Peter J. Claus, California State University, East Bay

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Conference on South Asia, Madison, October, 23, 1991. Portions of the paper were subsequently published in Claus 1997a and Claus 1997b.  This Web Version was created October 29, 1999

Photographs by S. A. Krishnaiah, the Regional Resource Centre for Folk Performing Arts, Udupi.
 

Dramatization of myth in a ritual context is familiar enough. Often, I would think, the ritual tradition (the context) and the mythic tradition (the text) have somewhat independent existences. This is the case with Tulunad's siri rituals and the story of the siri spirits. The myth is part of a woman's narrative song tradition, while the rituals are managed by men. My paper focuses on the discrepancies between the myth as it exists in the women's song tradition and as it is dramatized in the ritual context. My analysis demonstrates that the drama is part of the ritual tradition and that certain alterations to the myth are best understood in that light. The ritual - myth association is not only strengthened by the drama, but in the process the mythic tradition is assimilated into and superseded by the ritual tradition. The male dominated ritual tradition, in other words, could be said to exploit and co-opt a powerfully moving narrative that has been maintained by women.

 The ritual context is the Siri cult (Claus 1975, 1986, i.p.). ⁽¹⁾ Its annual ceremonies take place at some 15-20 locations around the Tulu-speaking region of Dakshina Kannada, Karnataka. ⁽²⁾ Some of these can be documented at least as far back as the 16th century. During the rituals up to a thousand or more women and men come and get possessed by the category of spirits called the siris. ⁽³⁾ The Siris are usually said to be seven in number, all female. ⁽⁴⁾

The story associated with these spirits is traditionally recounted in a women's oral narrative genre called paddana, sung in the fields during paddy transplantation. ⁽⁵⁾  Like many others in the genre, the song narrates the earthly lives of the spirits as part of a particular matrilineal family. It takes some 6-8 hours to recite and is too long for me to even summarize here. Since the Siri Paddana is regarded as a sacred narrative and not a merely historical account of the Siri's lives, for the time being I will refer to the Siri Paddana as a myth. ⁽⁶⁾ But unlike most myths, the dominant mood of the Siri Paddana is one of tragedy. It recounts quarrels and jealousies between husband and wife, between co-wives, and between sisters. The quarrels and jealousies are situated in self pride and arrogance and end in human tragedy: very life-like.

The bulk of the ritual at the annual ceremonies consists of what might be called cases of spirit investigation. Novices, first timers, mostly young women, are brought to the Siri festival because they have been experiencing a condition which has been diagnosed as spirit possession. Since this takes place in their homes and can be embarrassing and disruptive, it is regarded as undesirable. During the rituals such cases are dealt with, one at a time, through an investigation with the young woman and her family. The investigations are led by Kumar with the assistance of one or more of the Siris. The process normally involves getting the young woman into a state of possession (initially an agonized state) and then inquiring into the identity of the spirit (presumably a Siri) and why it is giving trouble to the girl (and thus the family). At the end of each "case" the spirit in the young woman is expected to identify itself and make clear why it has been intruding on the lives of the family. ⁽⁷⁾ The family promises to meet whatever demands the spirit might be making. The young woman is then required to return to the Siri festival annually. She is a medium for the spirit and joins the ranks of the other women as an adept.

All of this, on the part of Kumar and the Siris alike, takes place in a sing-song speech style characteristic of the Siri rituals. Some of Kumar's discourse uses fragments of the Siri Paddana, but most of it is impromptu (sung) speech. Meanwhile, women, adepts, possessed by one of the Siri spirits, may be reciting various episodes from the paddana, either alone or with another woman. Many, however, merely repeat phrases and line fragments or even just utter hissing and deep guttural breathing sounds associated with a state of possession. Altogether, at any one time, all of this may be going on simultaneously, producing a cacophony of many spirit voices. Interestingly, many people regard this scene as a place where the full and true Siri Paddana can be heard. ⁽⁸⁾

The Siri festival at one of the locations of the siri cult, a placed called Urmbitota, commences the rituals I have just described with a fascinating dramatization of the final portion of the Siri Paddana. ⁽⁹⁾ In this episode, the three generations of Siri's matrilineage, begun as a boon from the god Bermerü, come to an end.

