Saints Serpents and Terrifying Goddesses:Fertility Culture on the Malabar Coast

3 Saints, Goddesses, and Serpents: Fertility Culture on the Malabar Coast (c. 1500–1800) P. K.Yasser Arafath This chapter examines the unique and interlocking dynamics of fertility rituals and practices of different cultural traditions in the Malabar region, on the western coastal area of Kerala, between the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries. Healing traditions in this region reflected the plurality and interdependence of different cultural frameworks that contributed to the range of medical knowledge in this period. Concepts of illness, including those relating to fertility issues, were constructed through the religious-cultural consciousness of the people. This chapter tries to explore some areas of what may termed “fertility psyche,” beliefs and practices, in relation to the binding factors of religion, social functioning, caste institutions, and various concepts such as pollution. Although humor-based healing traditions such as Ayurveda coexisted with magico-spiritual practices, the belief in the supernatural was very predominant in the region. These beliefs created a large complex of rituals and festivals that also created a network of fertility geographies and cults across the Malabar region. These constituted a parallel world of alternative and non-textual fertility healing practices. These centuries witnessed the gradual crystallization of fertility norms and cults across religious communities, and people attributed 9781137567604_05_c03.indd 99 8/17/2015 8:36:38 PM 100 P. K. Yasser Arafath issues such as female fertility and male impotence to a multitude of gods, mother goddesses, holy men, and certain animals. Thus, the sacred places these forces were meant to reside in, such as temples, churches, mosque, kavus (groves considered sacred by Hindus), and dargahs, created a constellation of fertility complexes across the Malabar region. Each sociocultural group developed their own understandings of fertility practices, and matters such as conception, pregnancy, and childbirth were located within a larger constellation of beliefs, knowledge traditions, experiences, facilities, and resources. Malabar, being a cultural melting pot during the medieval and early modern period in the Indian Ocean world (IOW), became the site for the evolution of an interesting fertility psyche. This was centered, in particular, on concepts such as hygiene and pollution that affected the body—both individual and social. Fertility beliefs in all religious communities ensured multiple boundaries for desire, sensuality, sexuality, and bodily engagements. The fertility networks that evolved through these boundaries subsequently shaped multiple modes of ordering—of movements, caste relations, and religious practices. By studying the fertility cultures of the Malabar region, a complex social, religious, and textual history can be identified from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. This chapter draws on a wide range of language sources: Malayalam, Arabic, and ArabicMalayalam, as well as a large number of translated travelogues and a part of the colonial archive. I believe that none of the Arabic and Arabic-Malayalam texts utilized in this chapter, such as the Fath-hul-Muin, Nafesathmala, Muhiyuddheenmala, and the Fee Shifau-n-Nasi, have been used in the existing writings on the history of Malabar. Considering these texts will also enable a preliminary examination of the ways in which Malabar was influenced by the transnational network of Muslim scholars across what may be termed as the “shafiite knowledge grid” in the IOW over a period of three hundred years. Fertility and “Terrifying” Goddesses Among the mighty fertility agents, enormously powerful and sexually aggressive virgin mother goddesses, known collectively as “Bhagavatis,” created a major fertility psyche in the region. These 9781137567604_05_c03.indd 100 8/17/2015 8:36:38 PM Saints, Goddesses, and Serpents 101 goddesses, at places such as the Kodungallor and Chottanikkara temples, trace their origin to the early medieval period. These goddesses were worshipped by pregnant women in order to ward off, among other things, the evil influences of smallpox (Masuri), chicken pox (Ponganpani), and bodily possession. In the sixteenth century, people converged at Chottanikkara for the removal of unmadam and other serious psychological problems.1 Female believers also invoked the mother goddesses to enhance their fertility.2 Cultural and liturgical rituals associated with these popular goddesses, who were known for their divine virility and nearness, created a psychological togetherness in believers. The excessive social stigma attached to barrenness and female infertility was one of the main reasons why women resorted to the divine intervention of goddesses such as the Kodungallur Bhagavati. Komarams (oracles or the “dancing priests”) at these temples acted as the divine interlocutors between the fertility deities and female worshipers. Known for their agency in performing miracles and their healing capacities, they were consulted by women, married and unmarried, for enhancing their fertility. Writing in the early decades of the eighteenth century, Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg, the Lutheran missionary describes the ways in which oracles or “devil dancers” functioned in South Indian coastal regions: in his case, at Tranquebar on the western coast.3 Rich Freeman explains that similar oracles and oracle dances, as part of healing and diagnosing, have historically been present in the Malabar region for nearly two millennia.4 Another mother goddesses, Cheranellur Durga, who was venerated as Mahishasura Mardhini from early medieval times onward, was understood to possess curative agency in all fertility-related problems.5 Writing in the sixteenth century, Duarte Barbosa describes how the Chakliya, a lower-caste group, worshipped another mother goddess, Mariyamma (“mother of diseases”).6 Believed to have been another form of Kāli, the quintessential mother goddess of wrath and anguish, women directed their prayers to her to beget healthy children.7 Similarly, the traditions of fertility worship were found in the ritual complex of Cheerma Bhagavati at Payyannur Kavu (a sacred grove) as well, and her unhappiness and wrath were supposed to cause women to have premature deliveries and babies with deformities. These problems are believed to have been contained by the Komaramas who visited the houses 9781137567604_05_c03.indd 101 8/17/2015 8:36:39 PM 102 P. K. Yasser Arafath in the locality, their sacred authority supposedly derived from the deity responsible for the cure. Religious rituals associated with mother goddess cults were considered to be preventive measures against contagious health disorders and epidemics. One such ritual, mutiyettu, alleviated the violent and divine whims of Puthenkavu Bhagavati. Similar rituals were performed to appease Cheranellur Bhagavati who was considered the incarnation of Mahishasura Mardhini, the most ferocious image of Durga, from as early as the fourteenth century, for various physical and mental diseases.8 Her image, across India, had always been associated with motherhood, sex, and eroticism from the Gupta period onward. Social historians also point out that in Kerala and Bengal, Mahishasura Mardhini represents the annihilation of Buddhist practices and the appropriation of local fertility rituals. Mother goddesses were thus perceived to possess the agency to enhance fertility enhancement and were worshiped by women through menstruation rituals such as the Bharanippattu (“cock festival”) at Kodungallur, which is known for its explicit sexual connotations. Kodungallur Bhagavati, another incarnation of Kāli was believed to inflict smallpox or chicken pox upon pregnant women. Being the most popular of the Bhagavati cults, she could ensure two kinds of fertility: