Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how female participants of the South Indian Siri tradition experience themselves in the liminal stages of the Siri ritual, and in their daily lives. How does the women's exceptional position as a female deity's vehicle and medium influence their life narratives and self-identity?

Paper long abstract:

In annual festivals at temples all over the Tulu-speaking area of Coastal Karnataka, the local Siri spirits are worshipped by hundreds and thousands of devotees, most of them women. The Siri tradition revolves around Siri, her son Kumara, her daughter Sonne and her granddaughters Abbaga and Daraga. The tragic lives of Siri, a virtous and spirited young woman who fights against the injustices of a male-dominated society, and her descendants are told in the so called Siri paddana. The paddana is traditionally sung by women working in paddy fields, but also during the annual Siri rituals. Men (Kumaras) and women (Siris) who are already initiated into the ritual tradition recite passages of the paddana and get possessed by the mythological Siri characters.

As part of my Ph. D. project which is concerned with South Indian oral epics as sources of personal and social identity, I have observed several Siri rituals and conducted a number of interviews with female performers. Based on the analysis of these interviews, as well as selected case studies, it will be shown how the Siris perceive themselves and the (social) world around them. We will see how the affiliation to the Siri tradition influences the women's self-identity, and in what way the Siri paddana and its moral are important to the female performers even today. Moreover, it will be discussed what it means to become possessed in public as a woman, and why many Siris are less and less willing to do so nowadays.