The parents of the twin girls have left home to arrange their marriage. As they go, they admonish the girls not to play the game, cenne, because they know the girls will end up quarrelling. On their way, the parents are stopped by the god Bermerü, disguised as a begging Brahman. The Brahman reminds them of the debt they owe to Bermerü for the boon of lineal continuity, but the parents scoff at him and continue on their way. Bermerü reappears in the form of a Brahman at the manor house and entices the girls to play cenne, magically opening the box in which the board and playing pieces were locked up. As the girls play, they quarrel. Abbaga takes up the board and crashes it down on Daraga's head, killing her. She throws the body into the well and jumps in behind her, committing suicide.

The Drama as Transformation of Myth:

Kumar leads the two girls -- in reality adult women, but in the myth, girls -- to the shrine and then to the platform (katte) on which the performance takes place. [see photograph 3]. The girls, Abbaga and Daraga, sit at opposite ends of a cenne game-board, with Kumar (the priest-medium) between them. All three are possessed, their persona that of the spirits. The girls wear white saris. Kumar wears a red silk waist cloth. They commence to sing. ⁽¹⁰⁾

Here, and throughout, Abbaga's response to Kumar's questions borrows lines (and, slightly later, even long passages) from the Siri Paddana. Kumar, himself, frames many of his questions with passages from the traditional text.

To call this a dramatic enactment of the myth is not an inaccurate characterization of the performance. Having the myth recited by the women, the performance sets the mythological scene for the ensuing ritual activities and establishes the Siri myth as the referential script for the rituals. ⁽¹¹⁾ But there is much more to it than that. To everyone, participants and audience alike, the narrative is already well-known as a prose story-account, if not in its traditional song form. ⁽¹²⁾ The contents of the performed narrative corresponds to that of the story in other forms. However, the text of the paddana -- and more importantly its perception -- is altered and affected by the dramatization in a number of significant ways:
 

1. Costumed, set on a platform along with essential props, the performance is framed as a dramatization, and not the merely the recitation of a verbal text. (13) The girls are clearly Abbaga and Daraga of the Siri myth. 2. The scene is the play of cenne, where they meet their tragic end. But who is that with them? They call him uncle. He must be Kumar. Perhaps nobody in the audience thinks about it, but this meeting between uncle and nieces does not occur in the paddana women sing in the fields. (14) Cosmologically, this must be a scene which takes place after the close of the paddana, as the girls wander in the world of the spirits: maya loka. (15) 3. The myth, still sung in paddana style, is elicited from the girls in the form of a first person narrative, a narrative genre quite different from myth, which, necessarily, is told in the third person. The psychological (time and person) distance between audience, narrators (who by this time are fully assimilated into the myth in any case) and narrative is drastically reduced.

4. The recitation is in the speech context of discourse, a dialogue, or rather an interrogation, putting Kumar in control of the text. The recited text is a product of his questions.

5. Not only does this alter the experiential time frame (beyond the tenses used in the sentences), but it opens out the paradigmatic structure of myth into the syntagmatic uncertainty of discourse. Although we (and the girls) know the outcome of the myth, we are not certain about the outcome of this verbal interaction. Myth, in relation, becomes hearsay, this is the real thing, an account from those who were there. It engages us differently. We listen more sympathetically.

6. But more than that, the girls yield their identity to the claims -- drawn directly from the myth -- they make to Kumar. This is more than the world of pretend. They would not lie to their uncle. These are siris, "truthful maidens" (satyada ponnü), not ordinary girls. ⁽¹⁶⁾ In the relationship between myth and performance, we are in an intermediate stage in which both text and performance co-exist, somewhat at odds with one another.

Kumar is intermediary between the drama's discourse and the text of the myth. Kumar is also our intermediary, asking the questions we in the audience have. He intercedes between us, in this world, and the girls, who are beings from the other world. In interceding for us, he (through the girls) is also explaining to us. He brings the myth not only to the ritual, but to us as participants. Indeed, in bringing about the performance and acting as its master of ceremonies, he brings the worlds themselves together. ⁽¹⁷⁾ He is a priest and a medium, the nexus of two realities.