earth fertility and female fertility. Sarah Cladwell describes her as “hot, full of rage, sexually dangerous, but she is also a loving mother whose blessing ensures prosperity and fertility. She is a mother, a virgin, and a warrior.”9 Even in the present day, pregnant women and potential mothers make offerings and special votive pilgrimages to please this goddess, who could otherwise transmogrify into the more aggressive form of Bhadrakaali to cause disdain, destruction, and barrenness. The powerful tradition of sacred female cults induced in the common people a strong association with yakshis, immortal treebound sprites who, along with a host of other supernatural beings, also protected the local environment.10 Forests have also been identified as the sources of powerful potions for use in sorcery and black magic from ancient times, and felling sacred trees is believed to have led yakshis to force pregnant women to feed on their own fetuses or kill their babies. Destroying vegetation was considered to disturb the spirits of the dead who resided in trees and could unleash the havoc of disease and infertility. The “Account of 9781137567604_05_c03.indd 102 8/17/2015 8:36:39 PM Saints, Goddesses, and Serpents 103 Malabar,” composed in the early eighteenth century, described the yakshis appearing in this manner: In the evenings under the form of fair young women; and these we call whorish devils, calling men with an audible voice, and as many as suffer themselves to be mastered by the voice of lust, and hearken to their voice, they murder them upon the spot; but they that fear them they assault and enter unto them, and they become demoniacks or possessed, and run about naked and mad to disturb the neighbourhood, eating grass and raw flesh.11 Apart from yakshis, people of medieval Malabar believed that the villages were surrounded by evil spirits such as Chathan, Kuttichathan, and Ottamulachi (a single-breasted spirit). The images of these spirits were worshipped at local temple complexes. Women in places such as Payyannur, north Malabar, sought divine blessings from local male deities such as Peroorayyan, who resided at Perunmkavu (great sacred grove), as described in the Payyanurppattu, a fourteenth-century song.12 It can be said that beliefs in these dreaded spirits created a parallel culture of body, medicine, and healing in the entire Malabar region. Native Christians, as well as Hindus and Muslims, regarded spirits as possessing the power to stimulate fertility. The sixteenthcentury observer Barbosa writes: When they are sick, that they send for such people to perform some ceremony whereby they hope to have their health restored; and at other times to help them to have children along with such other problems like discovering thefts all which are things repugnant in the “authentic” Christian religion.13 By the next century, the local Christian community had developed exclusive fertility cults, locating the cures performed by spirits at physical and psychological levels. They believed in the agencies of sprites to enhance fertility and ameliorate childbirth. These beliefs were described by Michael Geddes, in his late-seventeenth-century history of the Malabar church.14 Theyyam, a ritual dance form broadly associated with the lowercaste Tiyya community, was one among the various ritual practices that were closely associated with fertility cults. One such theyyam, 9781137567604_05_c03.indd 103 8/17/2015 8:36:39 PM 104 P. K. Yasser Arafath the Chamundi Theyyam was performed to please Chamundi, the aggressive and strong mother goddess who, if enraged, could cause smallpox in pregnant women. Theyyam performers contained her occasional rage by walking on big heaps of burning charcoal, a practice that subsequently became the curative ritual shield against many such health issues. This form of dance became crystallized as a liturgical ritual during medieval times and became a living record of the lower-caste communities, their past, constituencies, and healing practices. A large number of fertility enhancers can be found in theyyam songs. Similarly, the expressions of fertility in theyyam rituals created non-textual, moral, and ritual hygiene concepts.15 Untouchable castes such as the pulaya also performed theyyams in their exclusive kavus as part of their education and socialization. The fertility rituals that they observed at the sacred kavu-temple complex at Meenkulam in the present-day Kannur district include feeding the sacred fish and Indian flap shell turtles in the temple ponds in order to cure the skin problems of newborn babies.16 Other than the ritual performances associated with fertility issues, ritual foods at certain temples were also considered panaceas for all fertility-related matters. The turmeric prasadam of the Cheemeni Mundya temple at Kasargode is one such example. Some scholars suggest that medical or healing practices at such temples were of Buddhist origin and attest to the large-scale forceful Hindu appropriations of the medieval Buddhist viharas or pallis that were spread across in the region. Their arguments are based on the fact that traditional Hindu temples never offered treatments for any diseases inside their sacred complexes.17 Temples such as Kurumba Bhagavati at Kodungallur or the Durga temple of Paruvasseri still bear testimony to their Buddhist pasts in their material structures and rituals. Holy Bodies, Pilgrimage, and Fecundity Practices Sacred geographies of all religions in South Asia act to create religious sociability. Healing, in turn, is a major element of social connection. Believers in all communities regarded pilgrimage as possessing an important agency in enhancing the fertility potential of women. Although worship by native Malabar Christians did not parallel the variety and sophistication of saint worship in 9781137567604_05_c03.indd 104 8/17/2015 8:36:39 PM Saints, Goddesses, and Serpents 105 the Western Christian tradition during the medieval period, pregnant Christian women who sought fertility blessings undertook pilgrimages relevant to sacred Christian sites during this period. The Signora de Sauda (Our Lady of Health) Church at Tranquebar, six hundred kilometers from Calicut, was one such place and it evolved into a major site for receiving fertility blessings.18 Female believers established communication with the divine figure at this sacred site through certain physical actions such as carrying with them clay pots, holy water, and written notes. When these objects of obeisance were fastened to their arms and necks, the power they created was a major hope for the fertility seekers. Similarly, like any of their counterparts across Indian Ocean littorals and the subcontinental area, Muslims in the Malabar region worshiped their own holy figures for fertility-related issues. Sufi saints at places such as Idiyangara in the medieval port city of Calicut were major figures in this regard. Sheikh Masjid, a place where many Sufis are believed to have been buried, is one among many medieval Islamic sacred centers in Calicut. From the second half of the sixteenth century, this place became an enlarged sacred-healing complex for multiple illnesses, including all kinds of fertility issues.19 A cultural-liturgical sphere developed around nerchas (celebrations of divine birth/death anniversaries) in which a curative space for fertility issues was also formed. The word nercha is derived from the Dravidian root ner, denoting multiple meanings including “truth,” “agreement,” and the act of taking a vow. Although influenced by some local ceremonial rituals, they were not merely internalizations, as Stephen Dale argues.20 Most recent scholarship has allowed us to understand that the tradition of worshipping saints and seeking remedial measures from them had always been a part of Islamic communities worldwide. People, cutting across sociocultural differences, thronged at the sacred places of holy saints, during