This chapter investigates the performance of madness in the ritual art of Teyyam through the figures of Chaatthan and Parava. It explores how madness is rendered through intersecting axes of caste, gender, disability, and animality, and how these categories become visible in both the myths and embodied practices of Teyyam. Analysing Karinkuttichaatthan Teyyam reveals how disfiguration, rage, and liminality are staged as forms of divine madness, particularly in relation to caste-based sorcery, non-human embodiment, and ritual aggression. Parava, on the other hand, is examined as a female deity whose association with possession, pain, and crooked movement reconfigures madness as a gendered and cultural expression of unruliness. Her performance challenges the normative codes of feminine behaviour, reflecting deep-seated anxieties about control, conformity, and social order. Together, these figures demonstrate how Teyyam reclaims madness as a ritual strategy that transforms disfiguration into divine agency and cultural commentary.

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Madness: Narratives of Chaatthan and Parava

  • Akhila Vimal C.

摘要

This chapter investigates the performance of madness in the ritual art of Teyyam through the figures of Chaatthan and Parava. It explores how madness is rendered through intersecting axes of caste, gender, disability, and animality, and how these categories become visible in both the myths and embodied practices of Teyyam. Analysing Karinkuttichaatthan Teyyam reveals how disfiguration, rage, and liminality are staged as forms of divine madness, particularly in relation to caste-based sorcery, non-human embodiment, and ritual aggression. Parava, on the other hand, is examined as a female deity whose association with possession, pain, and crooked movement reconfigures madness as a gendered and cultural expression of unruliness. Her performance challenges the normative codes of feminine behaviour, reflecting deep-seated anxieties about control, conformity, and social order. Together, these figures demonstrate how Teyyam reclaims madness as a ritual strategy that transforms disfiguration into divine agency and cultural commentary.