At a point in the recitation the speech genres once again shift. This time from narration of life history, to direct speech and the play of the game. The myth is no longer recounted as life history but propelled by the talk associated with current activity. As audience we are transformed from listeners to witnesses of live action. The girls, however, in this new speech act are now more vulnerable. If they are no longer themselves (as their use of I convinces them) reciting the myth, but participants in the story as they relate it, then they will die -- unless the story changes. Will the drama follow the narrative paradigm of the myth or will it generate some new text to follow? Let us see.

Kumar: Child, what did the Brahman say, children, after going to bring the silver board and golden pieces, when you asked how we can play cenne?

Abbaga: Narayana! He said 'Why are you trying to fool me with lies, child? Go up in the attic and search. The silver board and golden playing pieces are there.' That is what the Brahman said, uncle.

Kumar: Child. Today when you went running to the attic and reached up, the silver board and golden pieces were there. Sitting on the veranda aren't you playing cenne? At that time older sister and younger sister are playing cenne.

Abbaga: 'Play three rounds of cenne and just see who is the more clever,' the Brahman said.

Kumar: Narayana, child. Today, just like that, the Brahman has brought the silver board and golden pieces from maya. The playing board is here on the platform of the veranda, Abbaga, Daraga, children.

Abbaga: Narayana, uncle. We put the cenne board East and West on the platform of the veranda. We sat North and South. Let's go there straight away! Watch carefully, Narayana. Younger sister, you take the first turn in the first round.

Daraga: Narayana. Oh, elder sister. You were born before me, were you not? You play first, elder sister.

Kumar: Narayana, child. This is the cenne board in Urikitotta of before, do you hear. Today you play the game of cenne you played in Urikitotta.

There is a pause in recitation as the women move the playing pieces around the board, and then further recitation as the girls speak the phrases associated in the myth with the play of the game: ⁽¹⁸⁾

Abbaga: What, younger sister! Have you no answer? [untranslated: a proverb?] It seems I have learned more and you have learned less of what our mother taught us at Urikitota.

Daraga: Narayana, elder sister! We have played one round of cenne and you have lost one "house". In the second round you lost a second "house". In the third round, elder sister, will you lose a third "house"?

Daraga: Narayana, Narayana! Oh, sister! [For having lost this round] you must promise to honor my brother-in-law, your bridegroom, with a beaten-rice preparation you have mixed. ⁽¹⁹⁾

Kumar: Play, child, play the last house!

They continue to play, but their emotions are so heightened that their movements are distorted and uncoordinated. Kumar directs their hands in play. At this point in the recitation the musicians begin playing, too, marking the heightened sense of emotions and impending danger. The girls voices are partially drowned out by the noise. In the end, Abbaga picks up the board and tries to lift it over Daraga's head.

Daraga: Sister! Akkeree! What, sister! It is I, sister!

Kumara: Drop the board, mother. Drop it! Drop it, child! By my order, drop it, child. Come down to earth. (Stand on the ground) Stop Daraga. Stop it, child, stop it Abbaga. You go too fast. Descend into the courtyard of Urikitota. She put the silver board and golden pieces in front and made them straight. Leave it and stand! Let go of the board!

7. At some point, somewhat ambiguously, Kumar becomes Bermerü, although we know this only from prior knowledge of the story. ⁽²⁰⁾ Accompanying this shift of identity, though, the girls address each other: their speech is now conversation, the specialized conversational exchanges associated with the game, cenne (competitive, taunting, winning - losing address and response). Kumar (now Bermerü) addresses them -- as he does in the myth -- with commands to play the game. By commanding them, he dictates their actions rather than elicits their words. As they play, the game itself (with its associated discourse) gradually takes control of both their words and their actions.

8. The performance leads -- in reality -- from this point to its fated end. The girl who is Abbaga really does pick up the board and would smash the other girl's head, were it not that Kumar (the priest-medium) physically restrains her. [see photograph 4]. So the myth is true and real! The game's play, the girl's speech, Bermerü's commands, reality, myth and the sounds of possession are inseparable, loose focus and become jumbled with one another. But when, in the confusion of identity and time frames, Abbaga picks up the board to kill her sister, Daraga is only Daraga. There is no confusion in her panicked fear: "Akkaree! Sister! Daane akkaree! What sister! It is I, sister! It is I!"

