominent fantasy element in oral literature is a release-mechanism for unexpressed ideals, wishes and anti-social emotions. However, in the performance of this Tamil oral tradition, release comes in contact with the real world, not with the fictive. Fictive expression of problems does achieve a measure of release, but the greater drive, indicated by greater ritual depth, is toward the expression of problems in their real setting. In addition to the need for fantasy, perhaps this need for reality, when taken into account, will help to explain other performance traditions. As our analysis of the vil p¡u material demonstrates, the reality/fiction distinction may also be useful to the

understanding of a single narrative (or single performance). In his study of the Asdiwal myth, LéviStrauss delineated four levels of content and noted that two are exact replications of reality, one totally fictive and one a mixture (1967 : 158). He does not develop this point precisely because he regards these levels as the superficial and variant expressions of a deeper contradiction, marriage with the matrilateral cousin. It is the present argument that, on the contrary, the difference between these levels represents a conflict between two approaches for dealing with social contradictions, a conflict which is at least as important as the specific conflict(s) they address, on the level of content or underlying message. The central conflict in vil p¡u performance is between these two approaches to unresolved sociopsychological problems, between the need for expression of them and the need for restraint toward them. That conflict is organized by what was termed the basic performance structure and isolated on three levels, the festival, the single performance and the single episode. A composite representation of how the

basic performance structure determines the patterns of performance in figure 10 below : Figure 10 Performance in vil p¡u, as illustrated in figure 10, is a multileveled network in which each level is both constitute by, and is linked to the others by, the basic performance structure. It recurs repeatedly in the shorter temporal sequences which collectively and accumulatively contribute to its recurrence in longer sequences. This model of vil p¡u performance is essentially one of conflict in motion. But the movement occurs neither at regular intervals nor does it proceed with a measured pace. As a response pattern to unresolved problems, tension build up and release pattern to unresolved problems, tension build up and release produces an irregular pulse that repeats at irregular intervals. The paradigm of performance in vil p¡u, then, is a paradigm of a rhythm, a spasmodic-like alternation between expression and restraint 18. Performance proceeds by a series of short stop-and-start

movements toward a temporary resolution in possession. Finally, certain core patterns in a culture are laterally inscribed across broad domains, e.g. kinship or art, and others are compressed into a dense event. This attempt to isolate a cultural paradigm has identified a core pattern, the basic performance structure, in a dense event, the performance of a group's principal oral tradition. In the crucible of performance, conflict is quickened into motion and a culture's organizational paradigm brought visible into operation. In vil p¡u performance this paradigm is one of a rhythm, an uneven vacillation between expression and restraint. In conclusion we return to the methodological concern with which we began. Cultural analysis is increasingly concerned with the models that organize peoples' lives. There is, however, a tendency to assume that those models are necessarily thought processes, and it is often forgotten or considered a less elegant argument that people also create and comprehend behaviourally. This essay is an exposition of a behavioural model, of

performance as paradigm, which as Geertz (1973 : 448) has put it, provides a culture with a "reading" of itself. One final point must be clearly made: the performance paradigm is not a surface reflection of a deeper cognitive model. The performance of oral tradition is not only expressive behavior, but is itself an alternative and independent medium for the organization of cultural meaning. REFERENCES Abrahams, Roger

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FOLK HERO IN A TRIBAL SOCIETY Sitakant Mahapatra Bhubaneswar, Orissa This paper seeks to analyze the creation of mythical folk heroes and their use in a tribal society to help the process of reinterpreting its tradition and cultural selfimage. The tribe in question is the Santal, a primitive tribe which, along with the Gonds and the Bhils, is one of the most numerous in India. As per the 1971 Census of India, their population is a little over four million. They are spread over a near contiguous geographical area in the three States of Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal, where they live as neighbors of the Mundas, Hos and Oraons. The Santals are a tribe obsessed with the sense of a Great Tradition (Orans 1965). In supposedly historical times they are said to have risen to great heights of economic prosperity and cultural attainment. From their original homeland in northwestern India they are supposed to have migrated later down the Indo-Gangetic plain until they came to south Bihar, i.e., the Chotnagpur plateau and then spread

over the area across the Damodar river into Orissa and West Bengal. They fought many wars and drove away the non-tribal groups which were opposed to them. There have been several attempts to delineate this past and its cultural excellence (Soren 1955). This supposedly historical migration is also ingrained in a number of legends and myths current among the Santals. Anthropologists Redfield (1961) and Singer (1959) used the concepts Great Tradition in analyzing the part played by cities in the development of culture. Martin Orans adopted the model and designated the twentieth century growth-pangs in Santal society as a search for the "great-tradition". Since a great tradition incorporates qualities of systematic and wellintegrated world-view, a self-conscious sub-structure of ethical mores and a degree of expressiveness regarding its individual excellence vis-à-vis the neighbouring communities, Orans also looked into the growth, dynamics and distortion of these qualities in the historical process. A great tradition calls for a psychological motivation for justifying the present

"fall" in terms of historical decadence due to the greater community encysting the limited tribal community. It also incorporates a noticeable tendency to romanticize the past (Mahapatra 1977).

II Folk heroes in Indian conditions, both in the tribal and the non-tribal world, are generally intertwined with myths which are primarily etiological. They use narrative forms to interpret the link of the life of the heroes described with the human world and through this intimate link seek to embody significant and dynamic processes of myth making. The etiological motivation derives from the story itself. There may be various approaches in such interpretation. Sometimes the present degeneration of social norms and values are held to be the result of certain moral decay which enters the social fabric or the personality structure of the group from outside. This latter phenomenon could be either due to the attack of what Toynbee, in a very different context, calls "the external proletariat". It

could also be due to the anomie within. Whatever the reason, the golden age of the past is then contrasted sharply with the present degeneration and an attempt is made to revitalize the old values and norms to give them a new contemporary relevance and to seek the modalities of bringing them back into current usage. In such circumstances, the interpretation of mythological folk heroes serves the dual purpose of harking back to a Great Tradition and also exhibiting the current decay and degeneration in the harsh light of that mythical past. The emphasis then turns to finding out the causes of such decay and seeking a remedy to counter these processes of decay and bring about a regeneration. Secondly, the folk hero could also represent certain universal qualities which inspires the group and is built into the personality structure through the process of socialization in childhood. It may not be directly inter-linked to any attempt at reinterpreting the mythical golden age of the past or the picture of present social decay. I this second category there is thus no obsession with the revitalization of an ancient lore and, therefore, the folk

hero is less allegorical and more direct. In the first category the primary hypothesis of presenting the folk hero is to demonstrate myths of fundamental explanations and to show that they contain not merely intellectual but also emotive factors. The qualities of emotional stress and fancy play an important role in the presentation of folk heroes even though there is also the flow of an intellectual element which seeks to explain both the past and the present in terms of certain predetermined values. Behaviour and attitudes are sought to be crystallized and articulated through the folk heroes and social norms are sought to be built up. III Viewed in this light, the total work of Pandit Raghunath Murmu and more particularly his attempt to create folk heroes such as Bidu and Kherwal assume a special significance. Pandit Raghunath Murmu, who hails from Rairangpur Sub-division of Mayurbhanj district in Orissa, is called as Guru Gomkey or the great spiritual characters Bidu

and Kherwal, and presented them in two plays, namely, Bidu Chandan and Kherwal Bir respectively. Pandit Raghunath Murmu is one of the most articulate of the Santal leaders. A teacher by profession, he has a flair for writing. He has sought to revitalize the traditional myths with a view to strengthen the Santali search for identity, cultural self-image and the concept of a Great Tradition. The two characters delineated in the two plays referred to above are imaginary and are supposed to belong to a mythical time in the past. In the plays they represent those qualities of character and personality which Murmu feels are essential for a stable social order. They illustrate what he considers is the true Santal personality and its deep commitment to social welfare and the solidarity of the community. The Santal leader Jaipal Singh had once said, "a thousand years back we did possess a civilization which could have challenged the world civilizations. You should be proud of that ancient civilization". Jaipal Singh in fact was trying to take "his people" back to the sense of a Great Tradition. The stories and legends of migration from mythical original kingdom

where the Santals once lived are familiar to every child. Later, as they grow up, the listen to it in the evening storytelling session at the Gosane ghar or the community house. The Binti song recited by a group of a singers at the time of the marriage ceremony also makes pointed reference to such migration from the mythical kingdoms of Chaigal, Chapagal and Bahagal somewhere in the West. Risley has pointed out that the tribe moved from place to place in the old days (Risley 1891). Datta-Majumdar (1956) also refers to a series of legends connected with mythical places such as Hihiri, Pipiri, Hara Duttie, Chai Champa etc. Raghunath Murmu has perhaps made the largest single contribution towards the strengthening of the sense of Santali and Mundari solidarity by redefining and re-interpreting what according to him constitutes the essential ingredients of Santali heritage and culture. His writings, activities and inspiration are possibly the greatest singly unifying force in the Santal community and have helped mold a sense of its identity. In 1954 he discovered the 01 script. Jaipal Singh called him an anthropologist and a Pandit. The

Mayurbhanj Adivasi Mahasabha honoured him with the title of Guru Gomkey. The Dhumkuria Ranchi conferred on him the degree of D.Litt. in appreciation of his contribution to Adivasi literature. Martin Orans admired his 01 script for the Santali language and called him a spiritual guru of the Santals. Apart from discovering the 01 script, Raghunath Murmu has written a number of primers in this script to enable the Santali children to have education through their own script. Through a number of private schools opened by the Adivasi Socio-Educational and Cultural Society, Rairangpur, attempts have been made to teach the children through this script. Basically Raghunath Murmu believes that the present degeneration in Santali society is due to growing individualization and decline of the sense of community. It is also partly due to what he calls a growing "softness" induced by too much of drinking and surrendering to the temptations of material affluence offered by the larger society surrounding the Santal society. He believes, for example, that drinkin of handia (rice-beer) is permissible only during

religious ritual celebrations and not on other occasions. Handia can be taken only after it has been offered to the gods or goddesses during the worship. At other occasions it is like any other intoxicant and to be avoided. He also believes in austerity, in total fidelity in marriage and family life, the need for encouraging saving habits and the capacity for hard work. In brief, his idea of Santal personality is of dedicated and stern individuals who perform their duties selflessly and are not prey to the evils of the flesh. Secondly, so far as inter-personal relationship is concerned, he emphasizes that the prevalent dominance of pleasureseeking has to yield place to a sense of solidarity with the community. According to him the traditional Santali world was dominated by living in and through society and through participation in the life of the community, in its songs and dances, in its ritual celebrations and economic activities. Viewed in this context, the delineation of his two folk heroes Bidu and Kherwal acquires a special meaning and relevance. Raghunath Murmu composed the plays Bidu Chandan (Oriya edition, 1942; Bengali edition,

1948) and Kherwal Bir (Oriya edition, 1944; Bengali edition, 1952) to delineate his views on the predominant socio-cultural questions like individual morality and social ethics, the propitiation of gods and the need for physical culture. These two plays are extremely popular as they are very much stage-worthy and have an intense and rich story content. Both have been staged by professional and amateur groups in Santal society over the years and almost every village has seen the performance of the two plays sometime or other. The children have seen them staged and have grown up with them. Both hark back to a mythical time in the past through their protagonists, Bidu in Bidu Chandan and Kherwal in Kherwal Bir. Murmu has sought to project certain human qualities and values which according to him are essential features of true Santal character. There might have been degeneration and corruption in historical times due to evil influences of the non-tribal world to which the Santal has fallen a prey but these are superficial trauma which would be rectified by a proper understanding of and return to the rots of the culture. This is why myth,

history and current social concerns mix interestingly in these two plays. Kherwal Bir depicts a ethical past in which an intensely humane king called Manmi rules over his subjects. In course of time the population goes on expanding, there is poverty and want, some people become greedy, rapacious and take to evil means and irreligious paths. They form a group and worship dark witches and evil gods or bongas and start human sacrifice to gain power and authority from such gods. This group is called Danmi. Gradually, their numbers and power grows, they defeat the Manmi group and capture the kingdom. The latter run away to the jungles but even there, there is no respite for them from the attacks of the Danmis. They capture the selected heroes and warriors of the Manmis and offer them in sacrifices to the evil gods and enslave the rest of the group. The Manmi king hides in the forest with his queen. He loses the battle, is captured and killed. His wife who is with a child gives birth to a glorious son who is protected from various attacks of wild animals and the agents of the Danmi king by Dharam

Baba (another name for Maranburu the highest god in the Santali (pantheon) in the shape of a lion and lioness. The boy grows up as a healthy child in strict austerity, practicing physical culture, including archery, and is immersed in the glorious traditions of his tribe which he listens to as stories from his mother. He inspires the small loyal group of Manmis to new heights of confidence by regular practice of physical culture and archery, by character-building and abstinence. When the boy is fifteen the queen has a dream that he would be called Kherwal and would defeat the Danmis. The Danmis are ultimately world. In his preface to the play, Raghunath Murmu has insisted that the play relates to the divine play of a god and a goddess and that he has tried to describe only a fraction of their universal and comprehensive divine lessons. In the play Bidu is the self-sacrificing men in society look upon him as mad. He, however, has dedicated himself to do good to the entire community. Chaigad and Mangad are two small kingdoms established by two renowned Santal headmen (Manjhis) in ancient times. The two kingdoms are

perpetually fighting each other. Chandan is born as the daughter of the chaigad manjhi. Bidu is born as a nomadic boy in a country called Bahagad whose location, seems unknown to everybody and even Bidu maintains that "it is somewhere there, far far away, perhaps a mystic land" but adjacent to the two warring kingdoms. He seeks shelter in Chaigad as also in Mangad alternatively but is misunderstood by both groups as an agent of the other side andis turned away. The daughter of the manjhi of Chaigad, Chandan, falls in love with him and it is through the newly-found or newly-revealed script, the 01 chiki. Secret rendevouz, places of hiding, secret messages and directions are communicated on stones and trees. Bidu wants to do good to both sides and put an end to their factionalism. The birds and beasts are his friends. His search is to find an identity for himself as an escape from his loneliness and he discovers the meaning of life through sacrifice, love and good deeds. Bidu and Chandan have understood the spirit of the forgotten script and in critical times Bidu is also able to communicate through that script with his beloved

Chandan. The script is thus, at one level, the language of life; on another level, it is the revealed language of the gods known only to those who have the mystic power to discern it by love and sacrifice. Thirdly, the script also partakes of all the exclusiveness of the tribe. It is supposed to exclude the others. It has thus elements of secretiveness, mystery, divine dispensation and solidarity. At the end of the play, Bidu and Chandan vanish from the scene. Divine dancers, as they are, they have to return to their fold of divinity. But enough has happened for both the people of Chaigad and Mangad to realize their ignorance and folly in not recognizing these divine agents and they atone by coming together and resolving in prayer to abide by the lasting human qualities of life. The age of guilt ends and a genuinely humane culture and community is born. Bidu also typifies Murmu's idea of not merely a dedicated social being who means no ill will or harm to others, but is prepared to serve as a bridge between groups and factions in society. He is the good

Samaritan prepared to sacrifice his own interest and his own comforts so as to bring about community welfare he is also, like Kherwal, extremely Spartan in habits and even when Chandan has fallen in love with him he is not given to relaxing his efforts to bring about general welfare and does not get enmeshed in the quest of individual happiness or the bliss of marital life. Even when he is rejected by different groups he keeps preserving and bears no ill will against anybody. Kherwal is not merely a man of great prowess; he is also dedicated to retrieve the image and glory of his group. In the fight of the Danmis and the Manmis he knows that he is to strive hard, put in all possible efforts, organize men and inspire them to new heights of confidence if they can defeat the powerful Danmis. These two imaginery and mythical folk heroes have thus served the essential purpose of typifying and illustrating what Murmu considers are the essential qualities of Santal personality and social ethics. Through them he suggests remedies for the current evils of Santal society which, according to him, are due to the dominance of the "pleasure principle", the

inability to work hard and save, the tendency to overspend on festival-ritual occasions and the inability to resist the temptation of drinks and other tinsels which the more affluent non-tribal society offers. BIBLIOGRAPHY Datta-

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FOLKLORE AS MASS MEDIA : AN INTRODUCTION Trilochan Pande University of Jabalpur Where folklorists all over the world have so far engaged either I the collection, interpretation or analysis of folklore material, the major emphasis has been on the "lore" or the "folk" rather than on the "folk" who create and possess that "lore". With the advancement of anthropological and sociological researches during the past fifty years, however, the focus of attention has changed. In the words of the great anthropologists Bronislaw Malinowski: "the text, of course, is extremely important, but without the context it remains lifeless … the stories live in the native life and not on paper, and when a scholar jots them down without being able to evoke the atmosphere in which they flourish, he has given us but a mutilated bit of reality"1. In the years since Malinowski wrote this, there has been a growing realization that the questions related to

the origin of folklore, or its definition, are not as important in the present context of rapid social changes and improved means of mass communication, as the problems of uplifting the poor masses who dwell in cities and towns, educating the thousands of people in non-literate sectors of the society, and inculcating the spirit of brotherhood and mutual respect. The "folk" rather than their "lore" have, therefore, received much greater attention and consideration from scholars, literary critics and social reformers alike. Folklore in India today is regarded as one of the most important and effective instruments of social engineering. For developing societies like ours, with extremely low levels of literacy, the significance and relevance of folklore can hardly be over emphasized. It provides aid in educating the young, promotes group solidarity, serves as an outlet to suppressed emotions and provides a means of escape from disappointments and frustration. The secret of its effectiveness lies in the fact that the "folk" are not aware of its subtle ways of functioning. As a matter of fact everything is imported

in the guise of entertainment and recreation. The folk do not really seem to be conscious of this. They simply participate and use folklore in their daily lives. A mother sings a lullaby, an old man narrates a tale and someone observes a custom. It is in this manner that important cultural wisdom is transmitted, imported and used where its use becomes necessary and the balance of cultures maintained. One should not lose sight of these and other characteristics of folklore when one thinks of mass communication as a factor in social change. II Before one appreciates the above role of folklore in a changing society, however, it may be appropriate to examine its nature and objectives as a mass media. Any mechanism which communicates the messages from one person to another is a medium. Its popularity and breadth of coverage depend upon its effectiveness. When such a method or mechanism is used for transmitting knowledge to the masses in general, it becomes a mass media. Its usefulness is derived from

many different objectives for which it is intended. For example, it may be directed to transmit information; it may be used as a tool to change the attitudes of the people; it may be used to generate strong likes as well as dislikes or it may be used as a pedagogical device in schools to impart moral and social education. In any case, the essential quality of a good mass media is that it serves as a means to prepare people to discharge their roles effectively as disciplined citizens of a country. Looking from this viewpoint, all items of folklore may not be equally useful or effective. Folktales may be apt to communicate a moral lesson in an amusing way, whereas proverbs may prove good guides for socioeconomic reforms. Riddles, on the other hand, may serve as a good device for memory-testing, whereas folksongs may prove a better outlet for mental tensions. The role of proverbs in the Nigerian judicial system, as reported by John Messenger, is worth mentioning here. He remarks "proverbs are by far the most numerous and most frequently employed of these forms of verbal art and are used in all manner of

situations: as a means of amusement, as a method of gaining favour in courts, in performing religious ritual and association ceremonies, and to give point and all color to ordinary conversations" (1965 : 299). This is a case which shows how a single item of folklore performs different functions at the same time in a given society. Other folklorists have noted that whenever there is injustice and oppression, the victims are sure to find solace through their folksongs. Folk drama has certain advantages over other forms of folklore. Because of its audio-visual character, folk drama has great appeal to both the literate and nonliterate, Men and Women, young and old, workers and farmers, all are drawn to dramatic forms, and like the Nigerian proverbs, folk drama combines more than one objective. Different forms of folklore serve different purpose, but folk drama in particular performs several functions at the same time. It is not only of great appeal, but is also closer to the psychology of the people. In traditional societies like India, where modernity is still confined to the upper

strata of the society, the traditional media of folk operas, drama, ballets and so forth, are more appealing to the masses than the modern media like the radio, and television, which the lower strata do not have access to. One might take advantage of these ways as traditional types of communication are more effective and appreciated by the masses. As an instrument of mass media, folk drama is more effective in such societies because it easily combines entertainment with instruction. It easily reflects events of past history of a particular region, and at the same time its performance is economical. It costs almost nothing to visit a folk theatre in Indian villages and its staging does not require great expenditure. This is the reason why hundreds of men, women and children assemble to participate in folk performances whether it is the Jatra of Uttar Pradesh, the Khayal of Rajasthan, the swang and Maharashtra, the Bhawai of Gujarat, the Yakshagana of Karnataka. These folk performances last throughout the night and the spectators do not show signs of fatigue even after a

whole night performance. This also explains how close such forms of folklore are to the minds of the folk. If one traces the origin and evolution of different forms of folk drama, their nature and content, and the purpose for which they have been developed, one would find a close correspondence between the changes they have undergone and the transformations which society itself has undergone. In the earlier stages when moral, ethical and philosophical values held sway over the masses, the forms of drama that developed naturally revealed a predilection towards religious themes and sentiments. As monetary and economic values asserted themselves with their concomitant consequences, the forms of drama had to adapt themselves to new situations, challenges and opportunities. It is in this context that a detailed study of the various forms of folk drama, and the structural changes which they have undergone during the last half a century, becomes extremely important. A brief review of such developments is attempted below in order to pinpoint the interaction between changes in society, on the one hand, and the changes in styles and

emphasis witnessed in the ongoing drama traditions, on the other hand. Indian folk dramas, according to their subject matter, can be classified into three broad categories: 1) The religious type of drams. These are a sacred means of communication. 2) The socio-religious type of dramas. These are semisacred means of communication. 3) The social type of dramas. These are secular means of communication. The Ramalila and Raslila of Uttar Pradesh and the Yakshagana and Terukutta of South India may be said to belong to the first category. They are a sacred means of communication because of the dominance of religious themes in the subject matter. The ramlila is basically an opera. It is a musical drama where main events of god Rama's life are performed by many characters. The length of the descriptions may be shortened due to incidental factors, but the basic nature of characters cannot be altered. The actors may portray Rama or Sita, as the case may be, according to

