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The Malabar Kettukallianam

Our Kettu Kallianam or more properly Thali Kettu Kallianam is an important ceremony amongst us. It must be performed before the girl in respect of whom it is celebrated attains puberty. But I dare say there are instances in which it has been put of till after the attainment of age by a girl and in which the girl’s Tarawad has in no way suffered. During the progress of the historic legislation concerning Malabar marriages some opponents of the measure based their objections upon the fancied religious nature of Kettu Kallianams and their dignified status as a proper substitute for the kind of marriage which the reformers sought to legalize viz, the legitimate union of the sexes. But this position was found by the eminent members who sat on the said Marriage Bill Commission under the presidency of the late Sir Muthusami Iyer to be so untenable that they felt no compunction in characterizing the ceremony as perfectly useless as a substitute for the other kind of marriage, viz the lawful wedlock of man and woman. This ceremony has been not inaptly described by some of our native leaders of thought who were examined as witnesses by the said Commission as a “mock-ceremony” possessed of no legal or social force. It is a ceremony at which a string with a small golden tali attached to it is tied for the first time round the girl’s neck. The several items of it may be briefly detailed as follows: Astrologers are, of course, consulted and an auspicious day and moment are selected for the performance of the ceremony. Then at another auspicious moment a cocoanut tree is cut down for use in connection with the ceremony, which process is styled “Puzhuthengu Murikkal.” This over, a large Pandal, a temporary shed, is erected in which to conduct the ceremony and the feasting of guests incident to it. Preparations proportioned to the means of the family are made and guests are invited. Then follows what is popularly called Ashtamangalliam Vekkal, that is the formal opening of the ceremony which may be done a day before the ceremony or if necessary earlier still. On the day previous to the ceremony the Attazhom feast is celebrated. On the night of this day the girl is dressed up in fine clothing and adorned with gaudy ornaments and is led by some of the tribeswomen to a reserved spot inside the house with flaring touch lights held in hand by them. Then some ceremonies are performed there attended with singing of songs by the Brahmini women who is practically the officiating priestess in attendance at the whole ceremony. Then all these together lead the girl to the pandal where she is seated with her whole body except the face covered with a piece of fine cloth and some ceremonies with song by the said priestess are gone through. The tribeswomen likewise gather round the girl. There may according to circumstances, be more girls than one for the Kallianam who may belong to any of the related families of the clan. After this comes a sumptuous feasting of guests and others. The place where the girl is seated for the ceremony inside the pandal is also a particular one of a square shape with the ground-floor made of clay stirred up and beaten down. Four poles of arecanut timber are stuck on the ground at equal distance and these are also connected on the tops by means of arecanut beams. The roofing of this is made of cotton or silk cloths and hangings made of tender cocoanut leaves are attached to these beams downwards.

The next day, that is the ceremony-day the girl is again properly dressed up and adorned and is led a little before the appointed moment to this reserved spot. There she is taken round the square shed three times and is led on to the worship of the sun called Athithianethozhikkal.In some places this is done on the bare ground in others on the top of a terraced shed erected before hand with four strong pillars and a ceiling of wooden planks. The girl then accompanied by the clanswomen and tribeswomen is taken to the top of this ceiling and is there made to worship the sun. In the mean while another process has to be gone through which is designated mulla kondu varal. It consist in the carrying in of small stalks of the Jessamine plant placed inside a pitcher together with some other ingredients previously taken to a neighbouring temple and consecrated by the performance of a pooja by the temple priest with the pitcher placed near the idol. Inside the pitcher is also placed the tali which is to be tied round the girls neck. This vessel with the substances in it is brought near the shed either held in hand by some Brahmins or carried on an elephant’s back with drums beating and trumpets blowing. It is then carried up the ceiling and there after some minor ceremonies consisting of women young and old dancing or playing beneath a bunch made of ears of corn held in their hands over their heads are performed it is taken down the ceiling to the reserved spot inside the Pandal followed by the girl conducted by the women. In front of the shed and on its western side the girl is seated facing east.

The tier of the tali may be any tribesman or the mother of the tribesman or the mother of the girl any man from amongst the Elayad or Thirumulpad sects or men of the Kiriyam caste. Now the particular person who is to tie the tali,whoever it may be, is then brought down from any neighbouring house where he is seated in readiness for it to the shed inside the pandal accompanied by men who indulge in vociferous shouting all along his way. He is also seated on a chair or a stool behind the girl, dressed in gaudy attire and bathed in shining ornaments of gold. One of the girls brothers then batches his feet and afterwards three times the question is put to the village-astrologer who is also in readiness near the pandal, whether it is time for the tali to be tied round the girl neck. Of course, he returns an affirmative answer and then the person takes the tali and ties it round the girls neck. Then another tali is similarlu tied round the forearm of her right hand by one of her brothers. This practically completes the ceremony. The tying is followed and preceded by sacred ballads sung by the Brahmini women spoken of before who mixes the same with the jingling sound produced by on a circular thin bell-metal vessel she holds in on hand by gently striking it with a small metal-rod held in her other. To all these are added from beginning to end the rhythmic vociferous shouting made by parties of men arranged together for the purpose. But one other process yet remains to be noticed. All the while from the moment the girls led from her seat inside the house up till she is brought back to her seat there after all the tedious processes are over, every moment is occupied also with a peculiar sound produced by companies of women by beating their lips rapidly with their fingers of the right hand and simultaneously forcing their breaths through the lips and the interstices made by the peculiar position of the fingers placed on the lips so that the whole affair is invested with a kind of dignified solemnity. The tying of the tali practically closes the ceremony and after this a feasting of guest s and others takes place.

