that for many teyyamalso defines the space of an alternate worldview and hedge
against their continued colonization by Western epistemes that purport to be
global in their reach and penetration.
Note
1 The author’s dissertation (1991) would still seem to provide the most comprehensive
cultural and historical coverage ofteyyamworship in English (there are numbers of
studies in Malayalam cited therein); other general treatments in English include
Kurup (1973), Ashley and Holloman (1990), Pallath (1995), Nambiar (1996), and
a nice pictorial selection in Shah and Sarabhai (1994). See also Menon (1994) for
the modern historical context, and the recent documentary film on one particular
deity (de Maaker 1998).
References
Ashley, W. and R. Holloman. 1990. “Teyyam,” in Indian Theatre: Traditions of Performance,
eds. F. Richmond, D. Swann, and P. Zarrilli, pp. 131–50. Honolulu: University of
Hawaii Press.
Ayrookuzhiel, A. 1996. “Chinna Pulayan: The Dalit Teacher of Sankaracharya,” in The
Emerging Dalit Identity: The Re-assertion of the Subalterns, ed. W. Fernandes. New Delhi:
Indian Social Institute.
Claus, P. 1978. “Oral Traditions, Royal Cults and Materials for a Reconstruction of the
Caste System in South India,” Journal of Indian Folkloristics1: 1–26.
Davis, R. H. 1991. Ritual in an Oscillating Universe: Worshiping S ́iva in Medieval India.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
de Maaker, E. 1998. Teyyam: The Annual Visit of the God Vishnumurti(film). Watertown,
MA: Documentary Educational Resources.
Diehl, C. 1956. Instrument and Purpose: Studies on Rites and Rituals in South India. Lund:
Gleerup.
Flood, G. 2000. “The Purification of the Body,” in Tantra in Practice, ed. D. White. Prince-
ton: Princeton University Press.
Freeman, R. 1991. Purity and Violence: Sacred Power in the Teyyam Worship of Malabar.
Ph.D. dissertation, Dept. of Anthropology, Universtiy of Pennsylvania. Ann Arbor, MI:
University Microfilms Incorporated.
——. 1998. “Formalised Possession among the Tantris and Teyyams of Malabar,” South
Asia Research18: 73–98.
——. 1999. “Dynamics of the Person in the Worship and Sorcery of Malabar,” in
Possession in South Asia: Speech, Body, Territory, Special Ed. ofPurus.a ̄rtha21. Eds. J.
Assayag and G. Tarabout, pp. 149–81. Paris: École des Hautes Études en Science
Sociales.
Hart, G. 1975. The Poems of Ancient Tamil: Their Milieu and their Sanskrit Counterparts.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kurup, K. K. N. 1973. The Cult of Teyyam and Hero Worship in Kerala. Indian Folklore Series
no. 21. Calcutta: Indian Publications.
the teyyam tradition of kerala 325