The Last Women Oracles: From the Land of Bharanipattu

Abstract

ABSTRACT In Kerala, a three-thousand-year history of the cult of Mother Goddess worship and women priesthood in Kodungallur, the former historical port of Muziris, points directly to the last women oracles of Kerala. Kodungallur has the unique tradition of Bharanipattu (singing profanities and dancing, on the day of Meena Bharani) every year and once a year, the female oracles from all over Kerala travel to the Kodungallur temple to worship Kodungallur Bhagavati, or Kurumba Devi, the manifestation of the furious Lord Kali, the central deity of all Mother Goddesses in Kerala temples. This paper attempts to listen to the narratives of the last of the oracles to retrieve their muffled, mysterious, and almost erased voices from folktales, anecdotes, folksongs and other forms of oral and written literature.