nerchas, singing hagiographical songs of which the earliest known is Muhiyuddeenmala, written in 1607 by Qazi Muhammed, the then religious authority of Calicut.21 The belief in martyrs and holy men as fertility healers with their karamath (miracles) goes back to the very early history of Islam in Arabia and in India. With the spread of Malas, performances of panegyric texts, celebrations of holy personalities, and nerchas garnered widespread social visibility and continuation among the 9781137567604_05_c03.indd 105 8/17/2015 8:36:39 PM 106 P. K. Yasser Arafath Muslim community. Subsequently, nerchas such as Kondotti nercha or “urs” (meaning death anniversary) remained blissful places for fertility seekers who attributed their cure and energy to the votive “oil” and “cannons” offered at this fertility complex.22 The curative “guns” that believers carried are still considered an ailment-cum-fertility shield, since the oil used in the guns is believed to have special medicinal properties and powers for fertility. Such beliefs and practices represent a continuation of the pattern that all Islamic communities have followed since the Abbasid period. With the emergence of a new sociopolitical consciousness that took shape during British colonialism, which ultimately changed the pattern of the nerchas in Malabar, it is evident that they earlier functioned as a space for communion and as part of a healing complex. It is generally believed that the life of holy saints does not end with their physical disappearance from the worldly space, and their death simply means a new state of sacredness with more spiritual power for healing and miracles. As a result, Muslim ulema and scribal elites in Malabar produced several mala panegyrics during the period under discussion. These texts presented a number of charismatic sacred men and women from different Sufi traditions as healers and community builders. These holy figures were believed to have special powers in the realms of pregnancy, childbirth, and fertility. The efficacy of Sheikh Rifayee, a prominent medieval Sufi who became quite popular among Muslims in the eighteenth century, in interventions to promote fertility is described in Rifayee mala, a mala panegyric written in 1781.23 The suggestive effects of this saintly cult is believed to have had some influence on enhancing female fertility, male potency, children’s survival chances at birth, and so on. Together, Sheikh Muhiyuddhin and Sheikh Rifayee were believed to have formed two gawth (axes) on which the whole “world turns.” Thus, the presence of these saintly cults and related divine complexes in Malabar formed a large network of liturgical-curative shelters for women who were infertile, pregnant, and postnatal mothers. The continuity of this belief is seen in another panegyric text Nafeesathmala, written by Ponnani Nalakath Kunji Moideen Kutty in 1895.24 The fear of an augural evil eye or ayn was strongly associated with fertility psyche across South and West Asia, and Sufis’ karamath (miraculous) power was sought for removing the 9781137567604_05_c03.indd 106 8/17/2015 8:36:39 PM Saints, Goddesses, and Serpents 107 peril.25 An Arabic-Malayalam compilation of medieval healing, Fee Shifau-n-Nasi: Ithu Orumichu Koottappetta Pazhaya Upakaram Tarjama Kitab [hereafter upakaram], suggests that Muslims believed strongly in the principle of an evil eye, and considered this belief to be compatible with the textual tradition of Islam.26 Upakaram’s dedication of a large chapter to this issue suggests that, as in the case of most of their other health-related beliefs, Muslim healers in the region largely followed the Arab tradition of ayn. This text classified the ayn into an insiya (humankind) or a djinniyah (the djin), closely following the medieval Islamic classification, and believed that the evil influence of the ayn was transmitted through conscious stares, bodily touch, and verbal communications. Similarly, the ayn could cause sudden sickness, loss of temper and vigor, and even grief in pregnant women and postnatal mothers. The textual tradition of early Islam shows that Prophet Muhammed believed that invoking Allah would guard against the evil eye.27 Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya (1292–1350 AD), in his work on the Prophet’s medicine, Al-Tibb al-Nabawi, argued at length about the logic behind the belief in the power of the evil eye and the counterpower of divinity.28 His theory—that the ayn does not rest with the eye of a person, but rather with the nafs (spirit) of the beholder—resonated with some of the medieval Arabic medical texts that were in circulation in Malabar during this period. Some of these texts are Fawaid by Imam Sharji’ (1410–1488), Al-Adkar Min Kalam Sayyad al-Abraar by Imam Nawawi (1233–), and Fathul-Malik by Imam Dairabi. Muslims believed that persons with the evil eye could transmit nafsnajsih (impure spirit) to the body of pregnant women, instead of nafs tahira (pure spirit) of Sufis and healers. These impairments were removed by resorting to various ritual techniques such as reciting Suras al-Mu‘awwadhateyn (Sura, al-Falaq—the day break; Sura An-nass—mankind), two small chapters of the Qur’an. Similarly, application of kohl to blacken the baby’s eyelids or dimple for protection against the evil eye became part of Muslim life in Malabar, and newborn babies were smeared with various herbs to avoid the bad effects of the evil eye. Apart from their medical importance, the texts mentioned above and many others that fall outside the scope of this study show the predominant influence of various Arabic texts from the very early centuries of Islam in the region. These texts had played a significant 9781137567604_05_c03.indd 107 8/17/2015 8:36:39 PM 108 P. K. Yasser Arafath part in establishing Malabar as a major area in the transnational network of Hadrami scholarship. Similarly, Hindu women were to outwit the evil eye by carefully employing many hygiene rituals sanctioned by religion, both textual and non-textual. Bartholomaus Ziengenbalg describes the belief that “a tender infant and newly delivered mother are particularly liable to the fascination of evil eyes, to the malign conjunctions of the planets, the influence of unlucky days, and many other dangers, each more perilous than [the] other.”29Therefore, Hindu women thronged to Bhagavati kavus for partaking in manthras (chanting) to escape from evil-eye-related infertility issues. They also protected agricultural fertility by keeping enchanted objects or molikas, as described by the Dutch priest Jacobus Canter Visscher.30 The person considered to be evil-eyed was socially and morally isolated and was avoided generally as he or she was considered an empty soul. Likewise, in the realm of fertility, the causative agency of the djinn, the celestial counterpart of a human being, was a major concern for Muslims. Women, pregnant or otherwise, were vulnerable in the presence of Kafirdjins who could cause infertility and pregnancy tensions, as well as destroying the female biological cycle. Possession by djinns was believed to have caused substantial fertility problems such as miscarriage, which could be remedied by reciting panegyrics that invoked Sufis such as Sheikh Muhiyuddheen and Sheikh Rifayee. Noncommittal about a complete and successful healing through this method, Upakaram, the Arabic-Malayalam compilation of medieval and early modern Muslim healings, suggests that women who are infertile and less capable of childbearing should also consume certain sacred medicines or substances for enhanced fertility. Several ingenious medicinal treatments point to a strong presence of Tibb-un-Nabi (prophetic medicine) in the realm of infertility in the post-high caliphate period in the Islamicate Indian Ocean and Malabar, where treatments with divine alphanumeric symbols created a strong and parallel fertility healing tradition. These sacred medicines consisted of Arabic letters and numerals