thenorms laid down in thesacred books of Hindu tradition. The Hindi medieval saint-poet, Tulsidas, is credited with the creation of this form of ramlila at Varanasi. It is widely performed during the Dashara festival all over the country. But in Varanasi, the whole town becomes episodes of the main story are enacted at several places during the festival days. The actors carry the message of filial piety and proper duties of individuals from village to village. There is no change in the main theme whether the drama takes the form of a dance or a musical drama. It always emphasizes the ethical aspect of human life. Induja Awasthi has recently (1979) illustrated the different styles of ramlila based on different regional performances. His study provides a very clear picture of various artistic dimensions of this ancient folk drama form of our country. The raslila on the other hand, is centred around the romantic episodes of Radha and K¤À¸a who are immortal gods of love. Raslila is basically a dancedrama. It is very popular in the western parts of Uttar Pradesh, though it can also be witnessed in other parts

of the country. It is known for its circular dance action in which the cowherds narrate and sing the themes of Krishna's love and the pain of separation. Throughout this region raslila was the chief instrument for carrying the message of the great religious movement known as bhakti during medieval times. Besides its religious value, the movement in its forceful raslila form paved the way for emotional integration of this nation. Raslila, in terms of its form and structure, has been compared to the "Miracle Plays" of Medieval Europe; but, in reality it has proved a better media of communication than these plays. It also has a sacred nature like the ramlila, restricting its themes to the moral and aesthetic aspects of Indian life. The Yaksagana of Karnataka State is based on the sacred stories of both Rama and Krishna, with inspiration from the great Puranic scripture, the Shrimadbhagawat. The ten incarnations of Lord Visnu are mostly enacted in public. However, the incarnations of Matsya (tortoise) and Narasimha are most popular. The yaksagana scholar-critic, Shivaram Karant of Karnataka, has traced (1973)the history of

this folk drama to 16th century. He considers this performing art as a survival of folk art because it has developed under the patronageof the common masses and not under the patronage of royal families. Karant argues that Indian dramatic tradition seemsto behistorically dependent upon two different forces. One form - the sophisticated form - flourished under the patronage of the feudal royality, and the other - the folk form - under the patronage of the common folk. Thus it is possible that both these dramatic traditions, therefore, might have played different roles in Indian society. Similarly the terukutta of Tamilnadu is also performed in open air. Popular gods of the Hindu pantheon like Ganesa and Siva are propitiated in the beginning followed by the anecdotes of child KriÀ¸a. Such types of dramas are quite popular among the public and have not only inculcated the feelings of solidarity, but have also ridiculed snobbery and laziness. They have at the same time taught the people to maintain conformity to the accepted patterns of behaviour in society. But their scope as a mass media seems

primarily limited to religious instruction. This being so, it is hard to say if terukottu can communicate modern themes, other than the ones it has been communicating traditionally. Under the second category of folk dramas that are of semi-sacred nature, we may consider the jatra of Bengal, the khayal of Rajasthan and the maach of Madhya Pradesh. We find in these forms an admixture of religious and non-religious material. Moreover, they usually move from the sacred plane to the secular plane of thematic construction. The jatra (lit. "the procession") of Bengal, for example, is most popular in Bengal and Orissa and is said to have been founded by the great Saint poet Chaitanya in the 15th century. In the beginning jatra mostly enacted the stories of Lord k¤À¸a, but later the stories of other gods and goddesses like Siva, Kali and Durga were added to it. These additions made jatra more popular and played an important role in its rapid transmission. The popularity of this drama form increased and professional performers and singers began performing

regular shows. Gradually the historical, semi-historical and secular themes were also included in its repertoire along with the old mythical themes and thus the new jatra began to highlighten the contemporary social and political problems as well. One does, therefore, find the themes, such as indebtedness, exploitation of women, etc. well reflected in modern jatras. The khayal of Rajasthan is quite well known for its excellent use of dialogues and the folk speech, so much so that several poets of the 18th century used it for philosophical purposes to preach ideas of immortality of the soul. These canges have not made this folk medium weak. Instead, they have provided the dynamic potential of a folk genre, its organic capacity to adapt to changing circumstances and thus become more effective and relevant. Jatra also has very clearly exhibited this organic strength. The fact that many Bengali scholars and playwrights such as Badal Sarkar have adopted this media in communicating new literary themes proves beyond doubt the power of this folk media. They, too, used it against the widespread superstitions and outdated modes of thinking. While,

the main themes of khayal are sometimes of erotic nature, they have also incorporated material on social reform, evils of drinking, struggle for national freedom, principles of non-violence and the like. Words from Hindi, Urdu and Persian are freely used. The maach of the Malwa region in western Madhya Pradesh is also semi-sacred in character and communication, although it developed under the religious influences of 19th century. The regional background remain predominant in this art form. Older maach were composed around the episodes of Raja Gopichand who renounced the world under pathetic circumstances. Stories of the devotees like Prahlad were also the main plots of maach. Presently the maach are composed on the mythical themes of Pauranic personages or around epic characters of Ramayana and Mahabharata. Medieval romances of Nala andDamayanti are sometimes combined with the heroic tales of Tejaji and Kedar Singh of this region. Maachs are also composed on current topics such as the problems of dacoity, landless labour, mass education, etc. this clearly shows that such types of

folk dramas are sensitive to the problems of modern society. Despite these additions, maach, remains a storehouse of local culture and history. In fact scholars of oral history have always felt, and rightly so, the maach performances are the key needed to understand and reconstruct the real history of the Malwa region (see Bhanawat 1971). Under the third category of folk drama, which may be called a secular means of communication, we may include the tamasha of Maharashtra, the bhawai of Gujarat, the nautanki of Northern India, the bandi pather of Kashmir and the swang of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. These secular forms of folk draqmas are more appropriate mass media at present for the reasons we shall delineate soon. As these forms are free of any religious constraints, and therefore, are suitable for all occasions, they can be easily improvised for the pressing needs of society. They can be channelized into a strong means for the propagation of quick socio-economic changes in our country.

The TAMASHA OF Maharashtra is a traditional form of drama in which the female dancer is the main center of attraction. It was patronized by Maratha royalty during the 18th century. Songs of lovers and of dejected heroines were its common themes in the past and it was known for the use of "lawni" meter. National leaders like Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Mahatma Gandhi utilized it to propogate political ideas during the freedom struggle. Now tamasha has crossed the boundaries of rural areas and reached the cities of Poona and Bombay. The State Government has duly patronized it and as a consequence, its shows are now being organized regularly. It has thus become a very popular means of expressing social discontent in Maharashtra. The bhawai of Gujarat is still in its older form, serving mainly as a means of entertainment. All the actors enter the stage dancing and the theme is introduced through juicy dialogues in the beginning. The main character is called "Rangilo" who not only interconnects the anecdotes, but laughs and sings and dances in such a way that the spectators fully enjoy the

show. The actors keep commenting on the current events of common nterest till the main theme is resumed. In a sense, the theme serves as a connecting thread to bind various comments, which, however, do have a logical relationship among themselves as well as to the overall theme of the play. The nautanki of Northern India was once famous for its amorous themes and was popularized by the Parsi Theatre. Its gaudy costumes and lively folk tunes were a source of entertainment. The actors used to deliver long speeches in verse while entering the state. Now, however, the popularity of Nautanki is decreasing. Its thematic elements have been utilized for the higher, the literary type of drama. The bandi pather of Kashmir is intended to depict social evils and social inequality and its lively satire is superb. The cruel, the sinful, the crooked, the snob are always a target and the downfall of such persons is invariably shown at the end of the play. The bandi pather is still popular because it has served as a medi of strong satire. The actors are signers, dancers and

artists all combined and their art of expression is extraordinary. The swang (or sang) of Himachal Pradesh and Hariyana, requires a more detailed description of its various forms and modes of communication in order to understand its role as mass media. The swang in Hariyana literally means a performance based on imitation. The situations or persons imitated nowadays are adapted from social life, although material from history and romance is also employed to amuse the masses. Swang is a metrical play. Prose is inserted as a stylistic device in what is otherwise a play in verse. The prose pieces either turn the theme to a certain direction, or enlighten the masses when dramatic personae seem to fail to create certain effects through verse. The theme of the swang is loosely constructed; it moves slowly at the beginning and the tempo builds as the story reaches its climax. Songs in this folk drama either imply moral instruction, or cast satire on many several evils. The songs, the dances, and the prose narrative carry the whole theme and there is no division into various scenes as such. It has

an open theatre without any need for curtains and the spectators watch the performance from three sides of the stage. There is a form of poetic drama which may be rightly called "mime-drama". It, too, is wide spread in Himachal Pradesh. It is called banthada in the Mandi region, and the swang in the Bilaspur region of the state. In fact all of them are local variations of the more inclusive category, swang which, besides Himachal Pradesh, is also prevalent in Punjab and Utar Pradesh. The Hathras region of Uttar Pradesh seems to be the original seat of this type of drama. The tendency to imitate is, no doubt, common to all types of folk drama, but it is more manifest in the swang. Its success depends upon creating the illusion of reality. The prose-verse mixture carries over the theme in an interesting way. Swangs are generally composed on social themes, hence it is easier for them to attack the evil in society. They are a true mirror of the movement toward social realism in literature. Swangs are usually performed during birth ceremonies or marriages ceremonies or at festive occasions,

especially the winter-time festival of Dewali. There are independent professional parties who perform the swangs. Actors are called "Swangis", i.e., the eprsons who enact the swang. The members of the party are mostly farmers who work on the fields most of the year. They are free after Dewali, andhence have time to move from one village to another performing swangs. Besides entertaining, swangs depict salient features of local culture, popular beliefs and superstitions of the people. The parties are at times invited by a household and then the shows are moulded to the taste of the household. They may praise the nobility of saints, and condemn deceitful acts of others. They ridicule foolish actions, and condemn whatever they don't like. Their powerful dramatic action is what makes this folk drama a good mass media. Let us take an illustration from the swang of Himachal Pradesh for a proper understanding of its functioning. A full performance of a swang is completed usually in four stages. First, there is background music with the invocation of gods. There is no stage set for the drama as such. It is performed either on an elevated platform

or around a bonfire in the open field at night. While the folk instruments (the narsingi, shahnai, chimta, kartal, and kholaki) are being played the actress, called a chandrawati enters the platform and touches all the musical instruments one by one, keeping her hands upwards and her eyes towards the sky. Then she invokes Saraswati ("goddess of learning and music") and dances around the fire. When she leaves the platform, the folk music is played again. In the second stage, themain actors come on the platform and began to enact the scenes of Makhanlila, Danlila, Raslila, etc. while singing the glories of Lord Krishna, his flute particularly is vividly described. Spectators in the meantime offer money to the party and thereby the second item of drama is over. This is actually the preparatory part of the drama. Then begins jthe main item which may consist of a single episode or combined episodes depending on the occasion. This is the third stage of the drama. In a study carried out in the field we noticed that an item presented in a swang consisted of the following

five episodes: (1) the episode of a sadhu; (2) the episode of Kanchan; (3) the episode of Ranjhu and Phulmu; (4) the episode of garad and (5) the episode of a gaddi. In the first episode, themodern life of a real saint was compared in excellent folk speech to the life of a fake mendicant. The descriptions reflected the present conditions of changing mentality. For example, the dialogue between a Guru and his disciple emphasized that in olden days a Brahman used to maintain a sacred cow, but now it is maintained by an outcaste. The prime duty of the Brahman had been to learn sacred texts, but now he grazes goats in the field and has forgotten his occupation. The younger generation does not respect elders and the old parents have to work hard to earn their living. The dialogue concluded with the remarks that everything should be done as a duty, and everyone should do his duty for the healthy functioning of the social system. This ended the episode of the sadhu. The episode of kanchani consisted of folksongs and dances of varied themes relating to self-sacrifice and local history. In the third episode, Ranjhu and Phul,

the tragic love affairs of a couple were narrated. The lovers could not marry because of their unequal social status and thehero was married in a higher caste. Naturally the heroine commits suicide. The hero himself performed the funeral rites of his beloved. This episode is very much appreciated for its high idealism. The fourth episode was connected with a garad, a forest officer. A variety of scenes from village life were portrayed through this episode. For example one such scene depicts women in the hills going to the forest to collect the firewood and grass for domestic use. The forest guard snatches their axes and grass cutters for unauthorized encroachment on government property. The women then plead for mercy but the guard treats them harshly. The treatment of stone-hearted government officers was thus reflected in the episode. The fifth episode of the gaddi, i.e., the shepherd was interesting and the audience was waiting for it impatiently. It showed how a funny clown tries to take away the woman of a shepherd dancer.

The fourth and the last stage of the swang is connected with a magic ritual performance. He intercepting episodes in the third stage of the performance may be one or more depending on the availability of time, butthis ritual performance is reserved for the last stage when one of the members is supposed to be present at that occasion. It is usually believed that gods like Hanuman and Bhairava watch the performance. One member of the party dressed as Hanuman dances around the wild-fire and another member begins to speak on behalf of the invoked spirit. The sweets are then spread on all sides and are distributed among the audience as prasad. It is morning by this time, and the swang is complete. The party collects furds, bags and baggage and leaves for another place. This description was intended as an example of swang to understand some of the points related to its functions as mass media. It is a leading form of folk drama not only in Himachal Pradesh and Haryana, but also I the adjoining states. It is most popular in rural areas because of its secular character. Young and old alike follow its popular message and get together even

if they have to travel ten to fifteen miles for witnessing the performance. Its lively scenes and folk conversational style prove much attraction; and the audience shows more interest in the performance of the actors rather than in thesubject matter. Themes are very familiar butthey like to see them again and again for the sake of performance. If compared to other types of folk drama, the swang is less expensive and more appealing. Hence, it combines most of the qualities of a powerful mass media. There is another form of popular drama, neglected so far, butwhich possesses essential qualities of a good mass media. It is the puppet theatre, well exploited for propaganda purposes in countries like U.S.S.R. and China. An international festival on puppet art was held in Rumania in 1965. its tradition in Germany is said to be the oldest in Europe, going back to 12th century. It is said that the German puppeteers transplanted their art, in the role of carriers of culture, to other language areas of Austria, Switzerland, Bohemia, and Moravia. Tracing its history in the medieval period Hans R. Purschke remarks: "They (Germans) took the glove

puppet theatre to Denmark, where theGerman central figure of Meister Hammerlein became the Danish "Mester Jakal" and later also to Sweden, where the German name Kasper was actually transferred to the Swedish buffoon. They even went as far as Russia" (1979). In countries like India, theart of puppet theatre was known even earlier andits history is very old. But this art has been revived recently for social purposes. Rajasthan has been the traditional seat of puppet making, although names as the bammalottu, tol bommalu of the South also deserve mention. The puppets of Rajasthan are made of wood and cloth and are, called kathputli in local speech. In the South, the puppets are made of wood and animal skin. The stories of great epics Ramayana and Mahabharata are enacted in puppet shows. The puppets representing kings andqueens are biger in size, usually 14 to 16 inches in height. The puppets representing the countries are from 8 to 10 inches in height. The person who directs the show, keeps a special type of whitsle in his mouth through which the puppets speak. A lady singer

explains themovements in a musical voice while she beats the small drum with her hands. The show does not require any stage and can be performed anywhere, inside the house, or in the temple, or in the street. Moreover, the shows are not connected with the specific fair or festival. A long cloth is spread over a cot that serves as thest age. The spectators take their seats in front of this stage and the show begins. The qualities of the puppet theatre as an effective mass media are worth exploring. Theexcellence ofthis art depends on its powers of expression. For example, puppets have their own ways of talking and dancing, running and jumping, coming and going, eating and drinking, laughing and weeping. They move the head up and down while agreeing with a statement; they move thewhole body right to left when disagreeing with a proposal; they join hands when welcoming the guests; they hurriedly cross the stage when going to the battlefield; they express emotions by simply moving their fingrs. The success of the show mostly depends on the movement and actions. In theoretical terms, if movement like one sees on T.V. has more

universal appeal, then puppet shows undoubtedly have a special role to play in mass media, particularly in a country like India where T.V. is still only a city phenomenon. Recently a puppet group from Rajasthan was presenting heroic scenes from the life of King Prithwiraj of Delhi andAmar Singh Rathor of Nagor. Puppet shows are now being utilized as a pedagogical given for child-education. The material mythic characteris and themes are now being replaced by animal tales, fairy tales and themes concerning childwelfare. Devilal Samar, the reputed folklorist of Udaipur has not only specialized in the art of puppet, but has successfully converted the art into a useful teaching media. Subjects like history, geography and others can be taught through this media in an interesting way, as he says, because the child learns while he plays with the puppets. Puppets have also proved useful as a psychological device in mental clinics where these are prepared and arranged according to likes and dislikes of the patients. Mentally disturbed persons react to these puppets in a particular way and thereactions are recorded by

experts for further experiments. Shri Samar has published several papers on the art and problems of puppet theatre andhas started a centre for its training at Udaipur where teachers are trained in the art and craft of puppetry. This belief survey of Indian folk drama demonstrates that the dance-drama the musical drama and the mime-drama like the tamasha or the swang, alongwith puppet theatre, combine most of the qualities of a good mass media. These performances are artistic creations guided by the folk mind and are directly related to mass psychology. Hence they enjoy wide circulation and popularity among the masses. Prof. Huber C. Heffner while commenting on the theatre and drama in liberal education has rightly observed that the drama is an art which depicts the relation of human character to human destiny. In fact, it reflects the "whole varied pattern of human nature in all of its multifarious changes from the Greeks to the present age" (1966). Heffner's observations are quite appropriate in the contexts of Indian folk drama.

We find that the forms like the jatra, the swang and the puppet theatre possess great potential as a successful mass media. The question is how best these and other folk media can be utilized for the betterment of our present society. Modern technology andfast means of communication havebrought nations closer. Yet mankind is torn with conflict - conflict of alienation from the past and the dangers of uncertain future. History of mankind repeatedly reminds us that whenever a nation has attempted to severe connections with its past and tried to live on its present alone, it has plunged itself into a catastrophe. Thus folklore, the oldest vehicle of cultural transmission, can help in such situations and keep the past and the present of the nations connected. This neds to be emphasized. Indian society is undergoing rapid transformation. On the onehand our modernization is symbolized by our sophisticated satellite technology. On the other, our love and essential link is with our past. The past, however is represented by a caste system, bonded labour, the evils of dowry, child marriage, illiteracy,

high morality, religious tolerance life and the nonviolence behaviours. It is by striking a perfect balance between the good things of the past and the present that the future prosperity of our nation can be determined. Folklore, particularly folk drama is an excellent tool to help us to strike this balance between the past and the present. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Awasthi, Induja 1979

Ramlila : Parampara Our Sailiyan.

Bhanawat,Mahendra(ed.)

Lok Rang.

1971

Udaipur: Bharatiya Lok Kala Mandal.

Dundes, Alan (ed.) 1965

The Study of Folklore. Englewood Cliffs. N.J. : PrenticeHall

Heffner, Huber 1966

The American Review (January Issue)

Karant, Shivaram 1973

Yaksagana. New Delhi : Radha Krishna Prakashan

Malinowski, B. 1926

Myth in Primitive Psychology.

New York: E.P. Dutton Purschke, Hans R. 1979

The German Puppet Theatre Today: Cologne

Rangayoga, January-March, (1971) pp. 13-50. (Jodhpur) The American Review. January, 1966. FOLK PAINTINGS OF ASSAM : TRADITION AND CHANGE Birendranath Datta Gauhati University Assam has a fairly rich heritage of painting dating back at least four hundred years as is evidenced by the large number of old illuminated manuscripts which have

been collected from all over the State. Some of these manuscripts like the Chaitra Bhagavata 1 and the Hastividyaranya 2 have been published in book form with reproduction of the paintings. These have drawn the attention of art lovers and specialists. Scholars like Dr. Maheshwar Neog and Dr. Rajatnanda Das Gupta have made excellent studies of most of the available manuscript paintings of this area 3. However, the style and execution of the paitings of the manuscripts like the two named above, are on the whole a little too sophisticated and refined for the work to be classed as folk paintings, although they do betray some folk elements. There are, however, many other illuminated manuscripts in which the paintings are less sophisticated andreveal a greater degree of folk connection. Thus there are strong indications thatthere existed in Assam for a long tiem more than one style of folk painting. These styles seem to have grown and attained different degrees of sophistication along with the growth of manuscript literature. In all, it sems quite clear, that these different painting styles have grown from earlier folk styles.

