![]() ![]() Puthiya Bhagavathi begins to circle the temple compound, spinning furiously so that the flames burn with even more vigour. The Oracle hands Puthiya Bhagavathi a sword and the musicians gather round, beating their drums with increasingly harsh blows. The intensity of tonight’s ceremony shows no signs of diminishing. Puthiya Bhagavathi’s headdress is now ablaze, and the fire torches protruding horizontally from her skirt are also burning furiously. A few seconds later, the men take turns to run bare-foot through the smouldering ash, creating explosions of red hot sparks. I instinctively step back a little, feeling unsure about what is to come. Accompanied by pulsating drums, the Oracle leads a hypnotic dance around the smoking embers. The Oracle, ( Velichappadu or Komaram in the Malayalam language) is a kind of intermediary known as the ‘Revealer of Light’. Another assistant adorns her wrists with bright red floral bracelets. An assistant takes the large bowl containing a thick red paste which has been blessed at the shrine and smears it over the Theyyam’s arms and torso. Puthiya Bhagavathi emerges from the darkness, resplendent in a heavy headdress ( mudi) and a skirt made of layered coconut leaves. The air fills with smoke as they fan the dying embers until the ashes glow red - a sign perhaps of the fiery ritual dance that is soon to follow. After the base layer of scarlet and orange has been prepared, the symbolic details are added in black, using a fine quill made from a coconut stem.Īt the shrines, some of the assistants rake the ashes remaining from the fire into a neat square pile in front of the temple. The vivid make-up completely masks the human face, taking several hours of skilled artistry to apply. The Theyyam who will shortly become the goddess Puthiya Bhagavathi (pictured above) is preparing for his transformation in a discrete area set back from the main temple under the trees. 'Face-writing’ is an integral part of the external metamorphosis from mortal to deity. It’s about 5am in the morning, and for the last few hours I’ve been immersed in my first Theyyam ceremony at a small Hindu temple on India’s Malabar Coast in North Kerala. Three Theyyams have already appeared this night, each one in a trance-like state, embodying the spirit of a different deity. ![]()
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