mixed up in pictographic medicinal tables written in specially made Chinese ceramic bowls that were to be consumed after mixing with zam-zam (sacred water from Mecca). This practice, invariably 9781137567604_05_c03.indd 108 8/17/2015 8:36:39 PM Saints, Goddesses, and Serpents 109 called Pinjanamezhuthu (writing in ceramic) or more informally ezhutheel kudikkal (drinking the written), still exists across the Islamicate South Asia, including Malabar. The letters recommended were dependent on the character of the djinns who were classified as “good” or “bad” in accordance with their spiritual status and behavior. In the sixteenth century, the Muslim scholar Sheikh Sainuddheen, in Fath-ul-Muin, also recommended animal sacrifices in order to get away from the bad effects of a djinn.31 Interestingly, the beliefs in the causative capacities of a djinn in the realm of body, diseases, possession, skin issues, and infertility continue to exist significantly among normal believers and ulema, although some of them are part of the salafi “reformist” movement within Islam in Kerala. Available sources suggest the Muslims on the Malabar coast were part of the larger Arab-Islamicate textual world, and were not really influenced by the Unani medical practices of North India where this form of Greco-Islamic medicine experienced a strongly institutionalized presence from the sixteenth century onward.32 As a functional community, Muslims established themselves in Malabar in the twelfth century during the high caliphate in Bagdad where intense debates between Islamic theologians and medical scholars around the religious validity of Unani and Greco-Roman medicine took place. These debates created tensions around the whole knowledge system of Unani, which some section of the ulema considered taboo or un-Islamic. In Malabar, the traditional Muslim ulema’s later disinterest in the humor-based Indo-Islamic medicine can be located in this context, as they were also part of Indian Ocean-based “Arabic cosmopolis,” and not of the equally dominant “Persian cosmopolis” that included north India. In Malabar, the urban ulemas were more comfortable in their knowledge of prophetic medicine while the Mappila community in the towns was resorting to both prophetic medicine and indigenous medical practices, as attested in the subsequent vernacular textual tradition and practices. Muslim ulema recommended medical care, including aphrodisiacs, when fertility issues such as male and female impotency arose and advised the community not to consider the use fertility medicines taboo.33 Although methods involving aphrodisiacs were employed, magico-ritual healings were equally significant. Upakaram suggests 9781137567604_05_c03.indd 109 8/17/2015 8:36:40 PM 110 P. K. Yasser Arafath that the belief in de-fertilization through sihr (blowing upon knots) was very strong in the Malabar Muslim community. This practice was a common form of witchcraft in the Arabian Peninsula, where women used to tie knots in the witch-cord and utter curses before they blew them off toward targets, real or imaginary. This, being a witch-practice referred to in the Qur’an, was countered by specific ritual techniques such as hanging of amulets and charms on the body, writing verses from the Qur’an, taking vows, and visiting the tombs of saints.34 Upakaram elaborates the techniques of sihr healers who mastered the art of “diagnosing” and “prognosing” various infertility issues. Sihr healers were believed to possess the power of treating various sexual impairments such as impotency, sterility, and menstruation disorders through their techniques of synthesizing Qur’anic verses with Arabic alphanumerals in certain ways. These healers were consulted for problems in pregnancy, childbirth, and breast milk deficiency, problems faced by children during breast suckling, and diseases such as mastitis. Their mastery over Islamic scriptures, scribal works, and superior hygienic dehavum puthayum (body and cover) was believed to have enabled them to become more effective.35 Issues of sihr were treated with Qur’anic medicine, whereby specific chapters were used to contain the ailments. For instance, a certain arithmetic composition, the number of hijra months, and names of the pregnant lady and her mother, with the addition of the number 20, for engaging fertility and pregnancy was a practice that gained popularity among a large number of Muslims in the region.36 Muslim healers believed that if this calculation fell under the Qur’anic category of lahv-ul-hayathu (delightful life), the mother and child would live, and if the calculation fell under the imaginary category of lahv-ul-mamath (delightful death), both of them would die.37 Similar techniques were employed in Malabar during the same period to prenatally determine the sex of the child. The culture of such magico-medical practices for causing and healing various illness and fertility problems was extensive in the region and practiced by all communities, as noticed by travelers such as Barbosa.38 Odiyan, Kerala’s unique shape-shifters, were believed to have possessed the power of de-fertilization with their mastery of black magic. Largely drawn from tribal communities such as the Panans, Kadans, and Parayans, they allegedly possessed 9781137567604_05_c03.indd 110 8/17/2015 8:36:40 PM Saints, Goddesses, and Serpents 111 the power of metamorphosing into animals and insects to harm fertility. They, who were also the low-caste masters of jungle pharmacopoeia, were seen as trafficking in the noxious supernatural beings’ powers and the substances of forests, which sometimes led to them being suspected, accused, and executed for practicing sorcery. They were considered the “antichrists” of fertility and pregnancy, as they were believed to possess the power of removing pregnancy from young women by enticing and finally killing them. They were believed to have cultivated the power of killing pregnant women with pillathailam (“child oil”), oil that was said to be extracted from the body of an infant child or fetus of a young woman in her first pregnancy.39 At the same time, Shafiite Muslim scholars, such as Makhdhum in Malabar, strongly prohibited abortion of any kind, unlike their medieval Hanafi counterparts who allowed it among slave women when they were impregnated by their Muslim owners.40 Snakes, Fertility, and Reproductive Hygiene According to Balfour, writing in the late nineteenth century: Leprosy, ophthalmia, and childlessness are supposed by Hindus to be the punishment of men who in a former or present birth may have killed a serpent, and to be relieved of these the worship of the serpent is enjoined. The idea of their curative virtues is very old, and is still believed in India.41 Snakes, exotic and venomous, have been associated with sexual reproduction, fertility, and potency across South Asia from ancient times. Images of snakes inscribed on stones or their pictorial representations in temples have been worshipped across India. Abu’l-Fazl, the Mughal court chronicler, talks about ophite worship across north India during the sixteenth century where snakes were considered an emblem of immortality, youthfulness, and fertility. The very stories that are associated with the mythical formation of Kerala and the god Parasurama are associated with the snake god Nagaraja, who ensured abundance and perpetual land fertility in the region. Subsequently, venomous snakes such as the moorkhan (cobra) and mandali (viper) inspired folk medicinal practitioners to connect 9781137567604_05_c03.indd 111 8/17/2015 8:36:40 PM 112 P. K. Yasser Arafath them with the idea of sexual virility in the region. Barbosa talks about these two as being the most venomous snakes in the Malabar region in the sixteenth century. Hindus, across caste groups, adopted specific rituals and constructed temples for moorkhan, which was believed to have the power of affecting, enhancing, or reducing female fertility. In the medieval