At this stage it is proposed to give a brief account of a typical Malabar feast of which the Kettu-Kallianam furnishes a fairly good instance. Preparations are made for it and invitations are sent out. They are first sent to all clansmen and women and all Enangers clear eight days before the ceremony; and the smallest delay in sending out the invitation is looked upon as an infraction of the social etiquette, which would sufficiently justify the absence of the guests of the occasion. Under ordinary circumstances the major portion of the clansmen and tribesmen are bound by social rules to be present on such occasions, failure to do which will be punished by the social chieftains with the imposition of fines. At any rate all the families of the tribe and clan should be represented on the occasions. Strangers are invited only a day or two before the feast. The women all come in one after another dressed in splendid attire and deluged with golden ornaments of divers sorts and are all seated on mates inside the house or if the house is not sufficiently spacious inside any temporary shed erected for the purpose. Between about 11 and 12 o’clock in the noon plantain leaves are spread on the ground and the guests are all seated on mates to partake of the meal. With regard to the arrangement of the seats certain fixed rules are in vogue. The clanswomen and tribeswomen are first served. Within the sacred precincts of the place where these are seated no members of stranger cleans and tribes and in some cases not even members of higher castes are allowed entrance. Any breach of this social decorum will necessarily result in the guests leaving the hall in a body with their meals left unfinished. Such is the stringency of our caste rules. These are to be served either by Brahmins or other members of their own tribes or clans. These having finished their meals respectable strangers who have been invited are attended to next. Men comparatively low on the social ladder are seated apart from those on higher ones. This over the surrounding villagers are served next. But members of stranger villages are often jealously excluded there from. Then men of low degree viz the mob, including those in every rank of society who have come uninvited are next served. There are no restrictions upon the class of men who are allowed admittance into their ranks. Then come in for their share the village barber and washer man along with other men of their kind from distances. But they only carry home whatever is given them in the shapes of meal. The other village claimants such as mannans & c., follow them and finally the lowest classes in Malabar society such as the aboriginal tribes are given what little is left after these are all over.

It is a source of extreme satisfaction to find that all animal food and intoxicating drinks are scrupulously excluded from our feasts. But buttermilk is always served at the close of the meals. Our only drink on such occasions consists of pure water boiled with the addition of ginger essentially. Of course rice properly cooked constitutes the principal element in the whole affair and the grandness or otherwise 0f our feast is determined by reference to the number of paras of rice prepared and consumed all the other ingredients are determined in proportion to the quantity of rice prepared.

Before the determination of a feast and inventory or list is made out theoretically in consultation with the tribesmen in which the things required are carefully noted down and subsequent preparations are made on the basis of this inventory. The total cost of a feast is about three times the number of paras of rice consumed. On the evening previous to the feast a preliminary feast called an Athazom is celebrated to which only a limited number of guests are invited. But the tribesmen and clansmen are bound to be invited and to be present on that day. The day next after the main feast is called vanmuri, which is also on a small scale; and the kinds of guests to be invited except the tribesmen and clansmen are left to the option of the owner. After a feast is over what is known as a pakarcha is distributed to the families of particular relations and friends, which consists in an impartial distribution to the houses of the latter of some of the most prominent ingredients of the feast. Compared with that obtains amongst the civilized nations our feasts are considerable much cheaper; for what is ours compared with the costly grandeur of an English dinner or a European banquet where gallons of expensive European liquors and pounds of fish and flesh are consumed; and yet we as part of the great Hindu politic are often stigmatized as a nation whose chronic poverty is aftributed to our lavish waste of money on many an expensive institution a principal one of which is identified with our national feasts.

In practice the Kettu Kallianam ceremony lasts for the next three also. But on the second and third days nothing of any importance occurs excepting some dancing and music by young maidens inside the pandal and other varieties of amusements.

On the fourth day early in the morning the members of the various tribes and clans and all specially invited people arrive and the girl takes an “oil-bath” along with the women. All of them throughout the occasion are dressed are most magnificent finery, such as their respective stations in life might permit, and adorned with costly golden ornaments. They all then accompany the girl for worship in a neighbouring temple and after it is over all of them return home. Then they partake of a delicious course of milk conjee with sugar and other ingredients. An hour or two after, another feasting not in such a splendid style as on the ceremony day is celebrated. This over the ceremony finally closes.

Thus terminates one of the prominent ceremonies connected with our social life. It symbolizes the springing up of a peculiar relationship between he girl and the man who ties the tali and the man is thereby in some places at least debarred from marrying her all his life time, though in other respects he may be eligible. The tali is in some place destroyed on the fourth day. Thus instead of giving the man a right to marry the girl the ceremony destroys even what he previously possessed. Should he die before the girl which indeed often happens she must undergo death pollution and its attendant observances of fifteen days just as she should do in the case of the death of one of her own clansmen. It was confusion between this marriage and the legal marriage ceremony recognized amongst all civilized nations that practically formed the basis of the long controversy carried on over the Malabar Marriage Act.