There are frequent references in medieval Assamese literature to paintings called pats and to a class of painters called patuas. But patuas are no longer to be found in Assam. In the Kamrup dialect of Assamese there is an expression still current, which points to the practice of painting associated with another community, the nats or professional singers and dancers. The expression, natather pat, means a painting of thehouse of the nats. However, nats as a professional class also do nto exist in Assam today. There was another class of artists -- not a caste, though - called khanikars who were versatile in doing all sorts of artistic work: make-up and stage-setting for theatrical performances. At one time they seem to have received court patronage and were organized into some sort of guilds (khel). However, the most enduring inspiration of the khanikars had been from the most enduring inspiration of the khanikars had been from the new-Vaisnava artistic effervescence, and because of this connection the bulk of the work done by the khanikars had centered around the sattras (monasteries) and nam-ghars (prayer halls). There are

some excellent khanikars even today, particularly in upper Asam villages; but as indicated above, the khanikars do not specialize in painting. Whatever painting they do is done to decorate the carved panels, masks, votive structures or pedestals, book-stands, and so on. Practically, no independent painting on a flat surface is done by them. In fact, in most parts of Assam today, the local traditions of folk painting are as good as dead except in the particular form mentioned above. But fortunately in the lower Assam districts of Kamrup and Goalpara particularly I the latter - a good and forceful tradition of folk painting still survives. The medium of the painting - sheets of pith or the Indian cord (Aeschvnomene aspera) - of this tradition is rather unusual. Some artistic work on pith is done in other parts of the country, but nowhere else, perhaps, do the pith artists produce such a large variety of articles including paintings, which are so intimately connected with local folk life. Dr. Verrier Elwin was of the opinion that work of pith had originated in this region where the reed grows abundantly in many marshes, and it

was the genius of the local artisans that put the local material into such good use 4. The markers of pith articles of these regions are popularly called mali or phumali (and malakar when oeis formal). Mali or malakar literally means a gardener or maker of garlands. But these particular malis or malakars are associated not with real flowers (phul) but with artificial flowers made of pith. However, the pith workers, particularly those of Goalpara, turn out not only with flowers but a variety of articles such as decorative head-gears, toys, images, and so on. They are also painters, in that they not only decorate the produced images and other objects skillfully with the most colourful application of paint but also paint independent pictures on flat surfaces made of pith sheets. The mannerin which the pith articles are shaped and the brushes wielded speaks for the artistic skill and sensitivity of the pith artists. It may be mentioned here that although there is a caste called Mali or Malakar throughout Assam, and in the West Goalpara region this caste is primarily associated with the making of pith articles, the craft is not

exclusively practiced by members of this caste in all of Assam. People belonging to other castes can, and do, practice thecraft, and, in fact, in some areas all the pith artists belong to other castes 5. Traditionally, the great majority of the pith articles made by the malis have been intimately connected with local a large number of images of gods and goddesses of the local pantheon as well as toys and headgears are made. Among ritualistic articles, images and other items connected with the local Manasa cult (Marai) predominate in nuber and variety. However, in all areas where malis are active, whether they make images and toys of pith or not, they design temporary votive structures of pith and decorate them with delightful traditional paintings. Known by such names as maju, manjush, mandisha and tepari (the name varies fro area to area), these structures vary greatly in height and size and the pictures on them represent various local styles. The themes depicted in these pictures are almost always associated with the local Manasa cult and very frequently with the popular Beula legend of the cult. Brahma, Siva, Manasa, the

merchant Chando on his boat, the floating raft with Beula and her dead husband, etc. are some of the mythic characters one most frequently notices in these paintings. There also exist paintings independent of those votive structure, i.e., paintings which do not form part of a own stake. Such paintings are called pats; the bulk of them known as Bishohori pats, Bishohari [] being a particular form of Manasa. On the north bank of the Brahmaputra in Goalpara district the work of thepith artists has traditionally been more or less a community effort. This, however, does not mean that individual artistic skill and excellence do not count. The products created as a result of this community effort ar greatly conventionalized. On the other hand, on the south bank, where most of the artists belong to theRabha tribal community and some of the Ganak (astrologer) caste, the art is less of a community affair and less institutionalized. The artistic efforts here have more individual print. This also indicates that although the

practice of painting on pith has a long tradition in this area, as a living tradition, the art of painting has somehow avoided conventionalization. However, one thing is certain: until recently all the folk artists in various areas had normally confined themselves to materials, themes and styles that were primarily the product of the local tradition. Now and then, of course, individual artists had ventured outside this local tradition. There were, for example, pats, or paintings, drawn on themes borrowed from the epics. Occasionally an artist of the Rabha tribal community, for whom drinking of rice beer is an essential, would depict a drinking scene, but by and large thescenes depicted on paintings centred around the myths of the local Manasa cult which is widely popular in the lower Assam region and forms the substance of a number of very popular folk entertainment institutions 6. In recent years, due to various factors such as changes in the socio-economic situation, and gradual decline of the hold of the traditional folk beliefs on the village population and the spread of mass culture, many

significant changes have occurred in the pith paintings. The most obvious change has been in theuse of the materials. As pith is progressively becoming neither the devotees nor the artisans now care muc about the accuracy of the tradition - white paper is very frequently being used in place of pith sheets. Even ordinary newspaper sheets are being used at times. Change from locally made colors to bazaar colors, is something that had been taking place even earlier. Information which I could gather indicates this kind of change in folk painting is not confined to Assam onlyu but seems a pan-Indian trait. There have also been changes in the themes themselves. Paintings based on the themes borrowed from the epics have been, as said earlier, occasionally produced over a long time, but in recent years pith artists have taken to making non-traditional articles using images of Saraswati and Durga and "fashionable" toys. Along with these changes some other inevitable changes in the traditional color schemes have also taken place in this traditional art.

Some notable changes have taken lace in the field of flat-surfaced paintings, too. We can cite some interesting examples. Some years back, a well-known modern commercial artists, who happens to hail from the Gauripur region of Goalpara, decided to use folk paintings to project the idea of space in an exhibition high-lighting space travel. Some pith artists were commissioned to create representations of the nine planets (navagraha) which, when placed side by side, would conjure up the idea of space. The pith artists obviously, had not had a tradition of doing navagraha paintings. But after thecharacteristic attributes of the grahas were explained to them and some initial suggestions given, they produced remarkable paintings representing thenine planets, making full use of the traditional technique and style. Although the navagraha idea is not so strongly linked up with traditional folk beliefs and customs of the area, some pith artists are now regularly turning out the navagraha series, as they find that it has a good commercial market backed up by governmental support.

It will be interesting to cite two more examples of change in the paintings on manjus. Both examples are form South Coalpara. As we have already pointed out, in the traditional maju paintings of this region there had already existed some degree of individual freedom for the artist to deviate from the strictly traditional ritualistic themes, as for instance the drinking scene we talked about above. Butin two majus produced in more recent years we have noticed two striking changes. In one, the materials remain the same. The use of brush and colour follow more or less faithfully the traditional styles. But strangely, the traditional themes are missing. In place of gods and goddesses and scenes from the Beula legend, we have boys and girls dressed in modern trousers and frocks. Even the two legendary boats, drawn in paintings perhaps as a concession to tradition, do not seem to represent perhaps a scene from the themes are very much traditiona. Gods and goddesses connected with the local Manasa cult and scenes from the above legend are all there. But the materials are different. In place of pith sheets we have

paper. In place of the bazaar colours that have been less harmoniously adapted to this traditional art form, we have a generous use of enamel paints. And, what is more significant, is the fact that little concern is shown toward the traditional style in most of the pictures. Some of these paintings clearly exhibit the influence of modern calendar art. All these changes represent the influence of mass culture on folk culture: in the first example highlighting a change in the life-style of the people and the second a change in the attitude toward materials of the artists themselves. BIBLIOGRAPHY Chaudhuri, P.C. (ed.). 1976 Hastividyaranya Das Gupta, R. 1972 Eastern Indian Manuscript Painting Datta Barua, Harinarayan (ed.) 1949 "Folk Paintings of Assam" in Folk Paintings of India.

Neog, M. 1959 The Art of Painting in Assam.

CENNE (MANCALA) IN TULUVA MYTH AND CULT Peter J. Claus California State University, Hayward "Since societies are processes responsive to change, not fixed structures, new rituals are devised or borrowed, and old ones decline and disappear. Nevertheless, forms survive through flux, and new ritual items, even new ritual configurations, tend more often to bevariant of old themes than radical novelties". (Victor Turner: "Symbols in African Ritual", Science, March 16, 1972)". I described and discussed the Siri Cult of South Kanara in several earlier papers (Claus 1975, 1979). There I addressed myself to the general questions of how the Siri myth and spirit possession might be related to the Tuluva social structure and the particular conditions of the specific households from which Siri novices were drawn. The story of her life covers an array of tragic situations, generated by the structures of matrilineal kinship and marriage which are experienced also, in

their particulars, by living women. It is in the possession cult where the mythic and real people come together and women overcome their personal difficulties and find solace in their plight by allowing themselves to merge with the spirits of the myth. In the present paper I will focus on a different episode in the legend cycle and explore the coincidence of myth and social structure from a different perspective. This episode centres around a game which engages two sisters in a competitive and aggressive relationship climaxing in sorricide and suicide. My attention will be given to the game and how it comes to serve as a key metaphor in this possession cult. The game is called cenne, the Tulu name for mancala, familiar to anthropologists and folklorists as a popular game played throughout a region extending from Africa through India to the Philippines. Thegame is common in Tuluva villages, where a number of different forms are played. It's play has become impressed by the stamp of Tuluva society and culture, and it's imagery is found in a number of Tulu stories

and legends. In the Siri cult, one of Tulunad's most distinctive, as wel as wide-spread religious cults, the game serves as a catalyst for the transformation of human devotees into vehicles for the personalities of mythic characters. The occurrence of mancala in such a diverse range of contexts presents us with several interesting problems and thought provoking questions. In analyzing games we rightly place their play in the context of the cultures in which we find them. Games draw meaning from analogous social actions. They often consist of limited and highly generalized metaphors of other sets of activities in a culture. When a game further becomes imbedded in tales and rituals, it becomes at once a reference to the game as played in ordinary life as well as a metaphor in its own right explicitly linking various action sets to a moral order. Thus, in pursuing the process of the transformation of a game into a ritual metaphor we delve deeper and deeper into the specific framework of a culture's symbolic system and the particular expressions of a people's feelings and motivations.

But this approach neglects - even so far as to prelude another approach which seeks to place cultural constructs in the framework of time and place by recognizing that cultures are dynamic, unbounded entities shifting, developing, and borrowing from one another. The presence of mancala in India suggests we have a greater task in this regard than we generally are willing to face up to as Indologists. Games of mancala, and the cultural themes associated with them, are found in a wide range of cultures both within India and outside. Yet from India there seems to be no classical (Sanskritic or otherwise) references to the game. The tendency in Indian anthropological and folkloristic scholarship is to think too narrowly in terms of the Indian subcontinent and the relationship between great and little traditions. Here we havebefore us a game, as well as a significant religious metaphor, which forces us to consider other directions influencing the dynamics of Indian culture. Still, while it may seem as though accounting for the intensity of the cenne metaphor within the peculiar distribution of mancala games presents us with unprecendented

difficulties, it may lead us to a perspective in which some of the long unsolved issues of Indian cultural interpretation may be more clearly understood. The way I shall proceed to analyze the various dimensions of thegame I have just set forth is as follows: first I shall describe the forms of the game as played in ordinary life in Tulu villages. From there I shall examine it as played in ritual, looking also at ritual symbols with which it alternates, or serves as an equivalent. For exegetical interpretation we turn then to the metaphorical use of the game in stories and legends. Then I consider cenne mane in relation to several other games associated with Tuluva rituals and legends. This will conclude the internal comparison and we should be at the point of understanding the meaning of cenne mane in the terms of the structures of Tulu culture. But still we will not know much about the process by which this game came to be incorporated into Tulu culture. But still we will not know much about the process by which this game came to be incorporated into Tulu people into a religious metaphor. It is this very process which tells

us most about the Tulu folk andtheir particular etos and world view. To get at this, we must compare the Tulu uses of the game to that of surrounding cultures in India, Africa and Southeast Asia. Admittedly, crosscultural comparison is an imprecise tool for the study of cultural dynamics, but it is the only one we have, and can becounted on to provide at least a certain measure of confidence in the speculations we may make on the basis of a single-culture analysis. CENNE IN ORDINARY LIFE 1 The phrase cenne mane, strictly speaking refers to the board (mane) upon which the game cenne and several others (or other forms) are played. The word cenne in other contexts means "pretty, beautiful, or attractive" and its association with the game, or the board upon which it is played, is not at all clear. It could refer to the beautiful shapes in which one sometimes sees especially the metal "boards" constructed; or, to the attraction which who are the customary players of the game.

Although in the Siri legends the board (mane) is silver and the playing pieces parel?) are gold, I have never personally seen games made of these, or any other metal. Informants reported that only royal families had the right to use such boards. Ordinary boards are usually made of hard, dense woods, such as rosewood or ebony. The ones I have seen were of two varieties. A portable one made of two separate pieces of wood about 14 inches long, each with one row of seven pits hinged on one side so that they fold on top of the other; and, the more traditional one, consisting of a single board eighteen inches long, with fourteen playing pits and two larger cavities at either end used for storing captured pieces on the topside, with legs at either end on the bottom side. While in the Siri myth the playing pieces are called parel? ("grains", in the sense of 'grains of sand'; or "pebbles", or "broken bits", such as glass) in ordinary usage they are usually called kayi ("seeds" of fruit, trees, etc.) or bitt? ("seeds" of cereal grains, flowers, etc.). the seeds I have seen used are the small, hard seeds of the arnotto tree (Bixa Orellana in Tulu :

manjoi, manjei, or manjei), or seeds of the coral tree (pongare, in Tulu), or of cowrie shells (Kau·ige, or Kawa·a). One form of the game, puu (or huu), I was told requires the use of cowrie shells, but all of the others are normally played with seeds. The pits are called guri, "pit", or ill? (in Kannada, mane), "house", or kone, "room". The former is perhaps used more as a general description, and the latter two terms may be the more usual words during play, especially in certain froms of the game. In all forms there are special terms forpits containing certain numbers of seeds; e.g., in cenne, a pit with one seed is jeppe ("a sleeper", from jeppunu, "to sleep"); a pit with three seeds is murte, probably from mahurta, an auspicious moment of time, but possibly derived from the word for "three", muji; a pit with four seeds is wanas?, "a meal". In the form of the game called puu at least someof the seven pits on a side have special names: e.g., the first is puu; third, cakka, seventh, cauda.

Nickter reports the name of eight distinct forms of the game, listed below, played using the same board. His list is more complete than my own, which only contains six (# 1, 2, 3, 6, 7 and 8). N

Tra

Nu

a

nsla

m

m

tion

be

e

r

of

of

ga

Pla

m

yer

e

s

1.

‘kin

3

ar

g’s

2

as

gam

2

u

e’

2

ā¶

‘pair

4

a

’s

2

2.

prof

in

j°·

it’

def

u

‘har

ini

pe

vest

te

rg

prof

1

a

it’

3.

?

b

‘god

ul

’s

e

gam

pe

e’

rg

‘bea

a

uty’

4.

‘?

ko

play

di

’

m

‘god

ul

dess

e

Sita’

5.

s

de

gam

va

e’

re ā¶ a

6. ce n ne 7. p u¶ ¶u go b ba n u 8. sīt a dē vi ā¶ a

Nickter provides notes on how to play three of these games - arasu aa, bule perga and cene. Both Nickter and I have notes o arasu aa and cenne and I have sketchy notes on puu gobbanu (or kawa·aa) and sitaa. However, space and time limitations prevent me from presenting this material here. I shall concentrate my attention on cenne, since this is the game referred to in the legends. In cenne the players take opposite sides of the board. Each of the seven 'pits' (guri, or illu, 'house', or, according to Nickter, k°ne, 'room') are filled with four seeds (kayi). The play begins by one player taking all of the seeds from any one his pits and distributing them one by one in the pits to his right until thelast seed is placed in a pit. Then he removes the seeds from the pit (now 5 seeds) and continues to place them in adjacent pits in a counter-clockwise direction. His turn is over when he encounters an empty pit while hehas only one seed in hishand. He places the seed in that pit and his turn is finished - that pit is said to be "a sleeper" (jeppe).

His opponent may not start wit the jeppe pit with one seed, but may take the seeds from any other pit on his own side, and continue in the same manner. A player may not place a seed in a pit with three seeds in it (called murte) unless he has only one seed in his hand. In that case, he may, and the pit becomes wanasu, a 'meal', allowing him to take all four seeds out of play and place them in his stores as winnings. He continues to play, taking the seeds from the next pit and distributing them as before, until hehas to relinquish his turn again to the first player. So the game is played until, when many of the seeds have been removed from play and most pits have but a few seeds in them, one player can demonstrate that in four consecutive draws he does not have to place a seed in one of his opponent's pits. That player wins all of the seeds remaining on the board for his own store. A second or successive rounds are played by filling the seeds on your side with the seeds won from the previous round. One player will have less than the requisite number to fil all of his pits and the other will have excess. However, it is possible, albeit difficult, to

regain one's losses on subsequent rounds and win the game. There is a cdontingency rule to meet a certain circumstances which sometimes occurs in the game. If all of the houses on the board have three seeds in them and the player has one or more seed in his hand, he puts these in the pit to his far right (called a·appe, 'the heap'), but may not remove these from play. The opponent then takes the seeds from the pit to his far right (containing three seeds), puts one seed in his opponent's 'heap'), but may not remove these from play. The opponent then takes the seeds from the pit to his far right (containing three seeds), puts one seed in his opponent's 'heap', one in that pit from which he removed the seeds and the remaining seed in the next adjacent pit, giving it four seeds, which he must remove from play. The game is over when at the beginning of a round, one player can fill less than four houses with his store of winings. The phrase used to claim victoy is poli maipunu, "plunder". Nicketer reports that the person

who wins is said to make a marriage for his opponent. Themeaning of this phrase is unclear, but is certainly consistent with the remarks made by the winner of the game in the Siri cult legends. A much briefer description of the other forms of the game played on the mancala board must suffice for the present. In the description ofeach of the forms below I shall only point out the major difference between it and cenne. Two of the games listed by Nickter are omitted for lack of sufficient data. BUßE PERGA Bu½e perga is played between two people, each having his own side of the board. All fourteen pits are filled with four seeds at the beginning of the game. Play is counter-clockwise, as in cenne, and the procedure is much the same except that when a pit becomes filled with four seeds (after being altered by the initial round) it is "ripe" (bu½e) and may be 'harvested' by the player on whose side the pit lies. If that player does not see his 'harvest', or chooses not to collect it before his opponent begins another play and

exclaims 'nir?' (water), the seeds remain on the board in play. Another difference is that in bu½e perga when a player places his last seed, he picks up the seeds from the next adjacent pit to continue his play. Thus, when a player places his last seed in an empty pit, it entitles him to "eat" (i.e., take) the seeds in the next adjacent pit and continue play. His play stops when he encounters two adjacent empty pits while he has only one seed in his hand. The turn goes to his opponent. While much of the terminology of this game is the same as in cenne, the idiom is of food and agriculture: a ful pit is a 'harvest'; a passive one, 'water' (-filled?); setting up a house with three seeds is 'straining off the water', as in readying rice for a meal (aripuni). The strategies are somewhat different, too, since in bu½e perga one may only harvest from his own pits, and in this, too, there are parallels to the strategies in the competition in agricultural economies. JOD?U PERGA

This game is played in essentially the same manner as bu½e perga, with the major difference that one harvests the seeds from the pit on the opposite side at the same time his own pit becomes filled with four seeds. The strategy changes somewhat in accordance. ARASU AT?A In arasu ata, thee are three players: a king (Uarasu), a minister (pradani, pradanika, or mantri), and another, variously called a soldier (puyinka), a jester (kuyinke) or a barber (chaurika) by different informants. In this game, instead of sides, each play has territory, theking receiving the six pits in the center of the board, the minister and the jester each getting the four pits to either side:

The pits are filled with four seeds and the right of the

first play goes to the king. He picks up the seeds from any of his pits and distributes them in the same manner as bu½e perga, i.e., taking the seeds from the house adjacent to the one in which he placed his last seed. A player 'harvests' (koypunu) its in his own territory when they have four seeds in them (bu½e). The king has the initial advantage in the game, and the minister and jester usually join forces. Not only does the king have more pits, and initiates play for the first three rounds (the fourth and fifth go to the minister, sixth to the jester), he receives one seed from each of the other players as 'tax' (geni, tribute, rent, tax) at the beginning of each round he starts. On the other hand, in order to stay in the game the king must be able to fill three houses at the beginning of each round, while the other two players need fill only one (plus one additional seed when theking initiates play). All in all, it is said that the king must be the most competent player if he is to win. The agricultural idiom arasu aa share with bu½e perga is overlaid with that of court politics and feudal

economy. So, too, the strategy becomes analogous to political alliances set in the framework fo the socially stratified state bureaucracy. SITATA This is a solitaire form of play. The player fills the pits on his side, starting at his far left and proceeding in a counter clockwise direction, with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 seeds respectively. Continuing to the other side of the board he fills each pit with one less seed, starting with 7, then the one before it, until, in the last pit, he places one seed. At the start of the game the player takes the seed from the first pit and places it in the second. Then, taking these seeds (3) he distributes them to the succeeding pits, and so forth. At the end of play, each pit wil have the same number of seeds it did in the beginning. Sitaa is, obviously, not a game of skill; the outcome is always the same. The play leads the player back to where he started. It is strongly associated with women, being regarded as an appropriate way to while away the hours in the solitude of an empty house.

Informants say that Sita of the Ramaya¸a played the game while shewas held in Ravana's stronghold in Sri Lanka. It is no doubt the same game which Cennada Parawati plays in the Tulu story of Mayaga and Maipage. The story is provided in the appendix. THE CULTURAL CONTEXT Even in "ordinary life" the cenne mane and the games associated with it, especially the form cenne, are imbued with a "religious aura" (as Nickter puts it) conveyed by prescriptions on the use and abuse of the board. There is a strong prohibition against playing the game during the period when the paddy seed-beds for the first rice crop (the monsoon crop, anel?) are in. More generally it is said that the game may only be played after the seedlings (neji) are in the growing fields and up to harvest time, November or December. Sometimes this period is expressed in months rather than agricultural season: from kartel? (June-July) through jarde (November-December). One informant stated the period from s°na (August-September) to

jarde, which begins only after the inauspicious (dangerous) month of ati is over. Yet other informants put the cut-off date in terms of religious holidays, k¤À¸a asami in one case and n°mpu (a first fruits offering) in another. It may be noted that this is the period during which families with girls of marriageable age seek marriage alliances. At least one informant spoke of an old custom among people of the Bant caste of playing the game of cenne among the male heads of the girl's andboy's families during the marriage negotiation ceremonies (niscaya). It is considered a good omen if the girl's party loses (Nickter, 1979). This association with marriage is, of course, overtly mentioned in the Siri Legends (see Appendix). There are other prohibitions associated with the game. I was often told (aso Nickter 1979) that a family should not lend the board out overnight. Other informants say that gambling is prohibited for the games played on the cenne mane. It is not likely that this prohibition is meant to separate the secular act of gambling from an activity associated with ritual. A number of gambling games, especially a game played with coconuts, and

several competitive forms of cock-fighting are played by men in association with religious festivals and ceremonies. Gambling, in itself, is not regarded as inappropriate in a religious contest. The strongest prohibitions associated with cenne concerns the players. Sisters are not supposed to play the game together - nor are brothers, nor husband and wife. Since the game is not normally played among men (except above, in association with marriage alliance), the prohibition against husband and wife playing is rather weaker - almost amusing to contemplate - than the prohibition regarding sisters. As might be expected, the example of what happened between Abbaga and Daraga in the Siri legend is quickly cited as the reason for this prohibition. Even classificatory sisters are prohibitory from playing together. One informant mentioned that a woman may not play the game with her husband's older sister. It is also felt to be inappropriate for a woman to play with her husband's elder brother. In both of these cases (Nickter 1979) the relationships are the focus of potential conflict and jealousy and there are other

restrictions on the behaviour of individuals in such relationships which tend to ensure respectful distance. Finally, men who are mother's brother (tammal) andsister's son (arawate) to oneanother may not play against oneanother; nor, in the three person game of arsa?, in alliance as jester and minister against the king. In the latter case it is said they always lose. The relationship of mother's brother and sister's son entails a host of customs restrictive of their interaction in other arenas of behavior, and it is not surprising to see this pattern instanced here as well. For the purpose of trying to understand themeaning of the cenne metaphor in the Siri legends where it is played among women, it is enough to note that the game prohibitions coincide with an asymmetrical relationship characterized by potentially strong feelings of jealousy, competition, aggression and self-interest which would be destructive to the ideal of a strong and unified matrilineal family. SUMMARY

To sum up the materials presented in this section we can see that the games played on the cenne mane utilize the vocabulary of village life. The play and conditions encountered during play draw analogy from the activities encountered also in agriculture, food storage preparation and consumption, and the political relations of feudalism. The occasions of play place the game within an annual cycle which is reglated by agricultural activities and the process of crop maturation as well as social activities. All of this would suggest that the various forms of the game are at least in part consonant with one or more sets of the daily activities of Tuluva villagers. Lack of adequate field data prevent me from being able to state more precisely the conscious "fit" between the games and specific action sets. Experience with games in other cultural settings would indicate that the analogical relations between the game and social activities are of a highly generalized nature in any case. The vast distribution of mancala games through a wide variety a remarkably consistent basic form, would seem to substantiate this hypothesis.

