Bleeding Foreheads

Abstract

Undertaking a study on the ritual-healing performances, namely Kodungallur Bharani and Chottanikkara Verpadu, of Keralam, this paper contextualizes blood as a ‘form’ and ‘content’ of the performances. Bleeding bodies of both these practices expose the complex spectacle of real blood and real body mutilation. In both these practices, the mutilated body in a deranged state of trance and possession indicates a strong visual representation of pain and bloodiness – while one is a way to divinity, the other to healing. It examines the visual representation of pain and bloodiness in the mutilated bodies of both practices and considers how blood can become a mask for healing or achieving divinity. Through analysing these practices, this paper tries to understand the explicit nature of blood in Keralam’s ritual practices and how these traditions engage with identities, mutilation, divinity, madness and healing in a ritual context. Kodungallur Bharani and Chottanikkara Verpad offer multi-layered subjectivity that possesses various caste, gender and ethnical identities. While drawing down these expositions, this paper will also create a dialogue between inner narratives on the representation of blood in these practices and address the broader question of mutilation, gender and identity. Therefore, the paper will also explore how these practices challenge the ‘moral’ and ‘aestheticized’ imagination of the region and its ‘refined’ transformation. The use of blood and other forms of bodily expressions in these rituals challenges dominant cultural narratives as to what is acceptable and appropriate and provides a space for the expression of alternative forms of cultural identity. Overall, this paper offers a critical perspective on the use of blood in these ritual performances and its broader cultural and social implications.

Notes

1 A form of billingsgate songs accentuates with the Bharani festival of Kodungallur. They are also called Bharanipattu and Terippattu.

2 A stick with small bells that accentuate the rhythmic aspects of the song.

3 A person from the Velan community, who holds the right to enter the temple marking the beginning of Kavuthindal.

4 It begins on the Bharaṇi asterism in the Malayalam month of Kuṃbhaṃ and culminates at the Bharaṇi asterism of Meenaṃ.

5 In Chottanikkara, forehead mutilation was a common element of exorcism/healing rituals up until the recent past. Even though there is no official ban in place, these days the practice is less common or explicit. However, a symbolic representation is still practised during the ritual. Possessed individuals will hit the nail with their head two or three times and thereafter a coconut is used to nail it deeper into the tree. Yet, many related to the temple claim that, when exorcisms or possessions become particularly intense, some still practise nailing with the forehead occasionally. The temple forbids use of any type of documentation of the practice, including photography, on its premises.

6 Velichappadu/Komaram could be translated as Revealer of Light. They are the oracle or mediator between a deity and devotees. Temples across Keralam, especially Bhadrakali temples, consider the presence of Velichapad as integral to rituals.

7 A title that the elder of the Pilappilli family holds. It is believed that Goddess Bhadrakali after killing Darukan came first to this house and hence they hold the title.

8 Daiva Vyapashraya Chikitsa (Treatment with the support of god/divinity), is one of the three treatment methods of Ayurveda for body ailments and psychological attributes. This method is often tried when one fails to find the cure with medicine.

9 This is a daily ritual at most of the temples in Keralam where the main deity is taken out of the sanctum sanctorum for a procession inside the main boundary wall of the temple.