9. Kumar-Bermerü-medium, Monappa Moily, however, traverses the realities, matching various commands with possible identities: "Drop the board, mother. Drop it! Drop it, child! By my order, drop it, child. Come down to earth. (Stand on the ground) Stop Daraga. Stop it, child, stop it Abbaga. You go too fast. Descend into the courtyard of Urikitota. She put the silver board and golden pieces in front and made them straight. Leave it and stand. Let go of the board." But he does so from the sudden perspective of the ritual grounds where the activity is entirely under his control.

When we (audience) accept these transformations of the original myth, we accept the placement of the dramatic interaction in a mythological time zone. And we are there. The transitional situation -- the meeting between uncle and nieces, which never happens in the paddana the women sing in the fields -- supersedes whatever the women may sing, since the girls now speak for themselves. We are already in the myth; the women's fieldsong thus becomes merely recorded history, replaced by the girl's personal experience narrative. Having changed the narrative mood from myth to mythological real life and from the genre myth (inherently third person) to personal historical narrative, the ritual text supersedes the myth. When, then, the discourse changes to active dialogue, not narrative, we become witnesses to the actual mythological events. At this point, for us, ritual itself supersedes narrative.
 

The Drama as an Event in the Ritual Tradition:

The discrepancies (transformations) between myth and drama can be best explained by the drama's relation to the activities of the ritual tradition. The most obvious similarity between drama and ritual is the central role the men play in both. While the myth is traditionally a women's genre (performed by women, thematically woman-centered), men dominate the ritual sphere and control its discourse. Kumar's ritual role in both drama and ritual is far out of proportion to Kumar's place in the Siri myth. Kumar of the myth is a child, carried in a cradle, little more than a prop to support an attitude of pity for Siri as she wanders the countryside. Kumar occupies only a small part -- perhaps a dozen lines -- of the myth. ⁽²²⁾

Kumar's participation in the scene of the drama is not found in the myth. On what basis is he to be seen there on the platform? Ultimately, it is only through the role of the priest-medium (Monappa Moily) that Kumar is linked to the cenne episode, and because of the ambiguity of the priest-medium's identity: called a Kumar, addressed by Abbaga and Daraga as uncle, he also enacts the role played by Bermerü (disguised as a Brahman) in the myth. The legitimacy of these roles in the performance from the audience perspective is not predicated directly on the myth, but on previous ritual and its own derivative script.

He is identified as Kumar only because the two girls call him uncle. ⁽²³⁾ We in the audience must know the beginning of myth in order to fill in his name: Abbaga and Daraga's mother's brother was the son of Siri, Kumar. The myth serves as a referential text (not script, here). But besides the charter of myth, there is another sense in which we accept the legitimacy of address term they apply to this man, Monappa Moily, who is not, after all, perceived as their real uncle. The mythic relationship of these people was, we presume, established ritually, at an earlier time. Those who have attended the cult know that it is through cases of spirit identification that Kumar calls to the spirit possessing the novice, asking it to identify itself as his mother, sister or niece. Their use of the term uncle in the drama is predicated on an earlier event of this sort. The audience need not actually have been there when this particular relationship was established since it is known that much of the Siri ritual consists of the establishment of reciprocal identities.

So, while the discourse of the drama has no precedence in myth, it closely resembles the countless scenes of ritual cases where Kumar calls out to the spirit possessing the novice, asking it to identify itself. There, too, the dialogue is in the form of an interrogation, asking who the spirit is and what is its "story". There, too, the response is a form of personal narrative which eventually gets projected into mythical form. ⁽²⁴⁾ He uses kin terms, alternatively pleading with the spirit, and commanding it, identifying himself as brother, son, uncle, all supportive male roles. It is when the spirit addresses him, too, by a kin term that the spirit can be identified. The Siri myth here, too, is a reference text: although he borrows passages from the myth to suggest a form for the spirit's identity, the myth is not a script for the ritual. Once the spirit is assimilated to the story of the myth and the girl is able to affirm her spiritual identity by reciting, along with other adepts, the discourse of the possession, she becomes an adept herself. At subsequent rituals she retains the acquired spiritual identity. ⁽²⁵⁾ It is from amongst these women that the girls of the drama were once chosen.