Still, the large number of specific prohibitions associated with the game, particularly those regarding the sexual and kinship relations of the players, and those relating theplay to the agricultural cycle, indicate a certain connection between the game and cultural systems surrounding it and that involvement in the game affects the players relationship in those other systems. For example, in themselves, competitive games such as cenne which give victory to the more clever, more skillful player pay no heed to the preestablished statuses of the opponents. They pit individual against individual. For this reason, the extent to which the play of the game presents a serious analogy or carry over to social structures in which the participants are ascribed differential statuses, the game must be considered inappropriate. Or, to suggest season example, women of different (but often related by matrilineal kinship) households work in cooperative teams to transplant the paddy seedlings from the seed beds of the growing field. This is a critical period of intense woek in the agricultural cycle. It is essential that women of households maintain a congenial and

cooperative spirit. The feelings of jealousy andsuspicion which could be aroused by cenne-playing amongst women would be inappropriate. This is no doubt one component to the prohibition against playing cenne during the months the paddy is in the seed beds before transplanting. However, there are les pragmatic reasons for this prohibition as well. The whole of a families monsoon crop lies condensed in the seed bed. The mystical effects of jealousy, avarice, illwill as such could be aroused as a result of cenneplaying are thought to be capable of destroying the beauty, the bounty, and the auspiciousness of the tender young plants. One can see, then, the complexity and subtlety in the ways a game can be related to culture. When a game is further used as a metaphor in a story or as a symbolic act in a ritual, any or all of these associations can be significant. The religious metaphor is different from the game, though, in some important ways. It is a "frozen" instance of the game, robbed of the uncertainty of the outcome. Yet the particular outcome of the game in the legend pulls together and contains

therelationship of the players to the wider cultural context more specifically than does the game in real life. In ritual the game focuses the attention (perhaps not consciously, or abstractly) of the participants on the moral issues of that relationship. It serves to involve the "players" in the actions representing these issues at a deeply emotional level. But the ritual context also adds a measure of control above and beyond the rules of the game. If it were otherwise, the "players", so closely identified with the legend, would possibly carry through the murder and suicide which disastrously conclude the legend. CENNE IN THE SIRI CULT As in the case with other of the Tuluva spirit possession cults, there is considerable interdependency and consistency between cult practice and the imagery of the oral traditions associated with the Siri cult. A major part of many cults, in fact, is a possession-dance dramatization of the legend performed by professional dancers. Their dance is interspersed with narration of the legend. And, like

many folk dramas, the dress, make-up, expression and paraphernalia iconographically elaborate the themes and characteristics of the spirits portrayed. So, too, in the Siri cult rituals the participants sing the legend of Siri as they enter possession and allow themselves to become a vehicle for the spirit's expression. The singing starts out (after preliminary ritual, sometimes occasioning possession among participants) similar in form and content to the song version provided in the appendix, but the singing is frequently interrupted by intense possession and various types of ritual. During possession the singer continues recitation and acts out the legend-indeed, merges with the legend. The narrative at this point becomes highly idiosyncratic, relating the singer's personal history and that of the characters of the legend in varying degrees. In response to this other singers, especially the male leader (priest, or medium, patri) and other female adepts, deviate from their more standard recitation in an attempt to establish thenature of the possession and resolve any difficulties the singer might be experiencing with it. I have

described this process more elaborately elsewhere (Claus 1975, 1979) in terms of the larger framework of unwanted possession and its 'cure'. Here, I shall onlynote that all verbal communication between the participants throughout the process is in the form of a melodic, rhythmic chant and thus does not "leave" the medium of the legend. In fact, the effort on the part of the adepts is to draw the idiosyncratic behaviour more into that of thestandard legend. However, in the course of the cult activities, the participants do not complete the legend, or even any of its episodes. Instead, as the night wears on, the singers tend to focus - individually and in groups of two or three, and repeatedly - on certain episodes. At the different locations where thecult holds its rituals there is considerable variation in how all this occurs, although at any one place all of the participants, standing in groups of 5-20 co-partners, all adhere to roughly the same general format. This variation from locality to locality is no doubt partially attributable to the extremely strong personal identification the participants have with the legend, which the act of

possession - a near complete merger of self with the character of the legend - evidence. At each of the cult locations I visited the episode(s) revolving around the game of cenne was the one on which many of the participants focused 2. But in one location, Urmbitotta, the cenne episode is given extraordinary prominence. On the night of the Siri jatre, the temple manager invites the five or six religious males group-leaders (patri) to his manor for a light meal of a parched rice preparation. After eating, the manager, the patris, the women participants and a Brahman go in procession to the Siri Shrine. In that procession they carry a ritual cenne board, which becomes the core cult symbol. At the Siri Bermeru 3. One of the patris (senior to the others) brings two of the women forward to the shrine where they all receive prasada from the Brahman priest. All three immediately enter the state of mild, stylized possession. The patri, now identified as Siri's son, K£mar (he is in real life a man of the Oilpresser caste), leads the young women, now identified as Siri's

grand-daughters, Abbaga and Daraga (one is of the Toddy-Tapper caste, the other of the Oilpresser caste), to an earthen platform (kae) under a tree. The young women are seated to the patri's right and left, facing each other, with the cenne board between them. Meanwhile, the other patris right and left, facing each other, with the cenne board between them. Meanwhile, the other patris and women form rectangular groups (dalya) of six to (sana). The two young girls begin to recite the episode of the Siri myth in which Abbaga and Daraga play cene. The patri leads them in the song, and holds their right hands which he moves around the board as if playing the game. Their trance deepens all the while. Finally, as the story comes to the place where one sister kills the other, the girls enter intense and violent trance as one tries to lift the board. She is restrained by the patri and the bodies of both women stiffens as they swoon. At this point, spontaneously, the patris and the women in their groups enter possession as well. After a few moments the two young women are splashed with "holy water" (tirtha) and are led to the temple to receive a prasada

of areca flowers from the Brahman. When their trance has lessened they all three join one of the other groups where the rituals are proceeding (roughly, as described in Claus 1975, 1979). The possession enactment of the cenne episode, using an actual board as a prop, is a catalyst here which affects the identification of all of the cult participants with the characters of the legend. The young women are chosen from the current year's participants to serve in the next year's ritual. They are distinguished as vehicles, rather than professional actresses 4. Their bodies serve to give expression for the spirit characters to play their mythic roles. Their performance initiates, focuses and controls the actions of the other cult participants but they are not leaders in the community. The nomination is regarded as an honour but the honour is thattheir bodies, representing those of the spirits, are pure enough for the spirits to enter. It is a requirement that the girls be unmarried, but of marriageable age. The year I witnessed this remarkable jatre, the women chosen for the next year were twins, just as in the legends.

I have seen the Siri cult performances at a number of different locations. In each, the initial stages, corresponding to the enactment of the cenne game described above, are somewhat different. At all of the locations the ritual acts which precede the participants' possession serve to set the stage: abstinence from certain foods, abstinence from sexual relations, ritual bathing, special attire, prasada, and standing in the group (dalya) with other participants, most of whom have no other association with one another. Merely singing the legend is enough to initate possession among many participants. At the larger, more famous temple locations (Hiriyadka and Kabitar) the power of the place is said to be a important contributing factor. Most locations are mentioned in the legend as places where certain important events took place. Urimbitotta is a relatively new site for the Siri cult and is not mentioned in the Siri legens. This is no doubt the reason the ritual ceneplaying assumes such importance as a catalyst for mass possession. In other locations the place itself serves to identify the participants with the spirit

characters. The spirits "presence" is felt to be strong. Having prepared the body to receive the spirit, the participants need only to sing the legend to attract the spirit and complete the transformation playing cenne, too, invokes the spirits and greatly intensifies their "presence". For further exegetical elaboration on the significance of the cenne game in bringing about the identification of cult participant and mythic character, I trn, now, to a discussion of the game as it occurs in Tulu legends. As we shall see, it serves as a metaphor of, among other things, certain social relation, and, more deeply, the individual constrained by social structure. CENNE IN TULU LEGEND The translations of the three short pa·danas provided in the appendix typify the three verbal contexts in which we find theimage of cenne-playing used in Tulu folklore. At least two different games played on the cenne board are mentioned in the legends. In the "Story of Maiyage and Maipage" Cennada Parawati

plays a solitaire form of the game called Sitaa. in the other references the game played is cenne. One common life cycle theme which relates the mancala playing inseveral of the stories is marriage. In the Maiyage-Maipage story it is explicitly stated that the sisters play the game while their parents are searching for husbands for them, andit is implied in the Sonne-Ginde story that their "grandfather" is preparing them for marriage. Family honour and prestige as related to marriage are explicitly raised in the Maiyage-Maipage story,and also implied in the Sonne-Ginde story. In both stories the loss of a game is equated with the shame of giving personal honor to the relatives of a woman's spouse. The stories seem to suggest that from a female point view marriage entails a sacrifice and subservience of personal values for the greater honour of one's family. These themes are placed in temporal proximity with the girls attainment of puberty which is itself described in imagery associated with the investment of wealth to augment the natural beauty and vitality of the young

girls. The prestige andhonour of a family is contained in the fertility, wealth and natural beauty which is invested in its daughters and distributed among other families in a system of marriage exchanges. The image is similar in some ways to certain types of traditional economic systems, except that the medium of exchange here is real people with personal relations and values of their own. In particular, it seems the focus of the personal relations which conflicts with those of the family unit is the competitive relationships between sisters. It is probable that the relationships of "sisters" itself is a metaphor for other kinds of relationships, such as the relationship of classificatory sisters, the relationship between collateral matrilineages or the relationship of women, generally. The elder/younger aspect of the sisters' relationship explicitly represents various qualities of seniority, leadership, proprietry, and natural tendencies perceived to be inherent in the relative order of sibling birth. A similar phenomena is seen in the relationship between brothers as expressed in other paddana but the characteristics are different

in many ways (the Claus 1978b) and never ( to my knowledge ) suggest open hostility or aggessiveness in the relationship. In the two other contexts in which we find the image of mancala-playing, the characters are already married. The mother of Maiyage and Maipage, Cenneda Parawati, is advised to play the game of sitata to alleviate her loneliness and sadness which may be regarded as both a cause and an effect of her apparent barreness. While she plays the game, the god Bermeru (Brahma?) visits her and tells her a course of action which leads to her conception of twins - a symbol of abundance and prosperity. The play in this case is clearly a form of invocation to the Tulu god of family properity and propinquity. The manner in which the deity appears - in the form of a "poor Brahman" (bada beramaneru) - suggests a form of divination. Infact, the deity does not confer progeny on Parawati immediately but tells her that, in effect, rituals of auspiciousness performed at the marriage ceremony are not enough to confer fertility and that a pilgrimage to the ancestral shrine, where an offering is to be made

to Bermeru, is yet required. This dual role of the deity diviner and receiver is characteristic of this and other cult practice is Tulunad. In fact, mancala-playing in each of the episodes discussed so far invokes the presence of the god Bermeru. While in the initial situation his intervetion leads to boon of progeny, later in the story his intervention leads to destruction of the very same boon. A pervasive element in the pronouncement of boons (shapa) in Tulu myth and cult is the presence of a double entendre. The implication is, I think, that a boon carries with it responsibilities. A boon can be either a blessing or a curse depending how one acts in reagard to it. Both properties seem to be inherent in the gift itself. With proper action the good can be maximized and the bad minimized. In the Tulu paddanas one often encounters boons which give one the supplicant an opportunity to be generous, or it may be seen merely as an opportunity to satiate oneself. There is self-gratification in both cases; but of a very different kind. In the former the

individual is elevated in his relationships (society) by social justice. Such utilization of a boon is more lasting for the individual and provides the fuel for social continuance. In this case, twin girls represent a bounty and an opportunity for their family to partake in marriage exchange, the very root of the social system. The reversal of the boon which the Lord Bermeru instigates takes place in a setting heavily imbued with overt expressions of self-pride, outright selfishness, potential jealousy and impropriety, all of which are contrary to the highly valued qualities of modesty and acknowledgement of god as the determinant of worldly prosperity and its distribution among his reverent adherents. The girls' play is a mockery of theindividual's social responsibilities. The story is a mortality tale; theritual is a morality play. In the final instance of cenne imagery, Siva and Parwati, husband and wife, are the players. Bermeru is not associated with this story, nor is the story a part of the Siri ritual (nor any other cult ritual to my knowledge). The themes of competitiveness, submission and sexuality are, however, associated with

the play here as well. Parwati proves herself to be more clever than Siva, so Siva attempts to win the game by cheating, but Parwati sees through his deception. She violently disrupts the game and engenders Siva's curses. The scene then abruptly shifts to follow seemingly unrelated conjugal matters. At a more abstract level, however, we can easily see that the two episodes repeat a similar structure. Siva's curse and Parwati's reaction to it provides a bridge between the two episodes by engaging Parwati in a more real life conjugal "game" with her husband. Here, again, we find Siva "cheating" on his wife, while Parwati explicitly follows proprietous relations with the washerman (ma ·iwala). In both "games" Parwati is the more clever player. There is a difference, though, in that her reaction to Siva's cheating in cenne was open, eliciting his curses, while in the "game" of sexual deception she achieves unmitigated satisfaction at all levels. The Siva-Parwati story is a clear instance of the way in which cenne-playing is used in folklore as a metaphor of other types of social relations, supporting

ourcontention that it does so in the instances discussed earlier. An important element in this, and the other instances where there are two players, is that it represents a relationship in which a person of inferior social position can beat his superior by virtue of wit and intelligence. In all instances the cunning inferior prevails; but, thegame itself ends abruptly and disastrously. In the story of Parwati and Siva the scene shifts to more real life situations where the clever wife achieves her goals by adhering to the rules of the system, but disguising her person. The moral is that clever manipulation of the system, not direct confrontation, is the best course for the subordinate to satisfy his individual needs. CENNE IN RELATION TO OTHER TULU GAME METAPHORS At this point it is useful to look briefly at the range of contexts we find in reference to other games in Tulu myths and cults. I shall limit discussion of two instances - one in an oral narrative and one associated with a religious ritual.

In the very popular legend of Koti and Chenayya one of the very first adventures of the young Billava (Toddy Tapper) heroes revolves around a game between themselves and the children of a court minister 5. The encounter takes place in the pasture fields where youths play while their cattle graze. The game they play varies in different account, but it is always a game of skill with cashew nuts as prizes. The young heroes, anxious to join, ask if they may play, too. Theminister's son, confident they cannot be beaten by the inexperienced lower-class boys, accept them into the game. Koti, the elder, plays the first few rounds and loses each time. Then the younger brother tries his hand and succeeds in winning all of the cashewnuts from the other boys. The minister's sons go back and tell their father who then comes and takes back the cashewnuts from the heroes. The young heroes vow: "We are young and you take the nuts from us by force. Keep them well, and when we are grown up, we shall get them from you". And, indeed, when the boys grow up they have their revenge. At that time, Koti and Chenayya are working

in a field which is adjacent to that of the minister. The minister tries to trick the boys into plowing their field after hehas already finished, so that there would be no competition for acquiring the number of plowmen he needs. The heroes learn of his trickery, begin their plowing earlier, finish their work and celebrate the end of their labor with a buffalo race. Only after all of this do the plowmen go to the minister's fields. Following several other incidents during which the minister provokes the heroes' anger by impeding their work in the fields and with insults, chenayya kills the minister, thus avenging their earlier unfair loss. It is interesting to note that here, as in the SivaParwati story, game-playing serves as a device to anticipate a subsequent real life "game" (trickery). In this case the analogous daily life activity concerns agricultural operations. But, as was true of the sexual "games" of Parwati and Siva, competition is the common theme which links the two types of games. Furthermore, we note again that when a game is played between people (the children) of unequal status, the result ends disastrously for the innately

superior victor (the heroes) but, when the action shifts to real life, skillfully played by the rules, the inferior regains complete satisfaction. A type of ritual cockfighting in association with the worship of a village goddess provides a neat observation of this situation: When a game is played between people of equal status the outcome is auspicious. Cockfighting is a prevalent form of village entertainment in Tululand. It is usually with gambling and high prizes and great prestige for the owners of winning cocks. There is an elaborate vocabulary distinguishing the different color patterns, and complex systems of determining which types of color patterns are likely to be successful in matches against others on given days and astrological moments. Some men are impassioned with the sport and spend enormous sums of money to obtain a renowned cock. Perhaps a majority of village farm families raise a number of fighting cocks, giving them special foods and pampering them with attention and care.

Cockfighting with its accompanying gambling could be said to be a regional obsession of the Tuluva people. It would not behard to demonstrate that there is an identity relationship between man and rootster. In the recent past, for example, two or more families of the landlord class would challenge one another in cockfight "wars". The tenants were required as part of their "rent" to contribute a certain number of cocks to thebattle. The reputations of the lords and their tenants were caught up in these mock battles to no small extent. Another form of cockfighting occurs as a form of offering (parike) to the village goddess. This form is called so·ti. Indicative of the sacrificial, ritual nature of this kind of game, cocks chose to fight in this context must never have lost blood in a previous battle, nor bolted from a fight. Ideally, the cock should not have even fought before. There is a ritualistic indifference to the outcome of the fight. Generally, each party brings two cocks to fight with his opponent. Whatever the outcome, each party gets one of the two defeated cocks

to take home and eat as prasada. (In other contexts, the winner receives the body of the defeated cock. Chicken curry made from fighting cock is said to be especially delicious no doubt a measure of the savor of the manner in which such chickens end up in the pot, rather than one of the tenderness of their flesh). I have seen households bring matched pairs of fine looking cocks, but no one pays any attention to astrological timing in selecting an opponent. In fact, most participants select their so·ti partners long in advance. Many families have long-standing so·ti relationships which are renewed each year. Generally so·ti partners are friends and equals. Although there is certainly an element of competition, of win and loss, it is glossed over with light-hearted teasing and joking. Both sides have won more than either might have lost. The game itself is, after all, a form of sacrifice which pleases the goddess, and they both receive her auspicious blessing (prasada). INTERPRETING THE METAPHOR FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF TULU CULTURE

It is obvious that one of the underlying themes which cenne mane metaphorically represents has to do with competitive situations. The legends and the idiom of the games in ordinary life clearly suggest this. What is less clear is what relates the situations in which the competition is embedded. He two most consistent contexts are agriculture and marriage alliance. Here, the seasonal restrictions on the play provide a clue to one possible connection. In my investigations into traditional beliefs about agriculture I occasionally heard the rice the crop (especially the first crop, anel?) likened to the human life cycle. The seedlings wombs the transplanting similar to birth; the plants in the growing field matured like children and when ripe brought bounty and prosperity to people as do women when they are married. Some of the terminology and notions of pollution associated with the human life cycle are common to agricultural stages. The fertility of women and the fertility of plants are linked in many ways (see Claus 1978b). The season one looks to find a mate for one's eligible daughters coincides with the season one watches his crop come to fruition. Both

coincide with the season cenne is played. Cenne is particularly appropriate near the conclusion of these activities. However, competion is not aspect of either crop maturation or human development. Instead, it is rituals of control and protection which dominate these processes and lead them to an auspicious outcome. If there is an obvious and direct connection between cenne mane and these maturation processes I would suggest that it is most clearly represented in the form of sitaa, where the rules, like those of ritual, lead the play invariably back to the original point of departure. In playing sitaa one gives up one's person to the game, which one always wins : a result one hopes to attain in ritual too. Competition - striving for an uncertain gain from an opponent - is meaningful only in contradiction to the contexts in which the game is played in the legend. The game is prohibited in these contexts in ordinary life unless, like sitaa and ritual, the outcome is foreordained. When a man plays with the father of his

daughter's future husband, he plays to lose; otherwise, the result augers an inauspicious outcome. When, in legend, the game is played competitively, the outcome is disastrous. It is not competition itself which lies at the core of significance on the game in the legends. The focus is the uncertainty of outcome, jealousy, and the overstatement of the individual to which competition gives occasion. When the game is played by peers, when it is played as a ritual, or when it is played to lose, the outcome is auspicious. The statuses are equal; and the individual does not pit himself against the social structure. It appears that the customs restricting the play in ordinary life give recognition to individuality and structural uncertainly by defining it away from real life situations in which a wrong outcome would be inconsistent with proper social relations which in turn lead to prosperity. In the myth, the players dare to defy restrictions and suffer the consequences.

