Marava & Ramnad · Eastern Coastal Plains
Dance
Staff fighting with a bamboo stave, practised in circular footwork with the stick spun into a defensive envelope. The southern dry districts, and this region in particular, hold most of the surviving teaching lineages, and Ramnad's military history under the Sethupathis is the reason.
Performed by: Village lineages and akhara teachers. Occasion: Temple festivals and training
Pot-balancing danced to naiyandi melam, performed here at village goddess and Ayyanar festivals, often through the night.
Performed by: Professional troupes. Occasion: Amman festivals
A slow, disciplined line dance with kerchiefs and bells, and its women's counterpart danced in a circle with clapped rhythm and sung verses.
Performed by: Men in a line, and women in a ring. Occasion: Village festivals
A vigorous group dance to urumi and thappu drumming, historically described as a victory dance and now performed at temple festivals across the southern districts.
Performed by: Village troupes. Occasion: Temple festivals
Dummy-horse and peacock dances performed in costume frames as part of a procession rather than as a stage item.
Performed by: Temple troupes. Occasion: Processions
Music
The Nagarathar were among the largest private patrons of Carnatic music in the twentieth century, and the concert order every Carnatic vocalist still follows — the sequence of varnam, kritis, the main raga alapana and tani, and the lighter closing pieces — was fixed by Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar, who came from a village of this region.
A distinct mridangam and kanjira lineage running from Manpoondia Pillai through Dakshinamurthy Pillai to Palani Subramania Pillai, characterised by an emphasis on the kanjira as a solo instrument and on rhythmic structures built for the tani avartanam.
Household and clan-temple congregational singing in the bhajana sampradaya, with its own repertoire and its own calendar, performed in the mansion courtyards as well as in the nine clan temples.
The Muslim port towns maintain a Tamil Islamic literary and sung repertoire — munajat, kissa and the elaborate Tamil epic tradition on the Prophet's life — much of it historically written in Arwi, Tamil in Arabic script.
Theatre
Bow-song narration, with a large strung bow beaten as the lead percussion. The Muthupattan and Sudalai Madan cycles are performed across this region's village temples.
Overnight street theatre of the Mahabharata performed at Draupadi Amman temples, with painted faces and towering headgear.
Crafts
Invented locally as a cheaper substitute for the imported European floor tiles the mansions wanted, and now the more sought-after of the two. Traditionally eight inches square, about nine days from start to finish, and made by a small number of family units in and around one village. Despite frequent reports of an application, no geographical indication registration has been confirmed for it.
Material: White and grey cement, local sand, colour oxides, a glass plate. Technique: A three-millimetre glass sheet is laid in a frame, a bronze die is set on it, coloured oxide slurry is poured into each compartment of the die, the die is lifted, dry cement and sand are sprinkled over the pattern, and a moist cement-sand mix is packed on top. Tile and glass go into water together for a day, then cure on the glass for about a week. The glass is the polish — the tile comes off it with a mirror surface and is never mechanically buffed.
The basket in which gifts, betel and ritual items are exchanged at Nagarathar ceremonies — a domestic requirement rather than a decorative craft, which is why it survived. Registered in 2012-13.
Material: Palm leaf and organic dye. Technique: Palmyra leaflets sun-dried for a week until they brown, stripped of their central vein, soaked, cut to width, dyed and woven into a stiff basket with a reinforced rim and threaded corners.
Registered in 2019-20, and still woven in a small cluster of villages around Karaikudi.
Material: Cotton. Technique: Pit-loom weaving of heavily sized coarse cotton, with contrasting body and border set up in the warp.
Water pots, curd pots, cooking pots and stoves from one town, made to a clay recipe specific enough that it is part of the registration. Registered in 2023.
Material: Vaigai silt blended with clay from three named local sources. Technique: Wheel-throwing followed by hand-beating with a stone and a wooden paddle to thin and shape the wall, then slip-painting and open firing.
Round as a cherry, thick-skinned, mild and aromatic rather than fiercely hot, and tolerant of both salinity and drought — which is why it has been grown here for something like two centuries. Registered on 22 February 2022, the first chilli variety from Tamil Nadu to hold a geographical indication.
Material: A round, thick-skinned local chilli landrace. Technique: Rain-fed direct seeding on saline and drought-prone ground in five taluks, harvested and sun-dried whole.
The mansions' two signature surfaces. Both are now more often encountered in salvage yards than in situ, because a demolished mansion's teak is worth more than the mansion.
Material: Burmese teak, satinwood, lime, shell lime. Technique: Carved teak columns, brackets and door frames imported in whole logs, set against burnished lime plaster polished to a glassy finish. Builders describe the polish as worked with egg white and gallnut; the recipe is repeated everywhere and recorded in no construction account.
The Gulf of Mannar chank fishery was a state monopoly for centuries and supplied the ritual conch trade across India and Bengal. A left-turning shell is ordinary; a right-turning valampuri is rare and priced accordingly.
Material: Turbinella pyrum, the sacred chank. Technique: Diving or dredging, boiling out, cutting and polishing; bangles cut from the shell wall.
The dance, music, theatre and crafts of Marava & Ramnad, from classical forms to village traditions. (18)