The ritual's innumerable cases of spirit identification, are like the drama, transformations of the myth in the women's fieldsong tradition. Just as the dramatization transforms the outcome of the myth -- the girls are prevented from reenacting their earthy deaths -- the operating function of the ritual cases, too, brings about change in the real life conditions of the women participants. The ritual tradition co-opts the story of the mythic tradition and replaces it with a narration which necessarily contradicts the myth's static nature and fateful finality. The drama initiates the ensuing ritual mood, re-establishing the participants' identities and legitimates the ritual's intent and authority. The ritual must move from real life ambiguity to mythological clarity but then back to real life, which is its dominant end. The development of the drama as an event within the ritual tradition is only a small step from what has gone on in the ritual tradition for as far back as we can confidently reconstruct it. It serves here to connect one event in the ritual tradition with the next, to charter ritual on previous ritual.

Men captain the movement from real life to mythic reality and back. Women and a genre in their keeping only serve this end. Although the cult is meant primarily for resolving women's problems, it is a public ritual, and public ritual is a man's domain. The supportive role they play in the lives of the troubled women who come to them is aptly generalized and metaphorized by the relationship Kumar might (but doesn't in mythic fact) have with the women of the Siri myth. The women's lives are more truly characterized by the myth, which, like their own lives, is seen as be incapable of being changed.

To recapitulate my argument:

The Siri Paddana, a story-song in a woman's genre, forms the reference text for the drama. Its story content and even a great deal of its actual text is borrowed into the performance. But it is modified in important ways: it becomes a personal history narrative, recounted in the first person. Later, even this is replaced by actual speech and we are witnesses to the mythological event. We are there. The woman's fieldsong recedes to a mere historical account, a legend, superseded by the drama.

In this dramatized form, the priest-medium, Kumar, a man, controls the performance of what was once the song in a woman's genre. The drama is part of a public ritual performance. In fact, it is not so much a development within the myth tradition as an exploitation of that tradition in the on-going and highly dynamic development of the ritual tradition. The particular drama is predicated, historically and operatively, on preceding ritual events.

Although exploiting the women's tradition and superseding it, claiming (when asked directly) superiority over it, the men-centered ritual serves for the benefit of women. The major function of the cult's rituals is to save defenseless women from quarrels and jealousies which arise within kin groups. While the women's song tradition revolves around these sorts of problems and presents them as fatefully tragic truth, the ritual tradition, through the intercession of fictive male kinsmen attempts to alter and solve them.

Women participants feel the rituals are good and sacred. Men participants feel the same way. Non-believers, mostly modern men, however, see the cult as gross gender exploitation. Indeed, the ritual activities could (and at places, probably do) easily devolve into this if the drama-dimension and entertainment function overwhelms the ritual-dimension and social functions. ⁽²⁶⁾ But this is a topic for another paper.

Brückner, Heidrun. 1987. "Jumadi: An Oral Tulu Myth and Ritual of Bhuta-worship in Coastal Karnataka." In Brückner, et. al., eds., Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik, Heft 13/14 (Festschrift für Wilhelm Rau zum 65. Geburtstag).
 

-----. n.d. "Kannalaye: The Place of a Tulu paddana in the famework of interrelated oral traditions. Mss.
 

Claus, Peter J. l975. "Siri Myth and Ritual: Description of a Mass Possession Cult of South India" Ethnology, 14, (1):47-58.
 

-----. 1986. "Playing cenne: The meanings of a folk game." In Stuart Blackburn and A.K. Ramanujan, eds., Another Harmony: New Essays on the Folklore of India. pp. 265-293. Berkeley: University of California Press.
 

-----. 1987. "Mancala (cenne) in Tulu Myth and Cult" in Indian Folklore II, edited by Peter J. Claus, D. P. Pattanayak and J. Handoo) Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages Press.
 

