Nanjil Nadu · Eastern Coastal Plains
Hero and deity stories carried in call-and-response over the struck bow, including local narratives such as Muthupattan Kathai alongside Puranic material. The chorus answers every few lines, so the audience always knows where in the story it is.
Sung at: Temple festivals, all-night performances.
The Ayyavazhi scripture, composed in the nineteenth century in ballad metre, recited and sung rather than read silently. A complete religious literature produced within one district.
Sung at: Ayyavazhi worship at the pathis.
Improvised lament sung by women, addressing the dead directly and cataloguing what the household has lost. Performed publicly and expected to be loud.
Sung at: Death and funeral processions.
Calling the deity to the festival ground and reciting the village's own claim on her.
Sung at: Village temple festivals.
Maveli's just reign and its loss, sung around the flower carpet — the same song sung across the Ghats to the north, in a district that will keep Pongal four months later.
Sung at: Onam, in the Malayalam-speaking taluks.
Timing and complaint, sung by work gangs. Largely gone with mechanisation and hired-day labour, and now heard mostly through recordings and competitions.
Sung at: Planting, lifting and drying.
The folk songs of Nanjil Nadu — what they are about, who sings them and when. (6)