Arts and artisanal heritage

MohiniyattamClassical

The lasya solo form, danced in off-white and gold with a knot of hair at the left temple, built on a continuous swaying torso and a soft, low-to-the-ground use of space. Its repertoire was organised under Travancore court patronage in Swathi Thirunal's reign, fell almost entirely out of practice in the later nineteenth century, and was reconstructed from surviving performers in the twentieth. What is danced now is a recovery, and its practitioners say so.

Performed by: Solo, women. Occasion: Court, temple and concert

Kathakali, thekkan sampradayamClassical

The southern Kathakali line associated with Kaplingadu Namboothiri and carried by Travancore patronage, distinguishable from the northern Kalluvazhi school in make-up detail, in the handling of the attakatha text and in a more overtly dramatic choreography. It is one form argued two ways along a hundred kilometres of coast.

Performed by: Trained male companies attached to temples. Occasion: All-night temple performance

PadayaniRitual

A night-long propitiation of Bhadrakali danced in painted areca-sheath kolams — Bhairavi, Kaalan, Yakshi, Pakshi and Marutha among them — to the flat thappu drum and a call-and-response of verses. Kadammanitta, Othera and Kottangal hold the best-known ones. The kolam is built and destroyed within the festival; nothing is kept.

Performed by: Men of the kara, by hereditary right. Occasion: Bhadrakali temple festivals in Meenam and Medam

VelakaliMartial

Men in medieval Travancore battle dress with wooden shield and short sword advancing and retreating in ranks in front of the shrine, to drum. It is a re-enactment of a military parade rather than a dance about one, and it retains its formation drill.

Performed by: Nair companies attached to the temple. Occasion: Temple festivals at Ambalappuzha and Aranmula

Thekkan kalari and adi muraiMartial

The southern branch of Kerala's martial tradition, weighted towards empty-hand technique and marma point work rather than the long weapon sequences of the north, and continuous with the adi murai practised further south. Kalari masters are also bone-setters, and in many villages that is now the main way the tradition earns.

Performed by: Kalari lineages and marma practitioners. Occasion: Training, ritual season

Kaikottikali at OnamFolk

A slow clapping circle dance to Onappattu, danced around the flower carpet through the ten days of Onam. The step is simple by design; the singing is what is judged.

Performed by: Women, in a circle around the floral pookkalam. Occasion: Onam and Thiruvathira

The Swathi Thirunal repertoire

Travancore's ruler between 1829 and 1846 composed several hundred pieces in Sanskrit, Malayalam, Telugu and Hindustani forms, and drew Vadivelu of the Thanjavur quartet to his court. The result is a body of Carnatic repertoire written by a reigning king, still sung annually at the Swathi Sangeethotsavam in the grounds of his own palace.

Vanchipattu

The boat song, sung in the nathonnatha metre whose long-short pattern is built to a rowing stroke. Ramapurathu Warrier's Kuchela Vritham Vanchipattu, composed in the eighteenth century, is the canonical text, and the metre is still the one snake-boat crews row to.

Ayyappan pattu and sharanam ghosham

The devotional repertoire of the Sabarimala season — narrative Ayyappan pattu sung at household vilakku ceremonies, and the massed sharanam call on the forest paths. Harivarasanam, sung as the shrine closes each night, is the best known single piece.

Njattupattu and kayal work songs

Transplanting and bailing songs from the Kuttanad fields, sung by work gangs to keep a line of planters moving at one rate. They have largely gone with mechanisation, and survive mostly through stage revivals and recordings.

Ottamthullal

A solo satirical dance-monologue in plain Malayalam verse, invented by Kunchan Nambiar at the Ambalappuzha temple in the eighteenth century. The story is a Puranic one; the digressions are contemporary and personal, and the form's whole point is that the audience does not need Sanskrit.

Chavittu Nadakam

Latin Catholic musical theatre performed on a wooden stage that the actors stamp on — the noise of the stamping is part of the score — with Charlemagne and other European chivalric subjects in Malayalam verse. Strongest along the Alappuzha and Kollam coast.

Kakkarissi Natakam

A south Travancore folk play built around the Kakkalan and Kakkathi characters, mixing Malayalam and Tamil, and used as social satire aimed at whoever is currently in charge.

Aranmula kannadi GI registered Pathanamthitta (Aranmula)

A mirror with no glass and therefore no second surface, so the image sits on the front of the metal with no thickness between eye and reflection. Made by a small number of related families at Aranmula and by nobody else; the alloy proportions are held within those households. Registered as a geographical indication in 2004–05.

Material: A tin and copper alloy. Technique: The alloy is cast in a clay mould made from local river clay, then ground and polished over weeks against progressively finer surfaces until the metal itself reflects.

Alleppey coir GI registered Alappuzha, Cherthala

The industry the canal town was built around. Mechanised coir factories were established at Alappuzha from 1859, and the trade drew the labour force whose organisation ran through the region's twentieth century politics. Registered as a geographical indication in 2007–08.

Material: Coconut husk fibre. Technique: Husks are retted in the backwater for months until the pith rots away, beaten out, spun into yarn on a ratt, and woven into matting.

Screw pine mats (thazhappaya) GI registered Kollam, Alappuzha

Sleeping and drying mats plaited from screw pine that grows wild along the backwater margins. Registered as Screw Pine Craft of Kerala in 2008–09.

Material: Split and dried pandanus leaf. Technique: Leaves are de-thorned, boiled, sun-bleached, split to width and plaited without a loom.

Brass-inlaid coconut shell craft GI registered Thiruvananthapuram

Bowls, ladles and boxes made from the hardest part of the coconut, with brass laid into the grain. Registered as Brass Broidered Coconut Shell Crafts of Kerala in 2008–09.

Material: Coconut shell and brass wire. Technique: Shell is cut, turned and polished, then channelled and inlaid with drawn brass wire.

Central Travancore jaggery GI registered Kottayam, Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha

Dark, soft cane jaggery from the midland cane belt, distinct from the paler Marayoor product of the high range. Registered as a geographical indication in 2010–11.

Material: Sugarcane juice. Technique: Juice boiled down in open pans without chemical clarifiers and set into dark blocks.

Chundan vallam building GI-worthy Alappuzha, Pathanamthitta

The snake boat — over thirty metres long, rowed by about a hundred oarsmen, owned collectively by a village rather than by a person, and treated as a deity's property. It is launched with ritual and kept oiled with fish oil between seasons.

Material: Anjili (wild jack) planks. Technique: Built by hereditary boatwrights to fixed proportions, without drawings, with the stern raised to well over five metres and the hull curved so the whole vessel flexes with the stroke.

Kettuvallam construction GI-worthy Alappuzha

The rice barge that moved the Kuttanad harvest before the roads did, now rebuilt as houseboats. The hull is a joinery argument — a stitched boat gives in a swell where a nailed one splits.

Material: Anjili planks, coir rope, cashew resin and fish oil. Technique: Planks are stitched edge to edge with coir rope through drilled holes and sealed with resin; the name means tied boat, and traditionally no metal fastening is used at all.

Padayani kolam painting Pathanamthitta

Made to be used once. The pigments are made the same evening from what is at hand, and the finished kolam is destroyed after the night it is danced in.

Material: Areca palm sheath, soot, turmeric, rice paste and leaf pigment. Technique: Sheaths are pinned into a curved surface and painted freehand on the day of the performance.