-----. 1989. "Behind the Text: Performance and Ideology in a Tulu Oral Tradition". In Stuart Blackburn, Peter J. Claus, Joyce Flueckiger and Susan Wadley, eds., Oral Epics in India. Berkeley: University of California Press.

-----. 1993 "Text Variability and Authenticity in the Siri Cult."  In, Flags of Fame: Studies in South Asian Folk Culture, edited by Heidrun Brückner, et. al. Delhi: The Inter-regional Seminar, South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg.

-----. 1997a. "Ritual Performances in India".  In Anthropology of Religion: A Handbook, edited by Stephen D. Glazier.  Pp. 191-209.  Westport (Connecticut): Greenwood Press

-----. 1997b "Ritual Transforms a Myth".  South Indian Folklorist.  Vol. 1, no. 1: pp. 37-57.
 

1. The general activities of the siri rituals are described in Claus 1975. There, too, the Siri Paddana is translated in abridged form. The particular siri jatre (festival) discussed in this paper is described in Claus 1986.

2. Tulunad, the land of the Tulu-speakers, the modern Dakshina Kannada District of Karnataka, lies just north of Kerala along India's southwest coast. 

3. The ceremonies take place during the night of the full moon during the months of February, March and April. 

4. The names vary slightly from informant to informant. The list usually includes: Abbaga, Daraga, Sonne, Ginde, Mayage, Maypage and Siri, all female spirits. However, it is sometimes given as six females and one male, Kumar. 

5. Although it is usually regarded as the sort of paddana women sing in the fields, it is one of the few of that type I have found that some men of various castes also know and can sing. Although portions of the Siri Paddana can be heard in the ritual context during possession, too, during the rituals virtually all spoken discourse is sung, and by no means is all that is sung a part of the traditional fieldsong.

6. Other characteristics which would place this narrative in the category myth are that the beings are sacred and the account is regarded as true. Numerous customs are said to have arisen from events in the story. In other respects it might be regarded as a legend, since it takes place in historical time. Since it is sung, it could also be regarded as an epic. The term paddana is derived from the root for 'song' and so gives little indication of either its authenticity or historicity.

7. Kumar pleads with the spirit in the young woman in accordance with possible kin relationships: "Mother, why don't you speak to your son? Sister, why don't you tell me what is wrong? Neice, speak to me." A more complete description of the methods used in these spirit investigations can be found in Claus 1975 and 1987 (pages 270-75).

8. In my efforts to collect the paddana, I was apt to get this statement from people who did not regularly attend the Siri festival. Women I talked to at the festival would tell me that if I wanted to make a proper collection of the paddana I should do it at another time. 

9. The usual prelude to the rituals at the jatre includes a procession from the house where the ritual paraphernalia is kept and a puja to Shiva, the major deity at the temple location. The festival is often a part of a variety of other, relatively self-contained, ritual activities, as well. All of this is true at Urmbitota, too.
 

The opening performance at Urmbitota is unique, but other innovative theatrical devices have been introduced within the ritual sphere at other locations over time, too, though, as is evidenced in a fair amount of variability in the ritual forms one encounters at the different locations. It is difficult to talk very precisely about what is "traditional" in the Siri cult. Presumably all are within range of the interpretation of the myth and ritual intent or else they would receive more criticism than they do. I suspect there are many other cults we treat as "traditional" which have many relatively recent innovations of this sort, too.

10. The following translation is based on a recording made at the Siri jatre at Urmbitota on February 13, 1987. The tape was transcribed by S. A. Krishnaiah. A copy of this tape may be found at the Regional Resource Centre for Folk Performing Arts, Udupi.

11. A similar recitation of the story of the spirit is part of most other public spirit possession ritual (bhuta kola and nema) in the region. There, too, there are interesting uses and transformations of traditional text, including transformations from third to first person recitation (see Claus 1989) and a distinction between recitation of the spirits deeds in life as opposed to its wanderings after death (see Brückner 1987; n.d.). 

12. There may be some who may not know the details of the story and it is conceivable that this performance at one time, at least, had an informative function: the Siri jatres in this region of Tulunad appear to be of relatively recent date. Not far to the south the siri tradition ceases as a ritual tradition and in the very most southern Tulu-speaking areas (Kasaragod District of Kerala), it is not even widely known as a song tradition.