port-kingdoms, such as Calicut, the Samudris, the rulers of Malabar, took special care of this sacred snake with its association with fecundity. It is reported that when the king of Calicut “learns where the nest of any of these brutal animals is, he has made over it a little house on account of the water. If any person should kill one of these animals, they would immediately be put to death.”42 Highly poisonous snakes such as vellikkettan, iruthalakkuzhali, rudhiramandali, and karuvela were venerated as symbols of life, female fertility, and death. From the twelfth century itself, rituals such as Sarppam Thullal (snake dance) are mentioned as part of the snake worship. These rituals expressed the associations of snakes with fertility and sexual energy. Alongside these rituals, the extensive presence of various snakes in medieval Malabar also led to the growth of vishaharis (poison destroyers) who specialized in poison healing. Vishaharis found their way into the royal courts and rich men’s houses where the constant fear of vishamtheendal (poisoning) was prevalent. Pishari Kavu, a medieval kavu belonging to the goddess Badrakaali situated in the medieval port town of Panthalayani near Calicut city has consulted from the medieval period onward for protection from snakes. This sacred place, which developed into a major temple in the medieval period, obtained its unique name from its original name Vishahari Kavu (sacred grove for poison destruction). People’s fear of the deadly snakes was, of course, not unfounded, given the situation of the region concerned. In his mid-nineteenth-century account, Edward Balfour says that death from snakebite was common across South Asia as people were not in a position to avoid snakes in their everyday lives and notes that in the year 1861 alone British India witnessed 18,670 deaths from snakebites.43 The prominent presence of snakes in the fertility complex of Malabar gave rise to a large number of fertility proverbs that reflect the strong reverence for snakes in the fertility psyche in the region over a long period. For instance, the proverb pampinte ina cheral 9781137567604_05_c03.indd 112 8/17/2015 8:36:40 PM Saints, Goddesses, and Serpents 113 pole (like snakes make love) portrays deep and sensual intimacy between two people, while anali petta pole (like Russell’s vipers’ reproduction) refers to the healthy and excessive fertility rates of women in the region. The Russell’s viper, being one of the viviparous snake varieties that gives birth to live young rather than eggs, has been considered a major symbol of fertility across the Indian Ocean littorals. The viviparous nature of this snake has always been a matter of human curiosity since very ancient times. In the Indonesian archipelago, the Russell’s viper is also considered the most important image of agricultural fertility.44 Other proverbs, such as alamuttiyal cherayum kadikkum (a snake may bite even a rat as a last resort), novichuvittamoorkhan (like a harassed cobra), neerkkolikum visham (even a water snake carries poison), keeriyum morkhanum pole (like the cobra and mongoose), chanbhoomikku muzham pampu (a yard of snakes for one foot of land), aloru pampa (man behaves like a snake), veliyilulla pampine tholilittu (like shouldering the snake lying on the fence), theyyane thaccha pole (like the beaten teyyan, an imaginary snake), aleriyal pampu chavilla (too many people cannot kill a snake), convince us of the strong sense of fear, reverence, and complicated emotions around snakes, poisonous or nonpoisonous. Several of these proverbs also demonstrate the place of snakes as major symbols of fecundity in the region. The spread of these proverbs across the communities even today show that certain healing rituals were not community specific but invariably used across different communities. In Malabar, inextricably linked with fertility beliefs and rites were the complicated hygiene rules that can be categorized as social, moral, sexual, and ritual hygiene. Barbosa details the ways in which communities enforced caste- or religion-specific hygiene norms and sanctions for sexual intercourse and reproduction, and aberration from those rules invoked social/caste excommunication. The community of Brahmins ensured reproductive hygiene through a sanction that allowed only the eldest son in the family to marry while his brothers were allowed to practice sambandham (consort) relationships with Sudra women from the Nair caste.45 The children from these absentee husbands were not entitled to the right of inheritance and Brahmin fatherhood. In the sixteenth century, some of these sanctions were considered to be “strange 9781137567604_05_c03.indd 113 8/17/2015 8:36:40 PM 114 P. K. Yasser Arafath customs” by contemporary Muslim scholars such as Sheikh Sainuddin Makhdhum.46 However, as the spiritual authority of the Muslims and part of the Shafiite hadrami scholarly network in the Islamicate Indian Ocean littoral, Makhdhum himself had earlier presented a theological boundary for Muslim men and women in terms of their sexual, sensual, and bodily relations in the chapter titled munakahat of his text Fath-ul-Muin.47 In Fath-ul-Muin we also find similar ideas of early Islamic scholar al-Ghazali, who describes piety, beauty, and fertility as the desirable qualities of a good wife. Also found in this text, In the context of marriage and female body, are references to the works of prominent medieval Shafiite scholars, such as Imam Nawawi, Imam Subuki, and Ibn Hajar whose Sharah-ul-Irshad prefers a highly fertile woman to an intelligent one in a nuptial relationship. The accounts of Barbosa and later travelers show the strict “physical” and “ritual” hygiene clauses that were maintained by higher caste groups in the area of reproductive intercourse. Sexual intimacy between higher-caste women and lower-caste men invited retribution and penal action, while it was permitted between higher-caste men and lower-caste women—provided the men followed certain purifying rituals after copulation. If a woman from a higher status was caught red-handed while committing prohibited sexual acts, they were forced to abandon their respective castes and leave the place, a practice that continued to exist until the nineteenth century. However, the Brahmins were exempted from this rule as there was no question of casting them out, as they were the main authority of defining and explaining sexual boundaries in accordance with their personal and communitarian interests.48 Thus, anuloma intercourse (a man having sex with a woman of an inferior caste) in Malabar was related to a masculine fertility/ reproductive psyche, whereby the children of upper-caste men and lower-caste women were accepted. Meanwhile the progeny of the upper-caste women with lower-caste men were believed to cause polluted conception and pregnancy and the result of that miscegenation was believed to destabilize the social structure itself. Normally, upper-caste women were not permitted to be seen in public and, in their everyday social life, were shielded from external contacts. Nur Yalmon analyzes this as a deliberate strategy to preserve caste hygiene, which remained a significant condition for 9781137567604_05_c03.indd 114 8/17/2015 8:36:40 PM Saints, Goddesses, and Serpents 115 fertility purity.49 “If a women has sexual contact with [a] lower caste male not only she and her future offspring but her caste could be polluted.”50 Barbosa reported that, in reaction, the lower-caste groups would try as hard as they could to touch upper-caste women by going to their houses at night: “And if they touch any woman, even if not witnessed, she, the Nair woman herself, was to publicise it immediately by crying out, and leaves her house without choosing to enter it again to damage her lineage.”51 These social hygiene punishments reflect the extreme level of caste protectionism and masculine sociability of the period. To a large extent, these sexual hygiene