It is significant that the game in both legend and cult is played by women, "sister". While we might 'explain' this by merely noting that cenne is in the real life usually played by women, the fact that even there, sisters are prohibited from play suggests there is more to the reference in the legend than just coincidence with real life. I would suggest that it is meant to emphasize the inappropriateness of women's individual aspirations even in their relations with one another. Perhaps female individuality is a less serious concern in relationships with men (e.g., Parawati and Siva) in these legends because the dominance and control of women by men pervades every aspect of public life. Indeed, in general, so strong is the assumption that women are the pawns and men the players, that society seems not to give credence through recognition of the possibility of female individuality. Relations among women lie outside the purview of these cultural assumptions, but not beyond the facts of life. Matrilineal households grow large and prosperous if sisters remain together and compatible. The prestige and purity of a man's status is directly

related to that of his sisters over whom he has little control unless he can keep them together peacefully at the maternal estate (see Claus 1975). Working against the development of strong matrilineal estates (kutumba; similar to the Naya tarwad) are the obligations associated with exogamy, the limits of which families try to keep as restricted as possible. Quarrels among sisters are self-destructive, because they injure the reputation of the entire family as well as the prospects of each resultant lineage should they split apart as a result. None the less, sisters, not brothers, are apt to quarrel over family property since it is the direct line of descendants related through sisters who have rights in the family property. For support in these matters women often turn to their husbands, each sister pitting her husband against the other's and both against their brother. Internal feuding often becomes very bitter and opposing factions - each spearheaded by woman - frequently resort to mystical warfare and avail themselves of the considerable arsenal of magical weapons dispensed for a fee by local sorcerers and bhucta priests. In such situation Tuluva

diviners grow rich and more prosperous than do the families. And, to my knowledge, other than paying a stiff price to the very sorcerer or priest to cut off the ammunition he supplies to one's opponent , the Siri cult is the only place to turn for relief and arbitration. A great many of the difficult cases of unwanted possession brought to the Siri cult are the result of a woman secretly polluting the food of her sister's daughter, or of mystically influencing her sister's descendants through sorcery. In such cases the Siri spirit cannot easily enter the woman's body unless the unwanted influence is discovered and removed. Once all the family's ill will is laid open and mystical influence retracted or nullified, the Siri spirit enters painlessly and joins (at one level) her kinsmen as (at another level) the girl's kinsmen reassert their mutual good-will. The activities at the Siri cult, the focus of the Siri legends around two sisters playing a game of cenne, and the idiom of its play in ordinary life thus find an explanation in describing their common underlying themes and showing how they can become interrelated

in a larger moral system which embraces society, agriculture, properity and concepts of the individual. COMPARABLE INFORMATION The ad hoc interpretation of a folk metaphor solely in terms of its part in a specific cultural tradition is open to several lines of criticism. The game of mancala has been played over a large region of the world for a long period of time. Even a cursory look at the cultural elements surrounding its play strongly suggests that many of the elements found in Tulunad were imported along with the game as sort of "historical baggage". Some of these are inherent in the nature of the game and some are "peripheral" associations. The reason for taking the trouble to perform a comparison is, of course, to see the degree to which we may view the specific metaphoric character of cenne as a product of specificually Tuluva culture. If the Tuluva material is but a specific occurrence of a larger comple, than we must use more general terms than uniquely Tuluva ones to explicate its meaning. If Tuluva material represents a significant reinterpretation or

reintegration of a complex found elsewhere, then we must be certain correlate it with the proper "original" before we may elaborate upong the significance of the perculiarities in terms of Tuluva culture. Recent comparative studies of mancala in Africa by Philip Townshend (1977, 1979a, 1979b) provide a very useful summary of the variant of game there are insights into the correlation of associated cultural features of its occurrence. In his short article, "African Mancala in Anthropological Perspective", Townshen does not deal with the details of variation in the game's form. Indeed, the variation is enormous, as is the persistence of the basic game anywhere from 1,000 to 3,000 years - on the African continent. He writes : "It seems to me certain that the spread and persistence of mancala owe something to its peculiar potential for expressing, through its rules, a wide range of ethnic options", (1979b : 794).

Nevertheless, a number of its features seem very widespread, if not universal, throughout Africa. One of these is the way game is associated with social prestige. In stratified African societies mancala is a game of chiefs and elders. Almost everywhere women and children are prohibited from playing; or, at least, their play is restricted in relation to men. "The reason behind such restrictions was the preservation of adult male prestige: for a child or a woman to beat a man in a public game or just to participate in, or be present at, the ridiculing of the loser in an all-male game would have been a source of a most hurtful shame and damaging to the political power enjoyed by men". (Townshend, 1979 : 794). Another widespread feature is the metaphoric associations of the game : "… expertise in mancala is indicative of competence in other fields, and of accomplishment in accepted social norms, paralleled perhaps by the notion of favorable auger . . ." (Townshend, 1979 : 795).

Victory in a game of mancals is symbolically used to characterize superior intellect or cunning. Cheating is reportedly commong and little stigma is attached to it except that, if detected, the cheater is regarded as an "incompetent fool". Townshend composes a list of eight attributes associated with the game: cunning, vigilance, foresight, resilience, perserverance, discretion, memory, self-control - all of them personally achieved, rather than socially ascribed, characteristics relating to an individual's unique intellectual strengths. He further observes : ". . . [These] attributes [are] most admired in societies where there is no institutionalized sanction to appeal to or where personal standing and reputation count for more than concepts of absolute truth and right and where the typical hero is the trickster. (1979b : 795). Finally, Townshend notes the widespread association the game has with rituals of passage - funerals, boys' initiation, girls' first menstruation, coronation, etc., as well as ritual prohibitions relating to the temporal

use of the game, the construction of the board, and abuse of it. In all, there is such a remarkably high degree of concordance between the significal Tulu features of the game and the more general features of the game as it occurs in Africal - most especially in the associated social and cultural aspects, rather than the rules and the form of the game - that one can hardly dismiss the likelihood of a common history frothe game. Tracing that history is not, however, the goal of this paper. It is enough for the present to indicated that the historical path along which the game of mancala has traveled, touched and influenced the culture of each place. I turn now to another direction and another insightful paper on mancala, this time on the ethnography of Kedang in Eastern Indonesia by R.H. Barnes (1975). One of the two versions of the games Barnes describes is clearly the "same" as the Tulu j°daa. It is on this one that Barnes concentrates his attention to try to resolve the question of whether a "total structural analysis" is possible in comprehending the significance of the

game in Kedang culture. That is, is this an insitution ". . . whose feature could be entirely accounted for either by reference along to comparable institutions in other areas, or only by reference to material in the society within which it is found (1975 : 72)"? Although to my own interest in mancala are clearly related to his, I shall not pursue his conclusion, but instead mention some of the cultural features he reports to be related to the Kedang game. The layout of the game, Barnes reports, consist of several strata of images : "The two rows compose opposite territories, each containing seven ordinary villages, plus one village for dead souls. In play, souls are constantly being transferred singly to their appropriate village of the dead. In Kedang . . . there is a distinction between good deaths and bad deaths, the latter resulting from various kinds of diaster such as injury in warfare. It is only good deaths which lead to orderly progress into the land of the dead . . . The souls of victims of bad deaths remained trapped . . ." (1975 : 78).

While the Tulu versions of the game do not make reference to souls in ordinary play, in its association with the Siri cult it becomes directly related to the same notion of good and bad deaths and the different classification of spirits. The violent deaths of the sisters - one from murder, the other from suicide - and the untimeliness of their deaths, occurring as they do before fulfilling their earthly functions of sexual and reproductive fertility, would certainly class them as masti ghosts, a group of spirits recognized throughout soughern India as dangerous, if not malevolent wandering souls trapped in this world by their unfulfilled desires. Barnes goes on to report : ". . . The game is a war between inhabitants of the two territories . . one burns an opponent village, taking all the captured souls to one's own store. . . . Taking of heads (. . . trophies one attempts to acquire in war . . .) is another element of this culture which finds expression here". (1975 : 79).

On a general level this, too, is an element in the Tulu forms of the game, in that the word used to describe a win is poli malpuna, the nearest English equivalent of which seem to be "to plunder", to deprive one's opponent of his productive resources. In other games, the words used for victory are gendunu or s°pawunu, both of which merely mean "to beat, to win". In ordinary play, however the Tulu "plunder" appears to refer more clearly to the material resources rather than, as appears to be the case in Kedang, the regenerative human population of souls. Only in the context of the Siri cult legends, is there some implication that there is a connection between the loss of a game and the loss of a group's source of prestige in regards to both human and material resources. There are parallels also in the direction of play (counter-clockwise) and number of holes and pieces, but these features do not seem to have the significance in Tulu culture that Barnes perceives in relation to Kedang culture. In all, aside from the manner of play and the association with death (and funerary ritual) and plunder mentioned above, one cannot see as

strong a connection between the Tulu game and that of Kedang as one can between the Tulu and African material. Published reports on mancala elsewhere in India are few. I have been fortunate, however, in receiving personal reports from a number of folklorists and anthropologists from Tamilnad, Karnataka and Kerala, and I attempt to summarize these below. MANCALA IN SOUTHERN INDIA AND SRI LANKA H.J.R. Murray in his comparative study of games, A History of Board Games Other than Chess (1952), reports that mancala games are played throughout South Asia. In Northern India, although there is some variation in the number of pits found on the board, and number of seeds in the play, in each area only a single game (roughly equivalent to the Tulu game of bu½e perga) is played. In Southern India and Sri Lanka, however, there is commonly fond a variety of games in each cultural region. In the following section I shall briefly describe some of these games. In each

case I use as a reference the closest Tulu equivalent. Much of the material I present here is published for the first time, and was generously living in India and Sri Lanka. Their contribution taken together vastly expand the amount of published information on the game in Southern Asia. Murray, citing H. Parker's Ancient Ceylon (1909), reports that there is evidence from two ancient sites in Sri Lanka that the game was known in southern Asia from at least the Second Century B.C. (Murray 1952 : 160). In both cases, the board was carved in bedrock. The setting in which they are found suggests a ritualistic function for the play. D. Shive Gowda (of Mysore) writes (personal communication) that a board may be seen in the Twelfth Century sculptured temple of Belur, in the Karnataka section of the Western Ghats. The context there is a representation of the amusements and material culture of the aristocracy. TAMILNADU Mancala is played throughout Tamilna·?, although under different names and associated with different

practices. Dr. Brenda Beck (personal communication) collected information on the game as it occurs in the konkuna·? (Coimbatore) region. There, the game is called pannankuri ("14 pits"), or pantinkuri. There appears to be only one version of the game, which is similar to the bu½e perga from in Tulunad. In Pannankuri there are fourteen pits (seven in each row) and each pit is filled wit five seeds. The game is normally played among women and children; but men, too, occasionally play amongst themselves. There is no ritualistic function of the game and it appears to have no seasonal association. Dr. Saraswati Venugopal (of Madurai) reports (personal communication) several versions of play collectively known as pallankuri. Oneversion she describes, called kaci, resemble the bu½e perga game of Tulunad, and another, reportedly a variation of this, resembles the Tulu j°daa. she also mentions the solitaire game of sitaa. In kaci, twelve seeds are placed in each of the fourteen pits.

A final Tamilnad report comes from Charlene Allison (two unpublished manuscripts). The game of pallanguri she describes also resembles the Tulu bu½e pega, but uses either fouror six seeds to the pit. She, too, mentions that the game is played between women, or between men, but not men and women together. She notes that the game is sometimes (amongst men) played as a gambling game. Ms. Allison also describes a ritual context for the game. According to her material, the game is played during the nalangu (anointing) rites, which occur during the "liminal" period following the core marriage among people of the Saiva Pillai caste. There the game is publicly played between husband and wife with female on-lookers from both parties actively encouraging and advising the play of one or the other player. In this context a metal board is preferred over a wooden one, and the pieces are cowrie shells. Both sides play to win and in one case an on-looker took over the play from a less-than-competent newlywed in order to save the day for her side.

SRI LANKA Murray (1952 : 170-173) citing Parker (1909), lists four forms of the game in the Sinhalese-speaking region of Kandy. Another version is found around Columbo among Tamil-speakers. This latter version, called pallankuri or (conku), appears to be the same as that described by Dr. Saraswati Venugopal, above. All forms are played primarily by women and children. Basic information on each of the Kandian forms is provided below. For more details, see Murray 1952. N

M

a

e

P

P

S

e

m

a

l

i

e

a

e

n

a

t

e

r

i

y

s

d

e

n

e

/

s

g

r

P

t

s

i

Number of

N

t

T u l

u E q u i v a l e n t P

A

u

s

h

h

u

-

m

p

u

u

t

m

i

p k

2

2

4

e

x 2

7

C

4

n n

2

2

4

e

4

B

x 2

7

u 2

½

W

i

x

a

n

7

e p

l a

p

2

e

k

e

x

r

e

7

g

l

a

s

H

C

s

o

e

a

l

n

e

n

K

-

e

o

e

t

m

c

u

p

e

-

t

n

b

y

n

p u

e

a e

T

n

y

d

i

u

n

m

g -

D

u

a

p

r a

h o

m

l

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t

s

u (

R

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w o f p e a

r l s Dr. Anuradha Seneviratna reports (personal communication) an additional game, called olinda deliya, "game of the licorice-tree seed", which appears to be similar to that of the Tulu bu½e perga. He further mentions that the game is associated with the goddess Pattini, but does not explain in what way. Further information about this would have been valuable to this paper since, as I have noted elsewhere (Claus 1978a), there are some tantalizing similarities between the Siri cult and that of Pattini, and also between the Siri legend and that of Kanagi (Pattini). KERALA According to Mr. Raghavan Payanad the game of mancala is a common game played among children in Northern Kerala, where it is called nikkikka½i or 'licking game'. It is apparently generally played in the dirt, scooping out two rows of seven holes. The game is

usually played with tamarind seeds, but pebbles or other small objects serve as well. It is played similarly to bu½e perga. The game gets its name from the fact that, upon reaching an empty pit, a player "licks" (wipes) that pit with his hand before taking the seeds in the next pit. Also, carrying the play on the term further, the loser is said to "take a licking" and must "lick" wit his hand all of the empty pits. KARNATAKA Karnataka (of which the Tulu-speaking District of South Kanara is a part) has the largest number of games reported. Shive Gouda (of the Central Institute of Indian Languages) reports (personal communication) that there are at least five forms of thegame (called collectively, cene mane) from the Hassan region. These are summarized below with their nearest Tulu equivalent. N

M

a

e

Number of P

P

N S

e

m

a

l

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e

a

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n

a

t

e

r

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T u l u E q u i v a l e n t

s

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r

d

d

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¶

n

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a

k

2

5

2

2

C e

x 5

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3

7

5

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1

B

2

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x

r

2

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(

a

7

2

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7

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p

3

x

1

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2

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p

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r a s g a m e S i t a ’ s g a m e According to Mr. Gouda all games are plaed only by women except I one instance - a man will play the

game with a woman on the occasion of the birth of a daughter of his wife. Mr. A. Hiriyana (Institute of Kannada Studies, University of Mysore) reports (personal communication) a somewhat different list of terms for the board and the collectivity of games played on it: Boar d

Meani

Nam

ng

Games

e Guli

Pitboa

Allu

man

rd

gulima

e aa

game

ne aa

Pebbl

Hunse

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pace

board

aa

Har alu man e

CONCLUSIONS : SUMMARY OF THE COMPARABLE MATERIAL AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE

What conclusions can we draw from this comparative perspective? How do these affect the earlier summary and analysis of the cenne metaphor and its significance in Tuluva myths and cults? Despite the purported goal of anthropology to study comparatively the cultures of the world, most anthropologists are remarkably culture-bound to the civilization in which they do their primary fieldwork, and are ill-equipped to consider a culture as a process enmeshed in a larger historical network of influences along with other cultures. Over the past three or four decades, since RadcliffeBrown pronounced the futility of explaining custom by reference to "conjectural history", social anthropologists have minimized the significance of cultural change and exchange, shunning the conceptualization of cultures in process, and ignoring the problems of analyzing comparative material. British social anthropologists, especially, seem intent on ignoring culture change, and dealing the adoption of borrowed features, and the peculiar elaboration of borrowed elements once they enter a new culture. American cultural anthropologists have had only

minor succeses in dealing with the diffusion of material culture and comparison of aspects of social structure which can be quantified and handled statistically. There are few fuccessful attempts in dealing with ideology, concepts, beliefs, systems of rights and obligations and other less material aspects of culture. In this, we find a parallel set of problems amongst our sister disciplines of linguistics - where phonological change and affinity are much more easily dealt with than comparative semantics - and comparative religion - where the names and attributes of deities are more easily traced than how people feel about them. In dealing with the mancala material, I cannot claim to have discovered any fail-proof method of handling the massive problems of comparative cultural study. What I hope to have done is raised again the need to include such materials in our study of Indian folk traditions. I also offer some very tentative suggestions o how we might consider some of this material in the future.

South India shares the game of mancala with Africa to the West and Indonesia to the East. Two of these culture areas must have "borrowed" the game from the third, or all three must have borrowed from a fourth, not mentioned. The fact that all three lie along ancient trade routes and that the earliest representation of the game comes from Egypt would suggest that thegame originated in the Middle East that the game originated in the Middle East and traveled along trade routes even before Christ. It was readily accepted into the folk (and elite, as well) cultures of these regions. Some of the basic forms of the board, and basic modes of play are common througout the entire area of distribution. In many areas, though, the basic mode of play became elaborated into two or more forms. In some of there areas the board, too, was elaborated upon-either in terms of decorative ornamentation or, seemingly in conjunction with more elaborate forms of play, additional numbers and arrangements of the 'pits'. In many places, too, the vocabulary has certain common features, especially in reference to agriculture

and the distribution of agricultural products. Another very common idiom has to do with rites of passage. In India and Africa this has to do with puberty and marriage; in Indonesia, with the souls of the dead. Another common feature of the game, especially in Africa and India, concerns whom many play the game together. In both place it seems to be resticted to play among peers. I would suggest that this feature is associated with another, namely, that the game strongly symbolizes intelligence and cunningness. These last two common features of the game are further linked by the fact that nearly everywhere, ompetence in playing mancala implies competence in other fields of activity. In an attempt to tie all of these feature together, I offer the following sugggestions for consideration. The mancala board and basic mode of play readily finds acceptance in traditional agricultural societies because it is consonant with the broad structure of exchange, and patterns of consumption of agricultural products. What this would suggest is that there exists a common

"conceptual structure" of peasant agricuture which is also inherent in mancala. Admittedly, I have not been able to demonstrate this in any of the material covered except, minimally, for the Tulu material. However, the fact that the game does borrow the idion of agriculture in many areas without drastically altering the form of play would suggest this might be so. That competence in mancala is thought to the indicative of competence in other areas of life seems also to support this hypothesis. Some of the elaborations in forms of play for example, arasa? in Tulunad - quite clearly represent the application of additional dimensions (in arasa?, social stratification to the basic conceptual structure. But it is how the activities of agricultural products are coordinated by social structure, which lends an additional dimension to the play. If, on one hand, the inherent conceptual features of the game are correlated to the conceptual structureof agricultural economics, and on the other, agricultural economics is embedded in social structure, then we would expect the individuals who play together would be those who

may engage in the competitive activities of a society. Societies vary in their structure and I suspect variation on who may, who may not and who should play the game could be correlated with this variation. Finally, it appears that some cultures acknowledge an association between some of their processes, as seems to be the case, say, in the Tulu example where the processes of agricultural growth and economics and those of human reproduction and marriage exchange are linked through common metaphors. Mancala, to the degree it is able to represent one set of processes, could represent theother as well, and therefore may serve as a metaphor linking the two. In these cases we wold not expect to find a high degree of commonality between cultures since the manner in which cultures integrate their systems of symbolsand collective representations is specific andmeaningful only to its internal structure. This would appear to be the case in Tulunad, where the metaphoric significance of the game is not shared even with those cultural regions closest to it, and sharing both the common basic forms of play and some of the different areas of idiom.

In sum, then, looking for the "source" of significance of cenne in Tulu culture and religion, I see the game itself coming from outside the culture and bringing with it certain "inherent features" which find ready acceptance because of concordance with existing conceptual structures already basic to Tuluva society. Peripheral aspects of the game - such as the restrictions on who may play together - are also implied at its introduction and acceptance, but much more general and superficially variable level. The metaphoric level of meaning of the game is understandable only in terms of Tuluva, in that it meaningfully links fields of cultural activity which are specific to Tulunad society and culture. BIBLIOGRAPHY Allison,

“Strategic

C.1972

Interaction

1979

Tamilian Society”. Manuscript.

in

Manuscript Draft

of

Doctoral Dissertation.

Barnes,

“Mancala

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R.H. 1975

Kedang:

A

Structural Test” Bijdragen tot de Tall-Land-en Volkenkund. Deel 131, le Afl, 67-85.

Beck,Brenda

Personal

E.F.1979

Communication

Burnell,

“The

A.E.1894-97

Worship of the Tuluvas

Devil (from

the papers of the late

A.E.

Burnell)”. Indian Antiquary

23

seq.

Claus, 1975

P.

“The Siri Myth and Ritual : A Mass Possession

1978a

Cult

of

South

India”. Ethnology. Vol.XIV,

1978b

No.1,

January, pp.4758.

1979

“Oral Traditions, Royal Cults and Materials for a Reconsideration

of

the

Caste

System in South India”. Journal of

Indian

Folkloristics. J.1 N.1, pp.1-25. “Heroes

and

Heroines in the Conceptual Framework Tulu

of

Culture”.

Journal

of

Indian Folkloristics. Vol.1,

No.2,

pp.27-42. “Spirit Possession and Mediumship from Perspectives

the of

Tulu

Oral

Literature”. Culture, Medicine

and

Psychiatry. (1979),

3

pp.29-

52.

Gowda, D.S.

Personal

1979

Communication

Hiriyanna,

Personal

A. 1979

Communication

Manner, A.

Pā·danolu

1886

Tulu) Mangalore Basil Press.

(in :

Mission

Murray,

Board and Table

H.J.R. 1952

Games than

Other Chess.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Nickter,

Personal

Mark 1979

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Parker,

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H.

1909

London.

Payyanad,

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Roberts,

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J.M.,

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Sutton-

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Social Psychology. Vol.61,

pp.185-

199. Seneviratne,

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Townshend,

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P. 1977

of 11 hūs (das Lochspiel) in the

1979a

Wider

Context

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African

Mankala”. Journal of the 1979a

South

West

African Scientific Society. 31, pp. 85-98. “Games

of

Strategy : A New

Look

at

Correlates Cross

and

Cultural

Methods”. Play and Culture, ed. By

Helen

B.