13. There are, interspersed in their recitation, involuntary indicators of the women's state of possession which would not normally be a part of a fieldsong recitation. Their possessed state also causes a certain degree of disturbance in the content, too, but I would not think that this is not consciously acknowledged by the audience.

14. Or perhaps there is a consciousness that this is a derivative text. There seems to be an over-emphasis on identifying the relationship: too frequently it seems to me the women clarify, "our mother, your sister" and our father, your brother-in-law."

15. Although most paddanas focus on the lives and deeds of the heroes, scenes which take place after the death of the hero do occur in other paddanas as well. With close analysis of the Mayindala Paddana I have come to realize that scenes of this sort are probably only characteristic of ritual versions of paddanas. Women's field songs, probably the source of the ritual songs, do not normally have this portion. If this is true, then it appears that the sort of transformations this paper is about is quite commonly a part of what happens to a text as it moves from fieldsong to ritual recitation.
 

In the southern part of the district there is a "post-maya" portion to some of the versions of the Abbaga Daraga story. The scene takes place at a katte (as it does here), but the girls are met by a woman selling flowers. She asks them what they want and they reply that they were to be married. The girls are brought back to Urikitota where the wedding takes place, and they once again "become maya". It is conceivable that this addition once had association with a ritual drama.

16. Furthermore, since it is clear that they draw from the traditional text, the veracity of which is never doubted it is more a confirmation of the legend. 

17. His role is similar to both shaman, traversing other worlds for clients from this, and vidusika, the interlocutor role of xxxx, a role elaborated in many south asian drama forms.

18. See Claus 19xx, p. xx for a translation of this passage. The two versions do not differ significantly in the discourse of the play, except, of course, that in the dramatic form the intensity of the possession begins to increase at this point and the women skip around somewhat. However, the words have more direct relevance since they are actually playing.

19. At the end of each round of play the winner imposes a penalty on the loser. It is usually in the form of an insult. It is still unclear to me what the nature of this insult is, but it is consistent from version to version. 

20. Even in the story Bermerü's role in their actual play is rather ambiguous. It is also mysterious. He seems to be there as an invisible force, speaking to them and directing their play, but the girls do not acknowledge his presence. In earlier portions of the myth (in some versions) he is associated with the game itself, or at least its play. (see Claus, 1987, pp. xx)

21. There are a number of reasons to favor an approach which treats the two traditions -- one male dominated and public, the other female dominated and performed only amongst women -- as having independent histories. Although they borrow from, and are otherwise influenced by, one another, their contexts are very different, their audiences are very different, and the functional relation of their texts to their audience is also different. As a result, many representational incongruities (not just textual ones) exist between the two.

22. In the myth, when his mother, Siri, leaves her husband, her husband asks who will stand for her and protect her respectability. Siri points to her son. While this might be seen as a plausible justification for Kumar's ritual role, when she eventually remarries, he won't stand for it and asks to be sent to the other world. Siri and the story of her descendants proceeds without him. 

23. As a male priest-medium in the cult, he is called a Kumar, as, sometimes, the women adepts are called Siris. More often, however, the women are differentiated by the name of the particular siri spirit which possesses them. Since there are no other male characters in the Siri Paddana who are represented in the possession rituals, this in effect accentuates the ambiguity between the role of priest (Kumar) and the spiritual character he represents (Kumar). This imbalance may have been the result of an historic intrusion of men into a dominant role in the cult. At one location near Nandolige, possibly the origin of the modern story of Siri, only two women, representing Abbaga and Daraga, become possessed. Although there is also a male priest (Kumar) who intercedes between the siris and the worshippers, the women play the more dominant role in the rituals. At this location most of the ritual action consists of pronouncing boons and blessings on the devotees, with only rare cases of "spirit investigation" as at Urmbitota.

24. The discourse is rather more complicated than this summary description. The "story" is obtained from the relatives in normal speech, often extracted from them in a manner more resembling a detective story. xxxx

25. At home she is respected as a medium associated with a protective spirit. 

26. I do not mean to imply here that one can so easily assign particular functions to drama, ritual or myth. Clearly, the list is infinitely long for each form.