and fertility customs perpetuated the social dominance of the affluent in the larger cultural-liturgical establishments that ruled medieval social life in Malabar. Fertility-related hygiene observations were largely entrenched in the territorially based social hierarchy, creating a social structure that decided hygiene enclosures from which many communities were excluded. Therefore, any violation of the sexual-moral hygiene norms, which were based on ritual ranking, was considered very seriously and often enforced with severe public punishments. Among the matrilineal communities, fertility rituals started off with talikettu, a significant puberty ritual during the period discussed. This ritual, which commenced at the onset of menstruation, ensured women’s cultural initiation into the larger social complex and equipped her for marriage and further reproductive rituals. A woman who had not undergone this initiation ceremony was considered to be “polluting, a witch and dangerous for a man to marry because her sexual potency would be out of his control.”52 Rigorous hygiene and pollution rules were laid out across caste denominations during fertility cycles like menstruation, when women were considered particularly polluting. Rules applying to menstrual periods, childbirth, and pregnancy were also meant to protect the fertility quotient of women during this time. One such rule says that “a newly confined woman has to stand at a distance of eighteen feet and a menstruating woman at twelve feet; hence the necessity in all respectable houses for special buildings set apart for special use by the women.”53 Thus, biological functions such as puberty, the menstrual cycle, and pregnancy kept women ritually secluded, thus acting to maintain a multitude of hygiene beliefs in the entire household. Parts of the fertility 9781137567604_05_c03.indd 115 8/17/2015 8:36:40 PM 116 P. K. Yasser Arafath rituals were the specific rules designed to correct women’s behavior, which were considered essential to bringing up disciplined children and to society, at large. Girls who were undergoing puberty were perceived as vulnerable to the extra human powers that tried to violate the social hygiene of the dominant castes.54 Thus, I would argue that in the Malabar region, the concepts around sexual pollution and sexual purity worked at two levels—the instrumental and the expressive. At the instrumental level, conspicuous actions were employed to monitor and control people’s social and religious actions, while at the expressive level, belief and liturgical systems reinforced various social pressures. Relations between Hindu reproductive customs and ritual hygiene were reflected in Barbosa’s description of various forms of baths in medieval Malabar. Elaborate bathing rituals at various social and community initiation programs were conducted at puberty, marriage, and childbirth—apart from the regular daily bath—and the abundant spread of secular and sacred water bodies in Malabar ensured the sacredness of birth-related rituals and sanctions.55 Similarly, in the Fath-hul-Muin, Sainuddheen Makhdhum gives elaborate rules and regulations for women after childbirth.56 Taking a bath after the nifas (pregnancy blood) that was mandatory under the laws of Islamic jurisprudence had been stressed as the body discharged multiple liquids during the process of delivery and purifying those was considered to ensure the health of the reproductive cycle as well. Vigorous application of sexual hygiene principles and fertility rituals on various occasions facilitated physical and social control over the female body, which was considered susceptible to sexual and reproductive pollution. The effective sexual control over such women was also used for maintaining Brahmin patriarchy, central to which had always been the purity of women. Apart from the normative hygiene rituals, existing literature also suggest that upper-caste women believed in a close association between a high fertility rate and a well-kept body. Medieval poets expressed their appreciation for high-caste women who kept their feminine side perfectly, and were beautiful with their “eyes like karimkoovalam (black back-tree), that stretched unto both ears and aromatic thick hair.”57 Many references are made to the ways in which they carried their embellished body in order to increase 9781137567604_05_c03.indd 116 8/17/2015 8:36:40 PM Saints, Goddesses, and Serpents 117 physical health and beauty.58 Their health and beauty demands were met in the towns across port-kingdoms where people shopped for mutthu (pearl), manikyam (emerald), rathnam (precious stones), and vajram (diamond), and fertility-enhancing medicines.59 They also realized the significance of fragrance in order to maintain a divine and hygienic environment, where the female body could be spiritually cleansed. For the incineration of fragrance, they used Ashtagandha fragrances that created dhoopa, through which they tried to evoke the sacred bodies of the divine beings. This part of the rituals are mentioned in a twelfth-century text that describes the “sun worshipers” of medieval Kerala who took up “their censers and burn incenses in honour of their deity.” Such deities also included some of the fertility goddesses.60 A combination of herbs, incenses, and fragrances were used to awaken particular deities or please the divine body of the saints, many of whom were also regarded as fertility healers. Midwifery and Fertility Fertility concepts, rituals, and cults on the south-west coast of Malabar were closely acquainted with midwifery traditions that became significant aspects of medieval village therapies and folk etiology.61 Midwives or petti from specific castes were required to be present at the house of high-caste pregnant women from conception to delivery. Such caste-specific norms were believed to have ensured the continuity of high fertility, healthy reproductive mechanisms, and the well-being of the infant and the incumbent mother. Mostly, women from the lower-caste Malaya community performed midwifery, aided by their knowledge of fertility mantras and songs. Their songs, generally called malayappattu, were believed to have sacred powers to guarantee a healthy pregnancy and a smooth delivery. Pettis observed maleyankettu, a fertility dance ritual to avoid miscarriages, premature deliveries, and death of pregnant women. Bartholomaus Ziengenbalg says that “one of the principle reasons for which the European physicians are held [in] discredit in India, as far as regards their profession, is, that they administer their medicines without any Mantra.”62 Mantra recitation was a form of treatment, and with midwifery, existed among all sections of society during the period under consideration.63 9781137567604_05_c03.indd 117 8/17/2015 8:36:41 PM 118 P. K. Yasser Arafath Christians also believed in the ritual role of the midwife. In the seventeenth century, Malabar Christians believed that daia’s (midwives) ensured pure genealogy by preserving the ritual and religious purity of the Christian-born children from the “viciousness of Mahometans.”64 The Fath-hul-Muin suggests that Muslims in the region had special fertility prayers that were believed to have ensured children without the elements of Satan.65 The emergence of community-based specializations in fertility and pregnancy-related issues also facilitated the community-specific fertility rituals. Men from the lower-caste Vannan community specialized in pediatrics and their women acted as obstetricians, while the Malayan community midwives remained the specialists in magico-ritualistic fertility treatments. People from the Velan caste, who were expert washermen, kept the high-caste women from physical or ritual pollution throughout the course of their pregnancy with their cloths. The Pulluvar community, through their exclusive performance of the pambinthullal/pulluvanthullal (snake dance), granted fertility healings, especially when they