Schwartzman. West

Point,

N.Y.:

Leisure

Press. “African Mankala

in

Anthropological Perspective”. Current Anthropology. 20 : 4, pp.794796.

Venugopal, S. 1979

Personal

Communication

APPENDIX In this appendixm, I present some of the versions of the Siri cult legends and one additional story, "Ishwara Devere", in which the game of cenne plays a significant thematic and structural role. The first legend, presented in synopsis (from Claus 1975), is what I refer to in the text of the present paper as thefull Siri legend. In it are told the story of Siri, her daughter, sonne, and her grandchildren, Abaga and Daraga. This full Siri legend I collected in essentially similar form from thre informants, one man and two women. Both of the women attend the Siri cult at Kabbitar. The second and third legend - "Sonne and Ginde" and "Mayage and Maipage" - were sung by the same informant, a woman who attends the Siri cult at Hiriyadka. For her, there are three separate legends

associated with the Siri legend which ends with the maya of Siri. I have not included her version of the legend of Siri, since my concern in this paper is with the metaphoric significance of the game of cenne, which is not a part of the life of Siri herself. This informant's version of the life of Siri does not differ in essence from the corresponding part of the full version of the legend by the other informants. For the legend of Sonne and Ginde, I give a nearly literal translation. The story of Mayage and Maipage, by the same informant, is somewhat more looselytranslated, but the reader will be able to see many of the same phrases and images. The informant becomes possessed by Sonne (and/or Ginde) during the cult rituals, and did so when she sang for me. I have included the portion of her recitation something of the transition from standard legend to cult verbal interaction. A full presentation of cult interaction would havenecessitated the participation of other cult members. Theinformant also became possessed when she sang the song of Mayage and Maipage for me. Here, I omitted the passages she sang while possessed

since they are similar to those in the Sone-Ginde recitation. The final story was obtained and translated by Mimi Nickter, who gave it to me. I include it here in the same form as she presented it. I heard the story in essentially the same form several times from Tulu informants living in different locations to the north of where I believe Mrs. Nickter collected this version. The story belongs to a distinct group of stories in which Siva and Parvati seemingly fortuitously meet 'distinguised in human forms' to become lovers, as happens in this one. The stories are not part of a cult tradition, though, as is true with the group of Siri legends. That the characters are gods taking human form, rather than humans assuming spiritual form may be the key difference. There is at least one other story (p a·dana), concerning a legendary petty chief, in which the game of cenne figures significantly. Mark Nickter also makes reference to this game in his material on cenne mane (Nickter 1979). In there, the game is played between

husband and wife, and leads, as it does I the Iswara Devere story, to a quarrel. I do not include the story here since it is not immediately available to me and does not, in my recollection of it, alter the analysis I have presented on the role of the metaphor. The Legend of Siri (A Synopsis) Once there was an old man named Berma Alva (called ajjeru, "grandfather" from Lanka Nadu, a place to the north, whoestablished a huge estate with many fields and tenants in a place called Satyanapura. Although wealthy, he had no descendants: "no males going in front to give support, no females coming from behind to give support, no nephews by his side, no grandchildren on his knees". Lamenting his situation, he vowed that he would give all his wealth as alms to beggars if he could have a child. Shortly afterwards,the god Brahma came to his door disguised as a beggar. Berma Alva, followinghis word, but not aware of the beggar's real identity, ordered his servant to give alms generously. The beggar, however,

refused to accept alms from the maid but insisted that the master of the house personally give him alms. When Berma Alva appeared, the beggar asked him why he was so sad. After the beggar heard Berma Alva's complaint, he told him that he had neglected his family's ancestral home, and had forgotten the needs of his kinsmen, had let his family shrines go to ruin, and for these reasons the family deities (bhuta and devaru) had prevented him from having children. To remedy the situation Berma Alva was instructed to renovate his ancestral house and shrine. With an enormous retinue of his tenants, Berma Alva returned to Lanka Nadu and repaired and renovated the family shrines. Following strict purity observances, Berma Alva had a large ceremony performed for the family god, Brahma, and all of the family bhutas. In outstretched arms he offered Brahma a flower pod from the areca nut palm (pingara), and begged the god to accept it and forgive him his neglect. At that moment the pod opened, revelaing a baby girl. Because

the baby was born of happiness (sant°sa) and truth (satya), the old man named her Siri. Siri grew up at such a phenomenal rate that when she was but five years old it was decided that she should be married. Berma Alva arranged for her marriage to Kantha Alva of Kadengadi and a huge sum of gold and land - all of Berma Alva's wealth - was given to Kanta Alva as Siri's dowry. But Kantha Alva had a mistress with whom he was very much in love, and even Siri's beauty and faithful devotion could not dissuade him from favoring a prostitute on whom he squandered all of Siri's wealth and property. When Siri became pregnant, her husband neglected his obligation to alow her to return to her natal home for delivery. He refused to perform the bayake ceremony, which honors the wife as she departs to her natal home. When Siri had not returned by the eighth month, Berma Alva went to see what was wrong. He insisted that Kanta Alva to buy a sari for Siri's return trip. Kantha Alva did buy a sari, but gave it to his

mistress instead, and presented Siri with a gaudy sari that had belonged to the prostitute. Siri, dishonoured by her husband's indifference and neglect, returned to her home alone where she gave birth to a son, who she named Kumaru. The father refused to come and acknowledge the child, so Siri cursed her husband's lands and estate, saying that born is fields and family would thereafter be barren (and so, it is said, they are today). It was foretold at the boy's birth that if the grandfather, Berma Alva, ever saw the child's face, he would die instantly, his father would go insane, and his mother would be forced to beg in distant lands. One day, when Siri was bathing the baby, she left the room momentarily to get a cloth. Kumaru was alone in the room when the grandfather walked by the door. Hearing the child play was too great a temptation for the old man. He went in, picked up the baby, and held it to his chest. He collapsed, and was found dead on the floor with the baby still in his arms when Siri returned.

Overcome with grief, Siri took the child and wandered aimlessly. She had renounced her husband, had lost her only kinsman, and her wealth had been squandered on her husband's mistress. As she wandered southward, she met two warriors (ksatriyas) who both desired her greatly, but recognized her as a virtuous woman. She bagged their help and asked them to regard her as their sister: "If you are older than I, call me meggedi, younger sister, if you are younger call me paldi, older sister". They brought her to a man named Kodsara Alva of Kotrapadi who asked to marry her. He insisted that it did not matter that she had been married before as long as they were married in a special ceremony called kaipatawuni ("taking-the-hand"). No dowry, no Brahman, no feast, no kinsman's consent would be necessary for this ceremony. Kodsara Alva was already married, however, and when his first wife got word of his intentions she devised a curse that if Siri were to look into a certain oil lamp she would go blind. Siri intuited that Kodsara Alva had

another wife, and guessed that the woman might be angered. She told him that she could not return to his house until his first wife consented and led her into the house herself. When Alva's first wife saw how honest and fortnight Siri was, and how pitiable her plight, she welcomed Siri into the household as a co-wife. At Kodsara Alva's house Siri became pregnant with a second child. Just before her time of delivery, Siri went to an areca nut grove at the edge of the jungle where she made a bed of betal leaves. There at dusk she had her baby, a daughter, whom she named Sonne. She buried the placenta, but in the night foxes came, dug it up, and ate it. She cursed them saying that they could never go near that place again. (Now there is a pondthere, where, it is said, the foxes never come.) At dawn she blessed the land that it might grow rice, dal, coconut, and bettle nut in plenty. Then she disappeared (maya) , but her spirit still guards the land. Sonne grew up in the home of Kantha Thola and later married Guru Marla of Urikitota. Together they made

a vow to Brahma that they would make him a big offering if he would favour them with a child. Sonne soon became pregnant and gave birth to twin girls, Abbaga and Daraga. Caught up in the joys of family life, they neglected their vow to Brahma. Brahma appeared to Sonne and Guru Marla disguised as a fortune teller. He foretold that they would suffer most deeply if they neglected their vow to him. All that the god had given them would be taken back. Quarreling would be their downfall. Guru Marla was angered by the fortune teller and told him to leave. One day, Sonne and Guru Marla went away from home, and left the twins alone with the warning not to quarrel. Knowing that they often quarreled about games, they locked the girls' favorite game, cenne mane, in a chest. After they were gone, Brahma, in the diguise of a Brahmin sage, opened the chest and suggested to the bored children that they amuse themselves with it. Soon they fell to quarrelling, and one hit the other over the head with the game board. She fell down dead. In terror of facing her parents for

committing such a heinous crime, the other twin jumped into the well and drowned. When the parents returned, thery were met by the sage who warned them that they should never neglect a promise made to a god, for all that they were, all that they had, was god's gift. What was given by god was taken away. The Story of Sonne and Ginde At that time Grandfather (ajjer?) Bermu Ballaveru lived in a manor in Lokanadu. Narayana Ajjeru! Grandfather Bermu Ballaveru! At that time Grandfather Bermu Ballaveru lamented "If only I had been blessed with descendants to (carry on) the manor. I must go to the adiko·i"1 . Oh, he was the Ajjer? of Narayana's Narayane! Grandfather Bermu Ballaveru went to the steps of the adiko·i and climbed to the inner court yard (anga¸a). "Our mulasana 2 is Lokanadu", said Grandfather Bermu Ballaveru.

"Today you must bless me with two girls to succeed me", said Grandfather Bermu Ballaveru presenting himself in front of the dambekallu 3. At the instant he asked, the Lord Bermeru created and bestowed to him two girls, Sonne and Ginde, on the right and the left sides. He created Sonne on the left side and Ginde on the right side. Lokanadu Bermeru. "For the pleasure of my words he gave (me a blessing)! As soon as I asked he gave (me a blessing)"! Two grandchildren: Sonne and Ginde: younger sister and elder sister, children 4. Then Grandfather Bermu Ballaveru at the adiko·i mulasana of Lokanadu picked up the children and carried them to the manor house. "Ah, children! You must stay and play and dance in the house", said Grandfather Bermu Ballaveru. Thus Sonne and Ginde remained playing and dancing. Grandfather Bermu Ballaveru saw the beauty of their feet, saying, "Ah, that the feet of those grandchildren of

mine should be most beautiful"! Grandfather Bermu Ballaveru had gold foot-chains prepared for them. Then Ajjeru looked at the beauty of their waists and had waist bands of three strands prepared for them. Grandfather Bermu Bellaveru! He saw the beauty of the children's necks: he had bracelets of twisted bands prepared for them. For the beauty of their ears he had earrings like bables prepared. Then Grandfather Bermu Ballaveru called to them: "Sonne and Ginde, children of Narayana, your infancy is gone, you leave it (behind)", Bermu Ballaveru said. "Oh Grandfather! Please listen, Ajjeru. When our infancy is gone and we are grown, you must listen Grandfather, we must play the game of cenne. We must have a cenne board. Our must be one with a silver board and gold playing pieces. A wooden board with playing pieces of pongara seed is not suitable for our play", the children Sonne and Ginde said. When she heard the words of Grandfather Bermu Ballaveru Sonne, younger sister, asked: "Narayana,

elder sister, oh!, are you getting the game of cenne which is in the family chest (kelembi) or am I?" "Narayana, younger sister, do listen, Sonne, you go, child, break open the lid of the family chest, bring back the golden playing pieces and the silver board", said the elder sister, said elder sister Ginde. She gor the golden playing pieces and the silver board. She went to the seventh floor. Younger sister, Sonne, went. She broke open the lid of the family chest and came (back). She opened the lid of the family chest. She took the golden pieces and the silver board and returned, Sonne, younger sister. "Come, sister. Let us play cenne" The cenne players; They sat. "The first game, child … will you go first, or shall I play first, child?". Asked the elder sister. Then Sonne said, "Oh elder sister, Narayana, elder sister! You play first, sister, you beat me" 5. "Oh, child, younger sister, listen", said the elder sister. "You listen, child, child of Narayan, even though you

were born after me, I am not (becoming) as smart as you, child. Listen, Sonne. I do not know your cunning and skill and cleverness. Fill the cenne board with the pieces. Put the seeds, the golden pieces in the cenne pits, the fourteen pits". Younger sister, Sonne, put (the pieces into the pits). Then they played cenne. They sat, Sonne and Ginde, the two girls. Thus as they were playing, Sonne won a game from the elder sister. "Narayana elder sister, a defeat for you"! she said, Sonne, the younger sister. "Narayana elder sister, listen! This defeat offer (bamile) to the honor (sammana) of your father-in-law (mami), the younger sister said. Then, she said, "We must reverse the cenne game, we must turn the board and play, elder sister". She had the board turned and they sat playing the game. As they played, thus, the elder sister was defeated a second time. "Ohy elder sister, listen! This defeat, elder sister, you must offer to the honor of your brother-in-law after your marriage. Narayana elder

sister, you played two games of cenne. We must sit for a third game, elder sister. You play first". "Narayana child, Sonne, I will not put my hand to the board. I will not play with pieces you have left while playing", elder sister Ginde said. Then for the third game they kept the board upside down 6. while they were sitting and playing the third game, Bermeru came and stood behind Sonne and Ginde 7. Lokanadu Bermeru! When they played the third game Sonne (again) defeated, do you hear, elder sister, you offer to the honor of husband's younger brother (maitinaye)", said the younger sister Sonne 8. Then the begging Brahman was standing there. "Ah, children, listen! Of you who is younger sister, who is elder sister?" asked the Brahman, the begging Brahman. "Narayana Brahman, you! You must listen! She is akka 9 to me, I am to her younger sister". "Child, listen. What are your names?"

"I am, oh, Brahman, hear, Sonne. Elder sister is Ginde". "Narayana, child you hear. Sonne, did you (yourself) having caused your elder sister's defeat, say (to give) the honor to (her) husband's father?" asked the Brahman. "In the second defeat did you say to give the honor to (her) brother-in-law?" asked the begging Brahman. "Narayana child, listen! Elder sister is you: you are elder sister. You are Ginde! No girl like yourself would listen to such insults. This very day they would raise the cenne board to Sonne's pate (netti)". The child muttered to herself. Sonne squirmed this way and that hearing these words of the elder sister 10. Narayana Ginde's anger is (filling) the seven realms; she is getting angry! Picking up the silver playing board she raised it to Ginde's head. (Ginde) left body and life and went to the heavens. Then the begging Brahman said, "Alas, child, Sonne, listen! You take a life for an anger? That is a great sin (papaga)", he said.

Thenthe younger sister lifted up the corpse and carried it out to the Lokanadu tank (kere). "Alas, Bermeru! Bermeru, you must make us, younger sister and older sister, Sonne and Ginde, (into the realm of) maya. In maya you gave uslife (j°ga): in life you must join us to maya, Bermeru!" 11. As of now we are of Lokanadu ancestors. Make use maya of Lokanadu shrine, Bermeru!" So saying, Sonne stands on the right side. She herself has asked Lokanadu Bermeru. He faced to the east and placed Sonne and Ginde in the left and the right. "Alas, children, you Sonne and Ginde, are Narayana children. On the right side of Lokanadu Bermeru you are called Sonne and Ginde. You are Siris, from this time on, in Lokanadu bu·u (manor). You who face the east, I shall cause to fly (parawe) and make maya. Fromnow on, you must go into the place of the ancestors (periya tana) 12. having become maya you must remain as theeast ward faces on the Eastern gate, "he saids. "Narayana children, you are Sonne and Ginde, younger sister and elder sister; you are the children in themanor house of the place of the ancestor. Leaving the place of the ancestor (you must

go to) a very great place, Kabattar Shrine, children. In the Kabattar Shrine you will be playing in many incarnations and they will call you Sonne and Ginde". At this time Grandfather Bermu Ballaveru says, "Alas, children, leave Kabatar Shrine. Children, it is a great shrine! You, Sonne and Ginde, playing and dancing in Urikitota! Today leave :Urikitota, children, take up Bolliyottu Shrine, children. There are silver playing pieces. They are leaving Bolliyotta Shrine. There is a very great shrine, children. They are called Sone andGinde at Nandolige shrine, children. There is Pangala Shrine -take up Pangala Shrine, children, Sonne and Ginde. Leave Pangala Shrine, children, Sonne and Ginde. Take up Kangottu Shrine, children. Setting out from Kangottu Shrine, go to Kallottu Shrine, children, Sonne, Ginde … the origina shrine (adi ko·i) of Goddess Kanchamma … for you, Sonne and Ginde, for Sonne and Ginde, for you … children, Sonne, Ginde, inside … in the circle inside … sutu puja! 13.

Narayana children! Inside, children, in Kallottu Shrine (sana) … suttu puja. Inside … shrine (gu¸·a), Sonne and Ginde … The Siris, children, get kaa puja, children. Leave Kangottu shrine, children … Inside the shrine there is suttu puja, outside there is kaa puja. Sonne, Ginde, seven Siris, children, leave Kallottu shrine, children and take (a place in) Kangottu … In Kangottu Shrine, children in the circle within … in the circle without … suttu puja and kaa puja … children, Sonne, Ginde. Narayana, children, Sonne, Ginde … Children, seven Siris, leave Kangottu Shrine, Sonne, Ginde. Take (a place in) Pangala Shrine. At Pangala Shrine in the inner circle, children, there is Suttu bali, in the outer there is kaa puja. For you, children, Sonne, Ginde, seven Siris. A very great place children, Sonne, Ginde, is Nandolige Shrine. Inside is the inner puja (playi puja); outside is kaa puja. Sonne and Ginde, seven Siris, leave that place, children, seven Siris, enter Bollivottu Shrine, children. In the inner circle there is bali puja, children, for Sonne, Ginde. In the outer circle there is kaa puja, children Sonne, Ginde, seven

Siris, children. Leave Bolliyottu children, in Urikitota there is a very great shrine. In the place called urikitota, in the inner circle, children, the bali puja inside, in the outer circle, children, the kaa puja are for you. Leave Bolliyottu Shrine, Siris, seven Siris children. Kabittar Shrine, children, is a very great place for Sonne and Ginde, a very great incarnation, children for Sonne and Ginde. Stand in the inner circle, children. In theinner circle a bali. Stand in the outer circle and get a kaa puja. Seven Siris, leave Kabittar, children. Let us take a place in our ancient place, children. Let usstand in theEastern gateway. Seven Siris, we Sonne and Ginde, in the inner circle, we have bali puja; in the outer circle … There are seven Siris, Grandfather, in Lokanadu. Grandfather Bermu Ballaveru, we are our ancestoral Shrine, in the Eastern Gateway, standing firm doing penance, Grandfather. There is bali puja of the inside circle for us, Grandfather. In the outer circle there are fourteen kaa puja for us. We have joined the shrine (gu¸·a) in the ancestoral place, Grandfather … 14 Our ancestoral place is the original shrine (adi k?di) of Lokanadu

Bermeru. We get Lokanadu Bermeru's blessing (baya), Master 15. The Story of Mayage and Paipage At that time lived Cenneda Parwati andDevenda Gali Krishna Kumar. Gali Krishna Kumar had a cenne board prepared out of silver andhad the playing pieces made of gold. He kept these in the family chest. "Oh, Parwati, even though you were married with proper mystical libation, you have not born a child within the year. You have not had a menstrual period either. You are all alone in this palace. If you are sad, there is a silver cenne board with gold playing pieces in the measure chest. When you are lonely and sad, take it out and play. Parwati rose and went to the chest. She opened it and removed the silver board and the gold pieces andbrought them out. She set the game up, filling the fourteen holes with the gold playing pieces. While she was playing, Lord Bermeru of Lokanadu appeared behindher in the guise of a poor Brahman.

"Child, Cenneda Parwati, listen! You have not had your monthly period, nor born a child this year. There is no seed I your womb 1. Why are you sitting alone here playing the cenne game?", asked the Brahman. "Oh, lord! Who is behind me talking?", cried the startled Parwati. She looked behind and saw theBrahman. "Alas!, You, Brahman, where did you come from? Where are you going? What do you want?" "Child, Parwati, will you listen to me? Come to Lokanadu. Lord Bermeru of Lokanadu will give you descendants", advised the poor Brahman. Then he went away as mysteriously as he had come. Soon afterward, Gali Krishna Kumar returned. "Oh, husband, did you hear that? 2 We must go to Lokanadu. God will bless us with children", said Parwati. "Let us go then", Kumar replied at once. They bathed head and body and set out immediately to the primordial shrine of Lord Bermuda of Lokanadu.

"Children, why have you come?" asked the Lord of them when they presented themselves. "There is nothing for us in my Parwati's womb. She has not born children", said Gali Krishna Kumar. Then Bermeru called Parwati forward. "Come, Parwati, hold your sari out and receive my blessings". Parwati did asshe was instructed to do and stood before Lord Bermeru. As she received his blessing, he gave two children to her womb, twins. They took prasada and returned to their palace. As they were returning, the water of life 3, which had hithertofore gone uselessly from Parwati's womb, was retained and began to develop. Month after month of pregnancy passed for Parwati until on the ninth day of the tenth month her term was filled 4. Thelabor pains indicated two children were in her womb. "Oh, husband! The pain of twins is in my womb!" she called out. She gave a mighty push and bore two babies. She tied their navels and wiped up the after-birth. She sprinkled water around them to protect them and placed them on the flower of the arecanut palm.

