structural changes » structural change (Expand Search), structural causes (Expand Search), cultural changes (Expand Search)
ritual structural » ritual structure (Expand Search), ritual structures (Expand Search), social structural (Expand Search)
changes within » change within (Expand Search), challenges within (Expand Search), exchange within (Expand Search)
Kerala's Puḷḷuvas and Pāmpum Tuḷḷal : An Ethnography of Ritual Practice /
:
Kerala's Puḷḷuvas and Pāmpum Tuḷḷal is a story about the lives of Kerala's Puḷḷuva ritual specialists and their days-long ritual performance, pāmpum tuḷḷal, or the "jumping dance" of the serpent deities (nāgam or pāmpu). The ritual is commissioned by members of Kerala's landed communities to bring health and prosperity to their extended families. Belonging to an ancient South Indian tradition, the ritual is orchestrated by Puḷḷuva ritual specialists, who hold the sole hereditary right to perform it. This book is the first in Kerala to approach this ritual tradition from the viewpoints and agency of its Dalit (formerly known as 'untouchable') ritual specialists-men and women, and to examine Puḷḷuva ritual practice in the context of rapid and extensive social change. The study sheds important light upon Puḷḷuva rituals, lives, and livelihoods, within the broader contexts of changing class, caste, and kinship relations; land tenure and ritual patronage; labour migration; and the decline of Nāyar matrilineality and old landed families. These wide-ranging social trends, indexed and acted out in ritual, are the backdrop for understanding Puḷḷuva ritual practice from the 1980s, and in terms of history, point to multiple structures and hierarchies of practice and meaning. The combination of the focused study of ritual performance and traditional ethnography allows readers to witness the ritual practices and lives of members of a small, real-world community rendered virtually absent from the historical record. It's extraordinary to hear from Puḷḷuvas in their own words and to witness their dedication to their sacred profession, at a time when the world they knew was rapidly falling apart. But thirty-plus years later, the story-at least for now, has a happy ending; both Puḷḷuvas and pāmpum tuḷḷal are thriving.
:
1 online resource (268 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004753372
The Monks of the Nag Hammadi Codices : Contextualising a Fourth-Century Monastic Community /
:
This work tells the story of a community of fourth-century monks living in Egypt. The letters they wrote and received were found within the covers of works that changed our understanding of early religious thought - the Nag Hammadi Codices. This book seeks to contextualise the letters and answer questions about monastic life. Significantly, new evidence is presented that links the letters directly to the authors and creators of the codices in which they were discovered.
:
1 online resource (330 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004699083
Kaṭṭaikūttu : The Flexibility of a South Indian Theatre Tradition /
:
This book gives an insight into Kaṭṭaikkūttu, a living Tamil theatre tradition. Taking the perspective of performers as a starting point, it analyses how this theatre tradition has been able to adjust itself to changing conditions and challenges because of its inherent flexibility. The phenomenon of flexibility pervades both the formation and internal arrangements of theatre companies and the actual performances themselves. The first part of the book focuses on Kaṭṭaikkūttu in its historical and social context. It traces the theatre's disengagement from its organic embedding in the social and ritual village organization and its transition towards a more autonomous and more professional regional theatre form during the last fifty to hundred years. This transformation was accompanied by processes of professionalization and commercialization, which had their impact on the practitioners and the performances. The second part of the book provides a detailed analysis of the working of oral Kaṭṭaikkūttu texts in performance. Through a flexible handling of the oral - verbal and musical - material within the boundaries of a relatively fixed framework underlying these texts, Kaṭṭaikkūttu performers try to fulfill to the best of their abilities the demands of sponsors, audiences and occasions.
:
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004644922