were related to serpents.66 When diseases such as convulsions and spasms affected pregnant women, they were to pray to sexually aggressive disease goddesses, such as Aryakkara Bhagavati,67 by breaking into thullal (a dance performed while in a trance) in order to obtain instant cures.68 Pushed into the social and geographical periphery through various social and cultural processes, communities such as Pulaya, Malayan, Melan, Vannan, Pulluvan, Kuravan, Valluvan, and so on developed their own tradition of sacred geographies, health practices, and fertility behaviors; these were significant, despite the fact that Varthema, another traveler in the sixteenth century, considered most of these indigenous health practices to be “devilish.”69 Since their entry into the centers of humor-based medical learning and a larger social space that was believed to have polluted the entire social order of the medieval period, lower-caste communities produced their own therapeutics and reproductive healings through networks of small sacred spaces. Similarly, the importance given to fertility, pregnancy, and childbirth produced strong traditions of balavaidyam (child care) in all communities during this time.70 Child care became a specialized area of treatment toward the end of the period under discussion, when, as attested to in the Muhiyuddheenmala, both premature 9781137567604_05_c03.indd 118 8/17/2015 8:36:41 PM Saints, Goddesses, and Serpents 119 deliveries and deaths at births were very high.71 Although the treatment of children became increasingly text-based in the upper-caste medical traditions, new specialist communities emerged at the lower level. Within these non-text-based specialist communities it was the vannan community that specialized in children’s health.72 They were mostly called upon for the treatment of bronchitis and epilepsy and they treated the patients with many articles such as powerful medicinal plants.73 The unique characteristic of this community was that they induced the power of mantras into the treatments for speedy recovery in a social situation where common people sold their children out of poverty and diseases.74 Muslim ulema issued specific rules for child care, including child maintenance, postnatal food, and health care. Sainuddheen Makhdhum gave instructions based on the Islamic textual premise and insisted that women fed the infant with labha’a (colostrums), the pre-milk with significant protective substances that are essential for the infant’s immune system.75 This text also presents a series of rules and regulations with regard to the various stages of child development, treating children as free entities with separate and free individuality. Muslims also conducted ritual sacrifices as a part of postnatal care. They were advised to conduct Aqueeqa or animal sacrifice between the birth and puberty of a Muslim child.76 The “Account of Malabar,” one of the early Danish accounts of Malabar in the early eighteenth century, devotes a full chapter to the diet of children in the Brahmin community. This text gives a proper picture of how children should be treated in terms of healthy food from the age of 5 to 15 years.77 In short, the attempt made here at examining the fertility practices in the Malabar region during the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries clearly indicates that body and healing were seen not only as physical and practical concerns, but also as part of a paradigm of culturally constructed attitudes toward fertility practices and rituals. As mentioned earlier, both exclusiveness and crossovers in the fertility traditions of the Hindu communities shows that there existed certain stringent sociocultural norms on one hand, and interdependency in the caste structure on the other. Although religious and caste communities attempted to create exclusive fertility zones, in actuality, fertility traditions remained interwoven and fluid, and most of the resulting healing complexes remained 9781137567604_05_c03.indd 119 8/17/2015 8:36:41 PM 120 P. K. Yasser Arafath accessible to all communities. Additionally, the absence of foreign Muslims in the court of local rulers and the strife between Persianate Unani scholars and non-Persianate Islamic theologians in the medieval Islamic world perhaps reduced the emergence of an organized humor-based fertility healing method within the Muslim community as well. Malabar, as demonstrated above, was part of the larger Arabic textual network of Shafiite Islam, and Muslim ulema in the region resorted to Tibb-un-Nabi, which was developed, and proliferated, in the network of mosques and dargahs. Thus, these glimpses of fertility traditions, both textual and experiential, reveal a different dimension of the social and intellectual history of Malabar between 1500 and 1800: a long period that witnessed the emergence of new social bodies, bodily engagements, boundaries of emotions, and the emergence of new cultural-liturgical complexes. Notes 1. Frederick M. Smith (2006), The Self Possessed: Deity and Spirit Possession in South Asian Literature (New York, NY: Columbia University Press), p. 547. 2. Sarah Caldwell (1998), “Bhagavati: Ball of Fire,” in Devi: Goddesses of India, ed. John Stratton Hawley and Donna M. Wulff (Berkeley: University of California Press), p. 212; V. T. Indu Chudan (1969), The Secret Chamber (Trichur: Cochin Dewaswom Board), p. 56. 3. Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg (1682–1719), Genealogy of the South Indian Gods: A Manual of the Mythology and Religion of the People of Southern India, freely translated into English by Rev. G. J. Metzger (1869) (Madras: Higginbotham), p. 104. 4. J. R. Freeman (1999), “Gods, Groves and Culture of Nature in Kerala,” Modern Asian Studies, 33 (2): 32–37; Rich Freeman (2008), “The Teyyam Tradition of Kerala,” in The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism, ed. Gavin Flood (New Delhi: Blackwell), pp. 160–165. 5. Prof. Gopikkuttan (1996), Koka Sandesham (Malayalam translation) (Trichur: Current Books), line 92; Ralph W. Nicholas (1981), “The Goddess Sitala and Epidemic Small Pox in Bengal,” The Journal of Asian Studies, 41: 21–44; Babagrahi Misra (1969), “‘Sitala’: The Small Pox Goddess of India,” Asian Folklore Studies, 28 (2): 133–142. 6. Duarte Barbosa (2009 [1865]), A Description of the Coast of Africa and Malabar in the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century, trans. and ed. Henry E. J. Stanley (London: Hakluyt Society), p. 115. 7. K. Rathnamma, Compilation and Commentary (1997), Ananthapuravarnanam (Trivandrum: State Institution of Languages), line 143. 9781137567604_05_c03.indd 120 8/17/2015 8:36:41 PM Saints, Goddesses, and Serpents 121 8. Gopikkuttan, Koka Sandesham, line 92. 9. Caldwell, “Bhagavati: Ball of Fire,” p. 196. 10. William Dalrymple (2009), “The Dancer of Kannur,” Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India (London: Bloomsbury). 11. J. T. Philips, trans. (1717), An Account of the Religion, Manners, and Learning of the Malabar, translated from the Dutch (London: Black Swan), pp. 84–85. 12. P. Antony, ed. (2000), Payyannur Pattu, Tuebingen University Library: Malayalam Manuscript Series, General ed., Scaria Zacharia (Kottayam: DC Books), pp. 9–10. 13. Duarte Barbosa (2009), A Description of the Coast of Africa and Malabar in the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century, trans. and ed. Henry E. J. Stanley (London: Hakluyt Society, 1865), p. 176. 14. Michael Geddes (1694), The History of the Church of Malabar . . . (London: Printed for Sam. Smith and Benj. Walford). 15. J. R. Freeman (1999), “Gods, Groves, and the Culture of Nature in Kerala,” Modern Asian Studies, 33 (2): 257–302, 285. 16. Records of the Zoological Survey of India (2004), Vol. 102, Issues 1–2 (New Delhi: Zoological Survey of India). 17. P. K. Gopalakrishnan (2000), Keralathinte Samskarika Charitram (Trivandrum: State Institute of Languages), p. 255. 