She observed the proper ceremonies for the removal of pollution on the third, the fifth and the seventh days. When the sixteenth day came, she spoke to her husband saying, "Husband, according to our cste, we must have the great pollution removed during the night of the sixteenth day. You must call the people of the village. We must set up a cradle for our children and give them names. Kumar went down among the villagers and called them to come to the palace for the ceremony on the sixteenth night. (On this night a cradle will be tied to the house beams and the children would be placed in it for the first time and they would be given names). On that night, when all the guests had arrived, Parwati herself tied the cradle and put her children in it. As she put the children in the cradle, she gave them their names: Mayage and Maipage. The girls grew at a phenomenal rate. When they were but sixteen days old they looked to be a month. When they were one month, they appeared to be two months. By the time they were three months old they were able

to turn themselves onto their stomach and crawl to the dooraway where they would rest their heads on the doorsill. Their father would look at them fondly and think, "What remarkably beautiful children we have". Soon they had grown to be beautiful young girls. Kumar said to Parwati, "We must get ornaments to adorn our two girls fitting of their beauty". For their waists he had three-stranded gold chains made; for their armshe got thebracelets of twisted gold bands; for their necks he got golden necklaces and pendants; for their ears he got them large golden earrings; and fortheir feet he got them anklets with tiny golden bells. He got them each every kind of fine ornament they needed. At that time,the girls had fully grown. From girls they became women. Thye told their mother, "Oh, Mother, we have grown up. We are no longer girls. We wish to play cenne: you must get it for us". "Is the one with the silver board and the golden pieces suitable for you or should I get one of wood with pieces

made of the red berries of the coral tree. Which, children?" "We don't know how to play with a wooden board, and even if we did, we, Mayage and Maipage, would not play on a wooden board with the coral tree seeds". "There is the ancient one, children, the one with the silver board and the glden pieces. Will you play on that one?" The two children cried, "Indeed, we will mother. We shall sit and play cenne with the silver board and golden pieces". Just then, Parwati spoke to her daughters on another sbject. "Children, you have grown up now. You became women. When girls come of age, there is one blessing which is given in this world. By the grace of god, for each man there is a woman. This is your fate. We shall go to find a husband for each of you", said Cenneda Parwati.

"Oh, Mother, you must listen. We shall not get married. We shall not look at a man's face" 5. Alas, children, if you will not marry, we your father andmother, will be disgraced. Terrible things may be said about us. Our honour and prestige will be eroded", relied Parwati. "Oh, Mother! It will not come to that. It is simply that our line will end. We don't want to look at a man. Weshall not get married", replied Maipage. "There are the gold pieces and the silver board in the ancestral chest. We shall play cenne". She got up quickly and went to the chest and threw open the lid. She took out the silver board and gold pieces and brought them to the palace courtyard. There older sister and younger sister sat playing cene. Meanwhile, their mother and father went looking for husbands for their daughters. As the twins sat down to play, Maipage said to her elder sister Mayage, "Elder sister, although you were born before me and I after you, you do not have my

cunningness and cleverness. I take pleasure in learning tricks and delight in new strategies even though I am the younger sister". They filled the "house" of the silver board with the gold pieces. "Sit and play, elder sister", said Maipage encouragingly. As they began thegame, she challenged, "Who will win, elder sister, you or I?" "You go first, child", said the elder sister. So Maipage began to play. She played until soon she won over her elder sister. "Elder sister, listen! Our mother and father went out to find husbands for us. If they come back having found one, you give what you owe as a presentation to your mother-in-law, your husband's mother". So saying, they began playing another game of cenne. In the second game, again, Maipage was victgorious over her sister. "Older sister, I have won again! The winnings from the second vistory you must give to your husband's older brother, your brother-in-law. Offer it as a presentation".

At that time, Lokanadu Bermeru appeared disguised as a poor begging Brahman, holding a flute. He went to where the twins, Maypage and Maipage, were playing cene and quietly stood behind them. Maipage said, "Elder sister, we have only, played two games. We must play another. Let us turn the game around. Then, perhaps your luck will change". They turned the game and illed the 'houses' with gold pieces. Whilethey played the third game, the poor Brahman stood behind them unnoticed. The younger sister won this third game they unnoticed. The younger sister won this third game as well. "Oh, elder ister, this winning you must give to he who is born at your husband's back, his younger brother, your youngest brother-in-law and to your husband himself". The Brahman heard these words and spoke to the eler sister, saying, "Oh, child, did you hear the Maipage? Do you hear the younger sister's pride over victory in the cenne game? Your self-perfect has been utterly destroyed. If it were I, I would raise thecene board to the top of her head".

Hearing these words in her mind, the elder sister lifted the cenne board and raised it over the top of her younger sister's head. She brought it down with a crushing blow. The younger sister fell dead. The Brahman told Mayage, "Child, alas! Having killed your ister, can you wander o this earth any longer?" "Rama, Rama, Lord, what can I do?" She picked up the body of her younger sister and went to the well. She put the body into the well and then threw herself into it, taking her own life. In the well, two flower pods of the areca palm appeared and floated on the surface. Son afterwards, Gali Krishna Kumar and Cenneda Parwati returned. "There are no men suitable for our daughters in the village", dismayed Parwati. Coming to the palace, they called out to their chidlen, "Mayage, Maipage, where are you? When tey received no answer, they began to search all around the premises. Wondering where her childen would have gone to, Parwati looked in the well. There she saw the pair of areca flowers pods floating on the water. "Oh husband, come here! Quickly! Our children are missing and

there are two areca flower pods floating in the well! That can mean but one thing". Kumar came and went down in the well and removed the flower-pods. . "Quickly, husband, we must go seek help from Bermeru", Parwati cried. Taking the flower pods, Kumar and Parwati go to Lokanadu. Kumar went before Bermeru and stood. "Till today, our childen were born into this worldly realm. God made them to become flower pods of the areca palm in the realm of maya", replied Bermeru. Cennada Parwati cried, "We, too, want to leave this worldly realm and join in the realm of maya". To this Bermeru replied, "For you, also, there is a shrine, Cenneda Parwati and Gali Krishna Kumar. Go and stay at the south door of the temple at Hiriyadka. Your children are there. In the form of a pair of areca flower pods, Mayage and Maipage, girls, to and stay at the east door of thetemple at Hiriyadka". Thus Bermeru commanded a boon to both parents

andchidlren. Mayage and Maipage, twin girls, stood at the East door, Elder Sister and Younger Sister. (Following this, the singer, Kargi becomes possessed and thevoice are those Mayage and Maipage, who speak to one another. Their speech, strictly speaking, is not part of the Pa·dana). Ishvara Devere (translated and annotedby Mimi Nickter) Ishvara Devere and Parvathi Devi decided to play cenne chaduranga 1, so Parvathi went up to the 7th floor and brought down the golden and silver beads needed to play the game. They set up the board andbegan to play. Ishvara Devere lost the first house in the first game, andwhen they played a second game, he lost the second house. When they played the third game, he lost a third house and hen they played a fourth game, he lost a fourth house. They played a fifth game and a sixth game and a seventh game andhe lost them all. After he had lost the ninth game, Ishvara said, "I'm hungry and thirsty. My head's spinning and I

feel giddy. Quick, Parvathi, go inside and bring, me milk and water". Parvathi got up to get the milk and water for him. As she crossed the threshold of the room she tripped and banged her head on the top of the door. "Ayyoyo papone! Ullane dosane! Why has the threshold obstructed me and the upper part of the door hit me?" then she thought to herself, "These obstructions may be a sign of some inauspicious act which is to befail me!" 2 Bringing the milk and water, Parvathi returned to the cene table. As she sat down, she notied that the cenne board had been turned around so that the winning side now faced Ishvara. Parvathi became furious and kicked the board over. Seeing what she had done, Ishvara became angry and grabbing her by her braid, he slapped her. Jumping in anger, Ishvara said, "I'm going to shoot birds". Then he cursed Parvathi by saying, "I hope your silk sari is eaten by white ants!" He stormed out of the house, taking with him his golden knife, silver snuff box and silver lime box.

As soon as he left the house, Parvathi began to menstruate. For three days she remained outside, and on the fourth day she made preparations for her bath3. She crushed soap nuts and she called theMadivala boy to bring her ma·I clothes 4. When be bought them she said, "Keep them on the plank on the porch". Then she brought him water to wash his hands and she gave him a large rice me 3al. when he was through eating, Parvathi said, "Take betal leaves and arecanut as you want". He chewed and then she brought him a cup of oil with a spoon and she poured heaps of oil onto his head. Then she took a measuring pot and she filled it with rupees and gave it to him 5. "Now, I'm leaving, elder sister 6, said Madivala. "Yes you may go now", said Parvathi. As soon as he left, Parvathi thought to herself. "Now I think I'll have a look at my god silk sari in that trunk". When she opened the trunk she found that it had been ruined by ants! "Ayyoyo papone! Ullane dosane!" she cried, putting the sari back into the trunk.

Parvathi quickly pounded some charcoal and added water to it to prepare a paste. She smeared the paste on her face to make herself black. Then she changed her sari, put on a muale cap of a Korpalu, and took a curved knife 7. Then Parvathi went to the forest and sat down at the base of a tree. Using her curved knife like a comb, she began to pick the lice from her hair. While she was doing this, along came Ishvara Devere. He stopped by her and said, "What are you doing here, ka ·? Korpa½??. "Oh nothing Devere! I'm just sitting here and picking lice from my hair!" replied the Korpa½u. "Don't stop what you are doing because of me", said Ishvara. "I've got some arecanut, so sweet that the bats have chewed its outer husk and I have the choicest of betel leaves. Let's chew together!" "Oh no, I don't want to Devere!" said the Korpalu shyly. "I have my own arecanut that I collected from

fallen nuts, and I have some wilted leaves that have already turned yellow. What's mine I wil chew!" But Ishvara was insistent. "What you have, you keep for later. Let it remain with you. Let's chew the tender leaves that I have and let me hold your hand!" "Ayyoyo devere! What kind of a way is that to speak to a ka ·? Korpa½??" she said. "What difference does it make if you are a ka ·? Korpa½?? You're a human being aren't you? I'm a human being aren't it? Our blood is the same ins't it?" answered Ishvara. "What you are saying is not right", she said. "You are a Devere and I am a ka ·? Korpa½?". The Ishvara and the girl remained in the firest together for two days and three nights 8. On the third day, Ishvara said, "I'm going now, ka ·? Korpa½?".

"If you are going, then go, but just one thing. If I get pregnant, who will pay for my expenses?" "I will provide for your needs. Here, I have a golden knife, a silver case for lime and a silver snuff box. I also have a golden ring with my sela. Take these things. Use them for your expenses if you get pregnant!" said Ishvara "Now I am going back to my palace, ka ·? Korpa½?. Ishvara ran back home by one path while Parvathi ran home by another path. When she returned to thehouse, Parvathi quickly took a bath, put on kumkum, the red dot, and combed her hair. Before she even had a chance to put on her sari, Ishvara arrived home. He sat down on the swinging plank and Parvathi brought him milk in a dish and water in a bowl. As she gave him the water she said, "I have the feeling that you had some sex with someone" 9. "No, I didn't", said Ishvara.

"Didn't you have sex with a ka ·? Korpa½?? When you left here you took your golden knife, your silver box for lime, and the silver snuff box. Didn't you give those things to the ka ·? Korpa½??" "I didn't give them to her", said Ishvara. Don't say things like that about me. I don't do it!" "Don't lie to me! The ka ·? Korpa½? came here and gave those things to me!" "Where did you see her?" asked Ishvara. "She came here and gave them to me", repeated Parvathi. "Didn't white ants eat your silk sari?" asked Ishvara. "No, even though you gave vara as you were leaving, nothing happened" 10, answered Parvathi. "While I was gone, what did yu do? What happened here?"

"Nothing happened here!" said Parvathi. "I didn't hold the hand of a Madivala nor did I eat the enjal? of a Madivala" 11. Then Ishvara drank the water and the milk she had offered him and said, "You have no defects. You were born from truth. Let us be on god terms together".

THE WORLD OF TEYYAM : MYTH AND THE MESSAGE Jawaharlal Handoo Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore Teyyam is a living folk cult, widespread in northern Kerala State of India, particularly the two northernmost Districts of Cannanore and Kozhikode (known also as Calicut). In the southern parts of Kerala, the cult is, by and large, absent, although in central Kerala some scattered versions are reported. Similar (and sometimes identical) cults have been reported in other parts of South Asia. For instance, recent studies have shown that thecult existed in pre-Buddhist Ceylon (Paranavitana, 1929), ancient Tamilnadu (Vanamamalai, 1969) 1 and is still quite common in modern Sri Lanka (Wirtz, 1954; Yalman, 1964; Obeyesekere, 1966; Seligmann, 1909). Existence of a similar cult has been recently reported from Rayalasima area of Andhra Pradesh (Roghair, 1978). Another interesting example of a cult to teyyam has been reported recently from the coastal South Kanara

cult (Claus, 1973; 1975; 1978). This area is geographically very close to northern Cananore District of Kerala where teyyam flourishes even today 2. Scholars (Kurup, 1973; Vanamamalai, 1969; Claus, 1978) who have studied various aspects of folk cults have labeled it as a "hero cult" and "possession cult". It is true that heroic deeds and possession sometimes form important aspects of this cult, but on closer examination of oral traditions and ethnographic evidence, these do seem to be as cental to the overall phenomenon of the clt as to justify the label. For instance, the aspect of "possession" seems to vary. In bhuta it is very intense and overwhelming, and in teyyam it seems causual and peripheral 3. Similarly, the concept of hero-worship historically might have formed an integral component of the overall religious pattern of ancient Dravidian culture, as is sometimes evidence of scattered references available in ancient Tamil literature and equally scattered and scanty archaeological evidences found

particularly on "hero-stones" in Tamilnadu (see Vanamamalai, 1969; Kurup, 1973; Hart, 1979). However, a synchronic study of oral traditions related to teyyam and even bhuta clts, does not entirely support this view. For instance, more than 70% of the narrative materials connected with teyyam are in no way concerned either with wars, battles or so-called heroic deeds. Similarly in 30% of the narratives, women are the main characters performing deeds other than the ones which generally are considered heroic in nature. Teyyams of these female characters are performed by males. Females are traditionally forbidden to perform ritualistic dances . The Dravidian "hero" is not always what we think of as heroic. On the basis of a local Tamil epic (Brother's story), Beck (1978) tried without clear success to apply Raglan's (1936) Indo-European heroic life pattern as resketched by Jan de Vries (1963) to the hero of the Tamil epic. Blackburn (1970) also worked on Tamil epics to define or redefine the concept of hero. Consider his following remarks: "More important is the astonishing fact that none of the 22 biographical

motifs which define the courtly hero in Raglan's scale is found in this ballad (p.136)". These and other remarks of Blackburn are self-explanatory and advise caution on the subject of hero pattern in Dravidian cltures. Sometimes certain metallic objects such as swords, bows, knives, etc., which are worshipped in little shrines at the time of the annual festivals and wielded ritualistically by the performers on these occasions, are interpreted by scholars as an additional symbolic evidence to prove the heroic nature of the cult. Such scholars fail to link these objects, even symbolically, to the deed the characters, male or female, perform in the narratives. They also fail to explain the deeper religious and totemic significance these objects might have possessed andwhich might be ultimately explainable in terms of various levels of Dravidian religious thought and cultural categories. Lévi-Strauss, as early as 1966 commented on this phenomenon. According to him:

"It is towards the south (India) that the reversal in the relation of natural species and objects or manufactured goods becomes particularly conspicuous … few plants and scarcely any animals figure in the names of the clans … On the other hand the following names are found: … knife, scissors, … silver, flint, bangle, gold ring, picaxe, stick, bamboo tree" "… This heterogeneity is most apparent in India where a high proportion of totemic names are names of manufactured objects, that is, of products or symbols of functional activities which -- because they are clearly differentiated in the caste system - can serve to express distinction between social groups within the tribe or caste itself" (1968 : 120-121). DESCRIPTION OF TEYYAM What Teyyam 9 is, is a comlex religious system, and a highly structured ritual folk performance of dance, song and narrative, all rolled into one. Each deity has its own variety of teyyam and t°am (narrative song) which is usually performed in the kavu (Shrine) meant for that particular deity. The number of such shrines,

and their location, is usually mentioned in the mythical narrative, as we shall see later. A number of such deities and their shrines are located in Kolathna· 5. Every village has at least one such shrine. Many deities have more than one shrine. These deities are worshipped periodically, usually annually, in these small shrines, which do not share any architectural features either with the north Indian towns. On the occasion of worship, the performer is called Kolakkaren ("the man who takes the form of god") (See Ashley, 1979 : 100), and wears a special dress and mask peculiar to the deity he is going to perform 6. After some ritual,s the performer begins his teyyaam (dance) and delivers thenarrative. In the background high-pitch music is provided by instruments such as cenda, takilu (drums) Ko½al (mouth-pipe) and Ceramangalam (bells). These narratives of varying duration, and by and large etiological in character, are sung along with the performance before a spellbound audience. The narrator, who is the performer and personifies the deity, becomes possessed 7. The audience is formed

mostly of those low-castes whose deity is being worshipped. Some high-caste members may also join the audience, but they watch the performance on a separate platform (Patipura). Some members of the audience may also become possessed, depending on their personal circumstances 8. The performance usually takes place during nights. Almost all teyyams are offered sacrifices on this occasion 9. Only a few deities are worshipped in the vegetarian manner. Mucl°t Bagavati happens to be one such deity, who, I am told, is worshipped in satvika (vegetarian) tradition. Teyyam is not an isolated phenomenon, but a complex which has continued to incorporate different deities, rituals, and symbols over the past several centuries. These include thefold and greater traditions of Kerala and wider Indian Hindu traditions. There has been and still is, continual interchange among the three. "Thus", writes Ashley, "one is able to find spirits and family anestor worshipped alongside "Hinduized" Teyyam like Visumurthi and the Ramayana deities, Rama and Sita; meat-eating gods next to vegetarian

gods; Sanskrit rituals and prayers next to folk rituals and beliefs" (1979 : 100-101). The most important and significant aspect of the teyyam cult is t°am 10 or the narrative songs. In fact these are mythic narratives, resembling ballads, and are usually sung at the time of ritualistic festivals. These t°ams usually tell the stories of the gods -- their origins, deeds, heroic or other exploits, inner conflicts, contradictions, etc. -- in whose honour the rituals are performed. T°ams are of varying length and seem to have preserved the most ancient elements of Malayalam language (Kurup, 1973 : 38). At the same time, these also have been influenced to some extent by Sanskrit language. People generally complain the t°ams are hard to understand unless sung repeatedly, with all the internal repetitions. Although there is no linguistic research available on this aspect of t°ams, it does indicate that the variety of Malayalam used in these narratives is much older. In spite of these difficulties, people enjoy watching t°am performances and participate actively I the narrative event. I was told, that since people already remember the "story" of

the t°am, the music 11 and the performance invoke that story, and the narrative event takes place. Of course much depends on the performer's ability to deliver the item in terms of his actions and performance. A successful performer is "not supposed to simply enact the character of the spirit (deity), but rather he becomes the spirit. The ballad [t°am] enables him to merge his personality with that of the spirit" (Claus, 1978 : 7). This explains why some of the performers (or performing castes like va¸¸ans) 12 are considered "efficient" or "experienced". Having outlined some of the major aspects of teyyam, qwe would now like to examine two narratives (pudiya bagavati and muttappan) in the light of these aspects of the cult, and the information we were able to gather from the interview with the narrator (performer). This should enable us to delineate some of the structural correlations which exist between the narrative, the narrator and the cult. Our objective will be to show that these narratives, which are central to the cult and direct the ritual, are conscious or unconscious manifestations of the mental andsocial activities of the

communities involved in this cult. Although we shall not strictly follow any "school" in our line of analysis, the approach is certainly inspired by Lévi-Strauss (1966, 1969, 1975) 13. PUDIAY BAHAVATI 14 Siva created a woman: Srikurumba. She asked him: "Why did you create me? What am I spposed to do for you? Siva replies by saying that why should she bother about such questions. He has to do something with her. Saying thus he gives her one irinnavuri (1 kg. Measure) of rice to be sown during aswati and barani days. Srikurumba expresses doubts whether the rice will grow: "The rice you gave me na½½acin (father) will grow or not who knows? Even if it grows it might be ruined". Saying thus she throws thre gains of rice on the face and twelve thousand on the chest of Siva. With the result he gets trukurupu (small pox) on his face and

vas£ri (?) on his chest. She inflicts similar disease on other devas (male gods) particularly those who were pattilattu baatira (Brahmins). The disease spreads like wild fire and people are separated from people, so much so that the parents discard their children. The devas overcome with worry and frustration gather to meet Siva (mahadeva) and request him for rmedy. Siva orders for a h°maku¸da (ritual fire) and after forty days of worship and offerings (naupari devata ("one who saves this and the other world") 15 emerges out of the fire. She puts the same question Srikurumba had put to Siva, when she was created. However, Siva explains the tasks to the newly created goddess. Says he: "Srikurumba is spreading disease andruining thewhole world. We have to stop it". Then he gives her an irinnavuri of golden powder and charges her with the responsibility of curing the disease and resurrecting those who have been effected by it. Naupari devata first tests the device on Siva himself. Heis cured. Soon after devas are also cured.

Thus ends the segregation of the diseased and the nondiseased. Both naupari devata and Srikurumba meet Siva again and receives gifts from him. Srikurumba is given pandara ponnu (gold treasure) and Naupari devata, pa·i ponnu (silver-treasure) and six ladies to assist her. Both goddesses bury their hatchet and decide to be friends. They also agree to share things in equal measure in the near future. While departing Naupari devata, asks Srikurumba if they should go towards ka·alarige (see-side) or malayarige (hill-side). They, however, decide that Naupari devata will go towards the hill-side and Srikurumba towards the sea-side. Srikurumba, accordingly goes towards the sea-side and is given a place of honour in the "central room" (pa·innaa) 16 in the house of a fisherman called Sankupala (protector of conch shells) 17. Naupari devata, takes towards the hill-side, puts a fortress on fire, arrives in k°akk°½am and kills all the fisherman. She next meets a Brahmin who was on his way to ambalam (high-caste temple) and asks him if

she could join him. The Brahman agrees. Both reach a place called pa·arku½am. The Brahman and the new goddess take a ritualistic bath before entering the high temple. She attacks the Brahman unawares and kills him and changes him into a viran. Soon thereafter the goddess meets a woman who questions her powers. Naupari devata, at this point, turns the bright day into a dark night and makes her extraordinary powers known. The goddess continues her journey and wakes Mallaceri Kurapa, a Nambiar (high-caste), at midnight and asks him to offer sacrifice and perform her ritual. The Nambiar agrees. In gratitude she presents him with some golden dust she was given by Siva. Henceforth the goddess becomes pudiya Bagavati. She expresses her last wish to her companions: "Now we must settle down and cure people". "They visit many places ("one can find shrines at these places even now") such as Kapp°ttu, Kouvoppuram, Muil, Cer?upar?as, Edamanna, Valturi, and Paipurti. All these seven places are north of Va ½apaa¸am river. MUTTAPPAN 18

There lives once a rich Namb£dari(Brahman) couple. They are childless and hence spend most of their time in worshipping the gods and praying for a child. One day Namb£dari's wife goes bathing in a nearby stream. Suddenly she hears some noise, looks around, but finds nothing. She continues bathing and hears the noise again. This time she looks around and sees a wooden plank afloat. The plank comes ashore on its own. She is surprised to find a male child on it. Accepting the child as a gift from god, the Namb£dari woman carries the child home and the couple adopt him as their son. As time passes, the child grows as a youthful boy; but he is unhappy and disinterested in the rituals of Brahmin household where he was being raised. Instead he likes to go to the forest with his low-caste friends and hunt birds, animals and eat them. He also starts drinking toddy (an alcoholic drink). Since all such habits are against the Brahman custom, his father scolds him and threatens him, but the boy ignores him and continues hunting, meat-eating and drinking.

