Monday, July 30, 2012

Coorg Festivals - Puthari

The Puthari feast is held in honour of the annual rice harvest. The name is derived from the Malayalam pudi-ari, new rice, by the rules of Coorg grammar transformed into Puthari. The festival occurs under the sign Scorpio, which succeeds Libra. The Malayalam festival takes place two months before that of Coorg, because the rice on the coast ripens two months earlier.

Six days before the chief festival of tasting the new rice, all the males, from six to sixty years of age, assemble on one of the Mands of the Grama, after sunset. Mand is the name of the open public place in which business is transacted or festive games carried on. Gramas have generally three Mands, one called the Panchayati-mand for business; a second, Devara-mand, on which dances are performed in the name of Bhagavati during the after-Puthari days; a third, Oor-mand (i.e. the Mand of the village) on which the Puthari performances take place.

Three Coorg men step into the centre of the open space, and call aloud three names: Ayappa! Mahadeva! Bhagavati! The men stand in a triangle, their faces towards the centre, their backs towards the company. Ayappa is the Coorg forest-god; Mahadeva, the Siva of the Hindus, and Bhagavati his wife.

The chandu-kutti, or ball-and-peg play, now follows. The whole assembly takes part in it, the moon shedding a bright silver light on the scene. A peg is driven into the centre of the chosen ground. A piece of rope is fastened to it by a loose loop. The people who make this preparation, seize some one who must hold this rope. A piece of wood, generally of a creeper called odi, is cut into seven parts, which are called chandu, i.e. balls. The man holding the rope puts six of these balls in a circle round the peg at a distance of the rope's length, the seventh is deposited close by the peg. The whole company now endeavour to pick off the balls without being touched by their guardian. The player in the centre, always keeping the rope's end in one hand, turns round and round, and tries to touch one of the aggressors. If he succeeds, the person touched must take his place and the play recommences. When six balls are abstracted, the seventh must be moved to the distance of one foot from the peg. When this also is lost, the man has to run through the whole crowd, and escape without being caught to the musicians' place. If he reaches this asylum in safety, the play is won and finished. If he be caught on his way, he is brought before the nettleman, an officer of the play-court, who has been waiting all the time with a long angare stick - a large fierce nettle - in his hand, for the victim. His hands and feet are well touched with it, and the play ends.

The assembly next perform different kinds of plays and dances, which one generation learns from another. These appear to represent the wars which in ancient times were waged between people of different districts, and are accompanied with all manner of jokes and buffoonery. The broader the humour the more it is relished.

The seventh or great day of the Puthari falls on the full moon. Early in the morning, before dawn, a quantity of leaves of the asvatha (ficus religiosa), kumbali and keku (wild trees), some hundred of each for big houses, together with a piece of a creeper called inyoli, and some fibrous bark called achchi, are collected and deposited in a shaded place for the use of the evening. At sunset the whole house prepares for a hot bath. The precedence is given to the person whom the astrologer has chosen in the morning for the ceremony of cutting the first sheaves. On his return from bathing, he repairs to the threshing floor, spreads the Puthari mat, and while the rest are engaged in their ablutions cuts the inyoli creeper into small pieces, rolls each piece into three leaves - one of the asvatha, one of the kambali and one of the keku, in the fashion of a native cheroot, and ties up the little bundle with a bit of achchi fibre. All the bundles are placed in the Puthari basket.

Now the women take a large dish, strew it with rice, and place a lighted lamp in it. This done, the whole household march towards the fields. Arrived at the chosen spot, the young man binds one of the leaf scrolls from his basket to a bush of rice, and pours milk into it. He then cuts an armful of rice close to it and distributes two or three stalks to every one present. Some stalks are also put into the vessel of milk. No one must touch the cutter of the first-fruits. All then return to the threshing floor, shouting as they move on: "Poli, poli, Deva!" (increase, God!). A bundle of leaves is adorned with a stalk of rice, and fastened to the post in the centre of the threshing floor.

Festival ends with the ninth day Nad-kolu, which is an assembly of the whole district and in the afternoon of the tenth day, the Devara-kolu which is a stick-dance in honor of Bhagavati. Dinners are held at different houses of appointment, and terminate on the eleventh day with a large public dinner, which is given on some open plain in the forest, when the musicians, bards, drummers, Holeyas and Medas unite their exertions to give eclat to the festivity.

The Bhagavati feast takes place during the two months preceding the monsoon. Different localities differ in the time of its celebration. Two or three villages have one Bhagavati temple in common, and support it jointly. The feast lasts nine days. During the first six days, every morning and evening, the idol is carried three times round the temple in procession.

The Bhagavati festival is celebrated with less vigour that the three main festivals and is one of the Coorg festivals which depict a lot of Brahmanic influences.


Source: Mysore and Coorg, Vol. III by Lewis Rice

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