Abstract
This paper focuses on two indigenous healing rituals from Kerala, the South- Western state of India. The first one is uzhinjuvāngal, a ritual of warding off evil spirits. It is practised as part of the mantravāda healing tradition, at pūṅkuṭil mana, an ancestral house belonging to brahmin priests. The second is, gaddika, a ritualistic art form practised as part of ritual healing by the Aṭiyān, a scheduled tribal community residing in the Wayanad district of Kerala. These faith healing practices are conducted complementary to biomedical treatments and provide relief to patients. This must be understood in their rich cultural context. As an alternative to modern medicine, unique traditional healing rituals are used to provide specific treatments based on the antiquity and integrity of beliefs and practices. Significant aspects including phenomenological and narrative influences which contribute to the efficacy of these practices were observed from ethnographic data collection after the emerging narratives were analysed thematically. Certain similarities can be found between narrative therapy and how these faith-healing practices employ narratives. Deriving from primary research, this paper argues that these practices go beyond the limitations of narrative therapy, employing metaphors, embodied ritualistic experiences and fictive imagination.
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Data Availability
The data collected for this study is part of the Ph.D. research undertaken by the first author Meera Kumar and Second author Sukanya G. It has been collected with the method of first-person interviews during field visits. The transcription of these interviews and field work are in the repository of the Consciousness Studies Programme at the National Institute of Advanced Studies where the authors are research fellows.
Notes
Uzhinjuvāngal is a Malayalam word corresponding to the ritual of warding off evil spirits.
Gaddika is a ritualistic art form practised by the Aṭiyān tribe of Wayanad. It is performed as a part of traditional ritualistic healing practice.
Mantravāda is “translated often as sorcery or witchcraft but literally the use of mantras” (Nair, 2010, para 1).
The Aṭiyāns (also known as ṟāvuḷa) are one of the scheduled tribal communities residing in the Wayanad district of Kerala.
David defines “Culture-bound syndrome as a collection of signs and symptoms that is restricted to a limited number of cultures by reason of certain psychosocial features. Culture- bound syndromes are usually restricted to a specific setting, and they have a special relationship to that setting” (Stern et al., 2010, para 1).
Araṅkeṭṭubāṅkal is a healing ritual of Aṭiyān tribal community.
Pūṅkuṭil mana is the name of an ancestral house belonging to a brahmin (nampūtiri) community in the Malappuram district of Kerala.
A folklore popular in Kerala about a woman and the legacy of the twelve children born to her.
The madman of Nāṟāṇattu is told to be a divine person who pretended to be abnormal. He used to continuously roll a stone uphill and let it fall back. This is much like the Myth of Sisyphus from the Greek legends.
Illam and mana are used interchangeably to mean the households of the nampūtiri community.
First names of all informants have been masked/ changed to maintain confidentiality.
These Malayalam names stand for various kinds of demonic presences (Baadha/pretham) that are considered responsible for causing different kinds of diseases and distress.
Kayyuṃ vāyuṃ cattavanāya enikku kṛtyamāyi mantraṃ colluvānuṃ karmmaṃ ceyyuvānuṃ aṛiyilla. entheṅkiluṃ teṭṭukuṭṭaṅgal uṇḍeṅkil poṛukkaṇe. (Transliteration in Malayalam).
The name informants have been masked/ changed to maintain confidentiality.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the willing participation of Practitioners of Mantravada at Poonkudil Mana and the Practitoners of Adiyan Rituals towards this research study. Our gratitude and thanks to the Tata Trust for funding this study and to The National Institute of Advanced studies for enabling this platform. We also extend our thanks to The Manipal Academy of Higher Education and The Trans Disciplinary University of Health and Technology where the first and second authors are pursuing their doctoral degrees, respectively. Sincere thanks to our research supervisor Dr. Sangeetha Menon (Third author) for her meticulous guidance.
Funding
This study was funded by the TATA Trusts-NIAS-CSP (National Institute of Advanced Studies—Consciousness Studies Programme) project on the "Documentation and Study of the Indigenous Healing Traditions of Kerala” (TET/MUM/INN/NIAS/2017-2018/052-al).
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by MK, GS and SM. The first draft of the manuscript was written by MK and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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It is hereby stated that the field work reported in the paper submitted titled "Beyond Narrative Limitations: Exploring Indigenous Faith-Healing Rituals from the South Indian State of Kerala" was conducted in 2019 as part of the Ph.D. programme (2018 July-Ongoing) undertaken by the first author (Meera Kumar) at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India. The proposal for field work has received ethics clearance (NIAS/RES/MK/2019) from the research ethics committee of the National Institute of Advanced Studies after careful scrutiny of questionnaires and consent forms. All participants have been informed about the research and have participated willingly. Their written consent has been acquired prior to the submission of this paper.
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Kumar, M., Guruvayoorappan, S. & Menon, S. Transgressing Narrative Boundaries: Exploring How Indigenous Faith—Healing Rituals from Kerala Move Beyond the Limitations of Narrative Therapy. Psychol Stud 68, 281–290 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-023-00715-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-023-00715-9