One day while returning home late, he finds his father and mother quarreling, obviously over the misdeeds of their son. He soon locks himself in to a room and refuses to open the door to his father, but opens immediately when the mother knocks at the door. The mother is bewildered to see the young boy's divine appearance, particularly his fierce eyes shining like a sun. The boy promises to do as advised and leaves is home. The boy goes to malayarige (hill-side) called perlimala and leads the life of a hunter. He hunts birds and animals, roasts and eats them. He also collects toddy and drinks it. Since he needs more toddy he decides to steal it from a Tiyya named Candan. Finding his stocks of toddy missing regularly Candan's anger increases, he keeps a strict watch and discovers the boy-hunter's theft. He scolds him. The boy-hunter react by cursing Candan, changing him into a stone. Candan's wife reaches the place in search of her husband. She recognizes her husband in the shape of the stone; and also finds the boy-hunter sitting on the top of a tree enjoying his drink. She weeps and wails and addresses

the boy-hunter as Muttappan ("mother's elder brother") for help. Muttappan comes down, revives Candan and assures the couple that no longer would he steal their toddy as he was going to Kunnatpa·i. However, before leaving he asks them to worship him by offering toddy, dry-fish and green gram. A shrine stands at the place now. After recording the texts the texts of these two narratives, I posed some general questions to the informant, particularly concerning the narrative of Pudiya Bagavati, the narrator's own past, his caste, his relations with other castes, etc. Here are some ofhis answers, which I thought are more relevant to the present study: 1.

Q

What is the

:

caste of the goddesses in the

pudiya

Bagavati story? A

It is nottold

:

in the story … they were created Siva,

by they

had

no

caste. Caste is

a

later

developmen t.

Deeds

make castes. 2

Q

How

does

.

:

the goddess die?

A

Goddess

:

cannot die. They (Goddeses) cannot

be

destroyed. 3

Q

Why do you

.

:

like Pudiya Bagavati?

A

For

all

:

things I like her.

She

can

grant

anything. She can do things which

we,

men

can

never

do.

She

has

powers … 4

Q

Why

.

:

Srikurumba go

did to

the

sea-side and the

other

towards the hill-side? A

Because

:

shebelonged to sea-side.

Pudiya Bagavati belongs

to

hill-side. She is our goddess and shehas

to

live in the hill-side. 5

Q

Why did the

.

:

goddess kill the Brahman before

he

became vīran? A

Because the

:

goddess wanted

to

make hm a god lke her. He had to

leave his old self to have a new one. This change was necessary to make

him

non-human. 6

Q

Has

.

:

story

this

something to do with caste system? A

I don’t know

:

… may be. I like

it

because

of

tradition. My

father,

grand-father …

performed the

teyyam

and I also do it. 7

Q

Which

.

:

castes perform the of

teyyam Pudiya Bagavati? A

Only

my

:

caste

…

va¸¸ās perform it. 8

Q

Who

.

:

performs the

teyyam

of Srikurumba ? A

Nobody

:

performs

(it). She has no

kāvụ,

¶o¶¶am. No one can do her teyyam. It

is

not

possible. 9

Q

Why did the

.

:

goddess

go

to nāmbiār at the end? A

Because he

:

was not a Brahman.

1

Q

Tell

0

:

something

.

about

me the

hierarchy of caste system of

your

village. A

Brahmans …

:

Nambūdaris are on the top,

then

Nāmbiārs; then Māryars (temple musicians); then Ambavilās (garland markers

in

temples); then Vannattāns (washermen of the above castes). Then Nāyars … they have many groups:

Calian Nāyars (cloth weavers), Velut°dan Nāyars (I do not what

know they

do), Maniyani Nāyars (they

do

stone-work) Murari Nāyars(they also

do

stone-work) … they came with

a

goddess. Then Tiyyas (toddy

tappers) and the Kavutiyyens (barbers

of

(Tiyyas). Then us … Va¸¸ans (washermen and performers) … we give mā¶¶u

to

the women folk of high castes

for

menstrual purification. We

also

give

cloth

for

kāvu.

Then Viswakarma

s (“craftsmen” ). They too have groups: Asāri (carpenters) ,

Musāri

(brass makers), kollan (black smith)

and

To¶¶an (goldsmith). Then Malayans (musicians of

shrines

and exorcists),

then Vēlans (basket makers), Mu¸¶āuns (perfotrmer s),

A¸u¶ān

(performers ).

Then

there

are

Pulluvas (medicine men … their women

are

midwives, [who] clean houses and make baskets). That is all … I don’t think I forgot any. 1

Q

Do

you

1.

:

believe the

in

caste-

system? A

Yes

…

:

never accept food

I

from

low-caste people such as Polayan. I

dislike

them

…

Brahmans are good … sātika (“pious”) people. 1

Q

Do

2

:

believe

.

you in

the goddess? A

Yes.

:

Everything

related

to

goddess

is

true. It has happened in the past, we don’t know when.

You

see

the

places

…

everything …

is

true. the

all See

water-

pool

in

Bayyanur … where

the

goddess killed

the

Brahmin … still becomes red during

night.

I

have seen it with

my

own eyes. 1

Q

What is the

3

:

meaning of

.

this story? A

The

:

meaning

is

not kown to me. I know the

story

andthat

is

the meaning for

me.

Some power is there that protects, fulfils desires, drives evils …

of

1

Q

Besides the

4

:

goddess, do

.

you believe in

other

gods

and

goddesses of highcaste Hindus? A

I believe in

:

Siva but not Vi À ¸u . I also believe in

other

gods

like

Rāma, kr,À¸a

…

but they are different gods … their temples are different. Our

gods

need sacrifices. 1

Q

From whom

5

:

did

you

learn

the

story

of

.

Pudiya Bagavati? A

From

my

:

father … he learned

it

from

his

father

and

so on. 1

Q

Did you ever

6

:

make

.

any

changes the

in

story

you learned from

your

father? A

No,

the

:

story

is

sacred

and

pure

…

sometimes the words or music change

…

then people don’t

like

changes. They remember the

story

and

want

the

same

story. 1

Q

It seems the

7

:

language of

.

the ¶o¶¶amiss very old and stiff.

How

do

people

enjoy them then? A

They

enjoy

:

the story … which

they

remember. They

also

enjoy music and dance. 1

Q

Tell

8

:

something

.

me

about

yur

own family?

19

A

My name is

:

Odayana Va¸¸ān (age 56).

My

wife’s name is (age

Va¸¸ati 42).

She

cooks,

washes

…

we

are

washermen besides performers … we have children. More

than

me, my wife believes

in

teyyam.

I

lost my eye in the recent performanc e. I know it …

goddess

appeared to me in the dream … I will continue

performing. We are nonvegetarians. Like

our

gods

we

enjoy

meat

eating. Syntagmatically (see Handoo, 1978 : 61) the narrative of Pudiya Bagavati can be reduced to three main episodes: (i) the creation of Srikurumba and Naupari Devata, fulfillment of their respective tasks and settling down on sea-side and hil-side respectively (here ends the role of Srikurumba); (ii) emergence of Naupari Devata as a fierce goodess, and killing of the Brahman (viran); (iii) goddess' meeting with Nambiar, destruction of temple walls, further killings, and the final journey to various places. One of the striking qualities of this narrative is that in spite of a somewhat weak syntagmatic chain that holds these three segments together, paradigmatically they seem to be related very closely to each other. In other

words, some sort of a unity at the thematic level is maintained across these loose segments. Conflicts or "contradictions" of caste and group identity seem the dominant theme of this narrative. For instance, high caste, along with its deeds, actions and attitudes towards other caste groups, is symbolically represented by Srikurumba and the smallpox disease which is contagious and segregates people otherwise equal in all respects; one important aspect of their equality is their common source (Siva). That Srikurumba is a metamorphical expression of highcaste identification is supported, more than once, by the information provided by my informant (see answers 4 and 8). She has no °am, no teyyam; she cannot be worshipped by low-castes. That is why she decides to settle on the seaside - the realm of the highcaste. She also has the right to call Siva (source of all humans?) na ½½acin ("father") and the right to inflict disease or cause segregation. These rights, in terms of high-caste philosophy. These rights, in terms of highcaste philosophy, are her birth rights.

The fisherman is ironically called sankupala meaning the protector of conch shells (which have tremendous ritualistic significance in high-caste temples known as ambalams); he recognizes Srikurumba as a goddess by offering her a place in the "central room". He has to suffer for his action of violating the social norm. He is not where he belongs; this is substantiated by the gfact that he is found in the realm of the high-caste (seaside) although his social status identifies him with the low-caste (hill-side). Again he recognizes, and attempts to worship, a goddess who is not the goddess of his social group; and instead of being called fisherman (a non-vegetarian profession) he is, in accordance with his actions, rightly called "protector of conch shells" or protector of others' norms and vegetarian substances (conch shells). Therefore, for violating the social norms he deserves to be punished. The oppositions of high-caste Vs. low-caste, sea-side Vs. hill-side, vegetarian Vs. non-vegetarian, etc., available in the first part of this narrative are represented by various characters and their actions. If

there are any "mediation efforts" that satisfy the structuralist usage of the term (see Lévi-Strauss, 1969 : 210; Maranda and Maranda, 1971 : 37), they seem to be unsuccessful (or "zero mediation") as is clear from the fllowing diagram :

Let us now look at the second segment of the narrative. Interestingly, it seems that here also we are dealing with a similar phenomenon, although in an "inverted" form, expressed in the same narrative logic as we saw

in the first segment. The main event in this part of the narrative is thehigh-caste Brahmin's agreeing to Naupari Devata suggestions of visiting ambalam (highcaste temple) and suffering (he is killed) as a reslt of this action. In other words what the fisherman tried to do in the first part of the story, Brahman tries to repeat in the second part, in an inverted form. If a fisherman, who is a low-caste, non-vegetarian and hill-side dweller, attempts to enter the realm of the high caste, which is quite opposite to his own realm, he is rejected, loses his own identity and becomes "dead". Just so, a Brahman who is high-caste, vegetarian and a sea-side dweller would lose his own identity and become "dead" by making an attempt to enter the realm of the lowcaste. In both cases, crossing the socially accepted boundaries results in social "death" 20. Thus, fisherman: low caste: hill-side: non-vegetarian:: Brahman: high-caste: sea-side: vegetarian.

Before commenting upon some of the problems revealed by the above analysis, it is worthwhile to cover the third and final part of the narrative, and then sum up the results. In the third segment, the goddess mets with the Nambiar; a non-Brahman member of the high-caste, directs him to worship her and offer sacrifices. This is the crucial event. Pudiya Bagavati's final journey, along wither companions, towards thehill-side beyond the Va½apaaam river, should be treated as additional information regarding the seaside/hill-side dichotomy already discussed. In the caste hierarchy of northern Kerala, particularly Cannanore, the Nambiars seem to occupy a middle position. Like Nayars, they possess the attributes of both the high-caste and the low-caste. This becomes

more readily evident when we look into their kinship pattern and food habits (see Gough, 1959). This "middle" position of the Nambiar, expressed less clearly in day-to-day social activities, seems rather more clearly expressed through the medium of folk narrative.

In Cannanore and its surrounding areas in north Kerala, three types of worship-places are identifiable: ambalam, kavu and madapura. While ambalams are usually huge stone structures closely resembling the temples one notices in other major towns of South India (where gods of the classical Hindu pantheon are worshipped), kavus are small wooden structures with no parallels elsewhere; they are intended solely for theworship ofindigenous gods and goddesses. Another clear distinction is that kavus are generally located on

the hill-side (there are some on the coastal belt also; but, I am told, this is a recent development) and ambalams on the side of the sea. Moreover ambalam is a vegetarian complex, while kavu is a non-vegetarian complex, essentially a place of sacrifice. Madapura is, in a way, a "big" kavu and seems quite recent. It retains all the essential characteristics of kavu, even the architectural qualities. Only one madapura exists in the area. This is dedicated to muttappan. Therefore the distinctiveness of these two realms, identifiable by the low- and high-caste dichotomy, and formulated into the basic mental conflicts expressed in the narrative, seems logically very close to the social activities and the order they have been given. This is further substantiated by the role of Va¸¸an, the caste which performs teyam, Va¸¸ans occupy a very low position in the caste hierarchy, but some of the roles assigned to a Va¸¸an in the overall caste network suggest his important mediating position not only between the highcaste and low-caste, but also between the realm of divine and human within his own low-caste world. He seems to fulfil these roles at this

conceptual level, both vertically and horizontally, each supporting the other. A Va¸¸an, though low-caste, has powers to "purify" high-caste women by providing them the menstrual cloth (mau) (see informants answer 18). He also provides the special purifying "cloth" to the kavu for use on annual festival. It is rather tempting to compare this dual role of Va¸¸an with that of Brahman. This places Va¸¸an parallel, if not very close, to Brahman in the society as shown in the following diagram:

In addition to his role as a "purifier" in the usual ritualistic sense, the Brahman possesses the power of purifying other castes; this is due to his role as mediator between the human and the divine kingdoms. For instance, in Kerala, Brahmans marry

their sons (barring the eldest) among other caste as Nambiars, Nayars etc. (who, it would seem, are elevated to this high-caste status as a result of this "relation" or act of "purification"; otherwise they are traditionally considered low-castes). In other words, Brahmans perform this act of purification through their sons; the purification of a low-caste woman (vagina) is doenthrough a Brahman's son (penis). Reciprocally, the purification 21 of a Brahman woman (considering her vagina as the menstrual path) is doneby a low-caste Va¸¸an's cloth, since (as we have shown above) Va¸¸ans also "purify" kavu with "cloth", it seems, then, that in the Brahmans, case, the power to purify is assigned to hispenis (resulting in a new kinship order); while in the Va¸¸ans case, power to purify an equally polluted substance, is assigned to his cloth (resulting in no change in the kinship order). Moreover, Va¸¸an being a washerman, he could not be symbolized more appropriately than by a piece of clean cloth. To sum up: Brahman/penis: purification/non-Brahman (vagina) :: Va¸¸an/cloth: purification/Brahman (vagina)

One can also look at these oppositions and their respective relations from a totally different viewpoint. Va¸¸ans are much inferior in caste rank, notonly to Brahmans and other high-castes, but even to Tiyas who are themselves low-castes. There are other "untouchable" castes such as Malayan, polayan etc., who are inferior to Va¸¸an and who he "does not like" and "does not like to eat or sit with"; unlike Brahmans, they are "not pious" (see informants answer 11 and 18). This suggests Va¸¸ans are caste-conscious and that they suffer from an ambiguity of social identity due to their special position in the complex hierarchical system. The Va¸¸an's ideal is the pious Brahmin (see

informants answer 11) and the high-caste; he can overcome the frustration this ideal inspires, despite his own position in the hierarchy, by virtue of the specific roles, of purifier and mediator. These parallel the roles of Brahman and are therefore the source of his powers. At this conceptual level, he becomes the "Brahman" of low castes, and thus mediates between the realms of the divine and the human. Therefore, it is not without reson, that Va¸¸ans are both washerman and teyyam performers functions which have no obvious connection in the real life, but which are closely connected at the conceptual level:

Let us now look at the other narrative, i.e., of Muttappan. This narrative also can be reduced to three syntagmatic parts: (i) the "origin" of non-vegetarian (low-caste) Mttappan in a vegetarian (high-caste, Brahmin) family, (ii) his quarrel with the "parents" and departure toward the hill-side and (iii) encounter with Candan and his wife and final journey. In another version 22, the narrative has a fourth segment as well. We shall come to it later. In the first segment, the narrative clearly reveals that Muttappan possesses all the attributes of a hill-side

dweller or a low caste. His actions (drinking toddy, hunting) indicate that he might be a Tiyya. Thus contradictions and conflicts of caste seem to stem from the first segment of the narrative itself. Moreover these oppositions become apparent in sets quite similar to the ones we notice in the narrative analyzed above. These oppositions, as we shall see, direct the narrative development to its logical conclusion. It needs to be emphasized, however, that unlike the first narrative, a new opposition - i.e., male/female - seems to emerge in this narrative, within the main oppositions. Thus:

In the final segment, the caste-Vs.-kinship opposition

is augmented with a tension between the male and the female system; this emerges andbecomes very clear in the second segment of the narrative: the woman (Brahmin's wife) attempts to mediate these opposite realms of caste, sea-side, hill-side andabove all the kinship systems. It is interesting to ntoe that high-caste, particularly Brahmans, in northern Kerala, follow the makkatayam (patrilineal) kin order, while the low-caste, including those who seem to have been elevated to "high-caste" ranks by virtue of their matrimonial alliances with the Bramans, follow marumakkantayam 23 (matrilineal) system of kinship. These two systems of kinship should be viewed in the wider context of a pan-India patrilineal kinship order which forms the basis of law, social rights, and obligations of the land 24. Under such circumstances, it is quite reasonable to believe that socially inferior groups, following the matrilineal system (most of the Dravidian groups of South India are patrilineal) - a system of the Brahmans, thesuperior caste. Thenarrative, then, does not only

reflect this thrust and thethreat it causes, but also reaffirms the institution of matrilineality. This is symbolically expressed and can be see in various elements of the narative. For instance, thevery name Muttappan means mother's elder brother 25, who is the matrilineal kinship order. While Muttappan in all segments of the narrative refuses to yield to the commands of the male (who represent patrilineal order) he easily accepts the orders and fulfils the wishes of the female kin (representing matrilineal order). These relations become very clear when we examine the fourth part of the narrative, as recorded in another versions: "… After worshipping Muttappa a Tiya Kaaranavar (head of the family) was sleeping on the king's arayaltara (stone stage beneath a Peepul tree). The king considered this act as polluting and hence killed the Tiya by his silver sword. Muttappa rushed to this place and killed the king and his family …" (Brouwer and Payyanad, 1978 : 3).

Among the Tiyyas and other communities, when mother's elder brother (Muttappan) also becomes the head of the family. He is known as karanarvar, meaning "mother's elder brother and the head of the family". The king, a descendant of the patrilineal system, kills a Tiyya with his silver sword 26. This is his response to the social threat posed when the matrilineal family tries to usurp his stone (firm) stage. But since Tiyya is a caste which Muttappan belongs to, the god must (and does) act in retribution. Therefore, this part of the narrative also confirms the conflict between two kinship systems. As is caste, kinship also is itself "deeply imbued with the hierarchical principle expressed by the opposition of purity and pollution" (Claus, 1975 : 52) and it provides much of the raw material for the narratives concerning s, 1975 : 52) and it provides much of the raw material for the narratives concerning teyyam. Not all such materials establish a justification of matrilineality as does the story of Muttappan; some actually reveals the system's potential pitfalls and tragedies. An excellent example of the latter would be

the narrative of Makkam (see Kurup, 1973 : 60), which is structurally close to the story of Siri of Tulunad, which, according to Claus, "is a charter for the institution of matrilineality … [and] its tragedy" (1975 : 53). This cursory, and to some extent fragmentary examination of a few narrative samples suggests that the cult of teyyam need be studied in its entirety. Historical and ethnographic studies of the cult have not recognized the importance of the narrative materials which are so central to the cult of teyyam. Furthermore, by studying teyyam narrative data structurally, as we attempted in this brief study, we believe that the entire narrative material can be reduced to narrative set or sets and the messages underlying these sets deciphered. There are more chances of these messages being limited in number although the number of narratives seems unlimited. This line of analysis should be useful to know more about the thought patterns underlying these narratives which are so important to understand the cult and the communities who follow it. This should also help in

discovering some meaning in these narratives which otherwise look chaotic and illogical as do most of the narratives of this type generally. Another important aspect which we hinted as but did not elaborate upon in the first section of this paper, is that scholars seem to have ignored the deeper aspects of narrative phenomenon, while labeling the cult as "hero cult". Little attention, if any, has been given to relate the narrative structures to the overall phenomenon of the cult, in a holistic manner. Ethnographers, who have worked on various aspects of Dravidian studies have by and large ignored oral narratives and even other forms of folklore as an important evidence for cultural inquiry. Oral traditions cannot be isolated from other culture phenomena. They share the logical devices and thought patterns of the entire culture. It is imperative then that scholars try to extrapolate such thought patterns from other equally important cultural forms as a whole in an attempt to reveal more facts about the mode of thinking of the culture.

Moe narrative forms of a similar nature from other related Dravidian cultures need to be examined on similar lines to substantiate the sort of oppositions we delineated in the above samples. Oral as well as written narrative forms, proverbs and even riddles of many Indian tribal cultures are loaded with similar (if not identical) opposition based on clear historical truths sometimes. To cite an example Meiteis in the State of Manipur are traditionally known as "People of the valley" and other tribal groups as "People of the hills". One need not dig the "unconscious" to find this opposition as it is available on the surface of mythology, songs, literature, art and the entire cultural phenomenon. As I said earlier, the cult of teyyam is a highly complex phenomenon and as such demands simultaneous study from various view points - folkloristic, linguistic ethnographic, religions, etc. For instance a religious study of the cult may tell us something more about the theory and practice of the Dravidian religious model. In view of recently published interesting research findings on South Indian (particularly Tamil) religious

and devotional aspects (See Hart, 1979), it would be interesting and academically useful to extend the scope of this research to the cult of teyyam so that we might be able to trace some of the missing elements in reconstructing the outline of the picture of indigenous Dravidian religious thought.