Muthappan
മുത്തപ്പൻ
Also Thiruvappana, Vellatom, Madayan Kavu Muthappan.
Village and folkSaivaVaishnava
Who this is
Muthappan is the deity of north Malabar who appears in person. At Parassinikkadavu he is performed daily as a theyyam, and the performer, once the makeup and the crown are on, is not a performer: he is the god, and he talks to the devotee, hears the trouble and answers it out loud. There is no caste bar and no dress code, which in the Kerala of the nineteenth century was the whole point and was fought over. He takes toddy and dried fish as offerings, which no agamic temple would accept, and that refusal of the usual rules is not an irregularity in his worship but its content.
How to recognise them
As theyyam: an enormous headdress, the face painted, eyes blackened and widened, a costume of red cloth and coir, bells at the ankles, a bow in the hand. Two forms appear, Thiruvappana and Vellatom, held to be Siva and Vishnu, and the shrine keeps a bow, an arrow and a hunting dog in bronze rather than an anthropomorphic image.
Family and companions
Told as a foundling raised by a Brahmin couple of Ayyankara who would not keep to his caste, hunting and drinking with the hill people. Siva and Vishnu are read into the two forms. A dog is his companion and dogs are fed and protected at his shrines.
How they are worshipped
Daily at Parassinikkadavu; the theyyam season from Vrischikam to Edavam elsewhere.
The theyyam is performed daily at Parassinikkadavu, morning and evening, which is unusual: most theyyams are seasonal. Toddy and dried fish are given, and the prasadam is boiled gram, tea and dried fish. Anybody may come in any dress. The devotee speaks to the god directly and is answered, and the answer is treated as binding.
The stories
As they are told, with the disagreements left in
The boy who would not keep the rules
A childless Brahmin couple of Ayyankara found a child and raised him. He grew up hunting, eating with the hill people, drinking toddy, and would not be corrected. When his mother at last confronted him he showed himself in his divine form, and she understood what she had been raising. He left for the forest. The story is told as the explanation of everything irregular in his worship, and the irregularities are the worship: a god who would not keep caste is served without caste.
The toddy tapper and the arrow
A toddy tapper found his pots being drained every day and lay in wait. He saw a figure drinking and shot an arrow at it, and was struck blind. His wife came looking, found him, and prayed, and his sight was given back along with the instruction that the toddy was to be offered rather than hidden. The offering of toddy at the shrine is that arrangement kept up. The telling is unembarrassed about it, and Kerala’s reform movements and the temple have argued about it for a century without the practice changing.
Where the regions differ
- Tamil
- Kerala
- Telugu
- Kannada
- North
- Maharashtra
- Bengal
- Punjab
- Assam
- Sri Lanka
- Nepal
- Gujarat
- Odisha
- Mithila
- Kashmir
- Tulu Nadu
- manipur
- rajasthan
- konkani
- sindhi
- jharkhand
- himalayan
- kodava
- Kerala
- Parassinikkadavu near Kannur is the chief shrine with the daily theyyam, and the madappura shrines of north Malabar keep him through the season.
- Tulu Nadu
- The bhuta kola of Tulu Nadu is the neighbouring tradition, with the same structure of a performer possessed and speaking as the deity, and the two shade into each other at the border.
Where to see them
From the temple directory
- Parassinikkadavu Muthappan Temple Parassinikkadavu, Kannur, Kerala