A (comfortably) close look at Theyyam

K K Gopalakrishnan provides a wealth of detail, especially for those with little or no access to Malayalam texts.

What makes theyyam special to believers is of course the embodied presence of deities. The possibility to get close to and touch and talk to their ‘gods’ is often profoundly emotional for devotees. Gopalakrishnan writes about this immediacy of contact through personal anecdotes pointing to the inversion of caste hierarchy whereby performers belonging to marginalised communities are briefly worshipped as embodied gods and goddesses who may bless, comfort, curse or castigate devotees. However, as reported by theyyakars in their own writings they have also been rebuked and chastised by committees or patrons post performance for different reasons including performers accidentally muddling caste hierarchies during rituals.