18. Niklas Thode Jensen (2005), “The Medical Skills of the Malabar Doctors in Tranquebar, India, as recorded by Surgeon T L F Folly, 1798,” Medical History, 49 (4): 489–515, 503. 19. Ziyaud-Din A. Desai (1989), A Topographical List of Arabic, Persian, and Urdu Inscriptions of South India (New Delhi: Indian Council of Historical Research), p. 103. 20. Stephen Dale and Gangadhara Menon (1978), “‘Nerccas’: Saint Martyr Worship among the Muslims of Kerala,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 41 (3): 523–538, 525. 21. Qazi Muhammed (2000 [1607]), Muhiyuddeen Mala (Calicut: Thirurangadi Book Stall), lines 75–85. 22. Dale and Menon, ‘“Nerccas.’” 23. (2000 [1781]) Rifayee Mala (Calicut: Thirurangadi Book Stall), pp. 72–76. 24. For more details see, P. K. Yasser Arafath (2012), “History of Medicine and Hygiene in Medieval Kerala: 14–16 Centuries,” Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad. 25. Ponnani Nalakath Kunji Moideen Kutty (2004 [1895]), Nafeesath Mala (Calicut: Thirurangadi Book Stall), p. 4; E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (1983), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 465. 26. Ahmad Bava Musliar, ed. and annotated (2001 [1885]), Fee Shifau-n-nasi: Ithu Orumichu Koottappetta Pazhaya Upakaram Tarjama Kitab (“This translated compilation contains remedies for people”), a compendium of medieval healings, edited and annotated in 1885 by and reprinted at C. H. Muhammed Koya and Sons, Thirurangadi, p. 81. 9781137567604_05_c03.indd 121 8/17/2015 8:36:41 PM 122 P. K. Yasser Arafath 27. Imam al-Bukhari (810–72 AD), in his Book of Medicine, recorded that the Prophet one day saw a servant girl with a sa’fa (or suf’a, a black or brown mark or excoriation) on her face, and said: “Recite incantations for her, for the ‘glance’ is on her,” translated by Muhammad Muhsin Khan (1997), Sahih al-Bukhari (Riyadh: Darussalam), p. 426. 28. Abd al-Ghani Abd al-Khaliq, ed. (1957), Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, al Tibb al-Nabawi (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al Ilmiyya), pp. 127–136. 29. Ziegenbalg, Genealogy of the South Indian Gods, p. 104. 30. Jacobus Canter Visscher (1862), Letters from Malabar (1743) tr.: To Which Is Added an Account of Travancore, and Fra Bartolomeo’s Travels in That Country (Madras: Heber Drury), p. 145. 31. Sainuddheen Makhdhum (2012 [1575]), Fath-hul-Muin (Calicut: Poomkavanam), p. 304. 32. Seema Alavi (2008), Islam and Healing: Loss and Recovery of an IndoMuslim Medical Tradition 1600–1900 (Ranikhet: Permanent Black), pp. 18–28. 33. Makhdhum, Fath-hul-Muin, p. 495. 34. Aref Abu-Rabia (2005), “The Evil Eye and Cultural Beliefs among the Bedouin Tribes of the Negev, Middle East,” Folklore, 116 (3): 241–254, 247. 35. Upakaram, p. 60. 36. Ibid., pp. 59–62. 37. Ibid., pp. 53, 60. 38. Barbosa, A Description of the Coast of Africa and Malabar, p. 142. 39. A. Sreedhara Menon (2008), Cultural Heritage of Kerala (Kottayam: DC Books), p. 105; F. Fawcett (1985), Nayars of Malabar (New Delhi: Asian Educational Services), p. 311. 40. Makhdhum, Fath-hul-Muin, p. 587. 41. Edward Balfour (1885), The Cyclopædia of India and of Eastern and Southern Asia, Vol. 3 (London: B. Quaritch), 3 vols., pp. 569–580. 42. Ludovico Di Varthema (1863 [1510]), The Travels of Ludovico Di Varthema in Egypt, Syria, Arabia Desert and Arabia Felix, in Persia, India, and Ethiopia, AD 1503 to 1508, trans. John Winter Jones (London: Hakulyt Society), pp. 173–174. 43. Balfour, Cyclopædia, p. 573. 44. D. G. Blackburn and J. R. Stewart (2011), “Viviparity and Placentration in Snakes,” in Reproductive Biology and Phylogeny of Snakes, ed. R. D. Aldrich and D. M. Sever (New Hampshire: Science), pp. 119–181. 45. First Travancore Nair Act of 1913 recognized Sambandham as a legal marriage and allowed wife and children of a Nair, dying intestate, one half of his self-acquired property, says C. J. Fuller (1976), The Nayars Today (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 134; for a detailed discussion on the system of medieval Consortage, see J. Devika (2005), “The Traditional Nayar Marriage System,” Modern Asian Studies, 39: 99–123. 9781137567604_05_c03.indd 122 8/17/2015 8:36:41 PM Saints, Goddesses, and Serpents 123 46. Sainuddin Makhdhum (1999 [1583]), Tuhfat-hul-Mujahideenfeen Ba-a-Si Akhbaril Burthukhaliyeen, translated as “A Tribute to The Warriors with Information about Portuguese” (Malayalam translation), ed. C. Hamsa (Calicut: Al-Huda Book Stall), p. 41. 47. Ibid., Tuhfat-hul-Mujahideenfee, pp. 454–573. 48. P. Bhaskaranuni (2000), Pathompatham Nootandile Keralam (Trissur: Kerala Sahitya Akademi), p. 12. 49. Nur Yulman (1963), “On the Purity of Women in the Castes of Ceylon and Malabar,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 93: 25–58. 50. Karen Paige and Jeffery M. Paige (1981), The Politics of Reproductive Ritual (California: University of California), p. 24. 51. Barbosa, A Description of the Coast of Africa and Malabar, p. 143. 52. Susan Lipshitz (1978), Tearing the Veil: Essays on Femininity (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul), p. 48. 53. William Logan (1951 [1887]), Malabar Manual (New Delhi: Asian Educational Service), p. 118. 54. Uma Chakravarti (2004), “Conceptualizing Brahmanical Patriarchy in Early India; Gender, Caste, Class, and State,” in Readings in Indian Government and Politics, Class, Caste, Gender, ed. Manoranjan Mohanty (New Delhi: Sage). 55. Ludovico Di Varthema, Travels, p. 149. 56. Makhdhum, Tuhfat-hul-Mujahideenfee, pp. 79–80. 57. Gopikkuttan, Koka Sandesham, pp. 59, 64, 89. 58. Antony, ed., Payyannur Pattu, p. 30. 59. Ibid., pp. 29–30. “A lucky venture! A lucky venture! Plenty of rubies, plenty of emeralds, many thanks you owe to God for bringing you to a country where there are such riches! Says Emnome de Deus (2009), The Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco da Gama to India, 1497–1499, trans. Glenn J. Ames (Leiden: Brill), p. 72; Barbosa, A Description of the Coast of Africa and Malabar, p. 31. 60. Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela (1840 [1167]), The Itinerary of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, trans. and ed. A. Asher (London: A. Asher), p. 140. 61. Antony, ed., Payyannur Pattu, line 17. 62. Ziengenbalg, Genealogy of the South Indian Gods, p. 103. 63. M. K. Vaidyar, ed. (1951 [1800]), Mahasara, A compilation of 33 medieval texts by an unknown person in the beginning of 1800, with a preface by M. K. Vaidyar (Madras: Government Oriental Manuscript Library), p. xvi. 64. Geddes, The History of the Church of Malabar, p. 196. 65. Makhdhum, Fath-hul-Muin, p. 495. 66. Edgar Thurston and K. Rangachari (1909), Castes and Tribes of Southern India, 7 vols. (Madras: Government Press), Vol. 4, p. 228. 67. Barbosa, A Description of the Coast of Africa and Malabar, p. 57; K. K. N. Kurup (1977), Aryan and Dravidian Elements in Malabar Folklore: A Case Study of Ramavilliam Kalakam (Kerala Historical Society: Distributors; Trivandrum: College Book House), p. 19. 9781137567604_05_c03.indd 123 8/17/2015 8:36:41 PM 124 P. K. Yasser Arafath 68. Fra Paolino Bartolomeo (1776–1789), Voyage to the East Indies; Observations Made during a Residence of Thirteen Years between 1776 and 1789 in District Little Frequented by the Europeans, trans. William Johnston, (London: J. Cuthell), pp. 405–406. 69. Varthema, Travels, p. 167. 70. Sriman Nambothiri (1990), Chikitsa Manjari (trans-Malayalam) (Alapuzha: Vidyarambham), p. 442. 71. Qazi Muhammed, Muhiyuddeen Mala, line 112. 72. Koramangalam Narayanan Nambhutiri (2007), “Natuvaidyahile Vannan Paramparyam,” in Natarivukal: Natuvaidym, ed. Hafeel (Kottayam: DC Books), pp. 80–89. 73. Ibid., p. 82. 74. Barbosa, A Description of the Coast of Africa and Malabar, p. 180. 75. Makhdhum, Fath-hul-Muin, p. 573. 76. Ibid., p. 299. 77. Philips, trans. An Account of the Religion Manners, and Learning of the Malabar, p. 146. 9781137567604_05_c03.indd 124 8/17/2015 8:36:41 PM