article
Passions in the landscape: ancestor spirits and land reforms in Kerala, India
South Asia research • 20 (1) • Published In 2000 • Pages: 63-84
By: Uchiyamada, Yasushi.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
Prior to India's land reforms of the 1960s and 1970s, "untouchable" Pulaya and Paraya agricultural workers in Kerala’s rice growing communities lived in the margins of villages on landscapes associated with pollution and sin, while descendants of high castes inhabited the sacred center. When land became a saleable commodity following land reform, many high-caste people acquired property in previously marginal sections where the ancestors of lower-caste people are buried. This article describes how lower caste agricultural workers effectively invoke their attachment to the land through buried ancestors to resist losing land to higher castes. The centerpiece of this struggle is the performance of ancestor worship ceremonies emphasizing symbolic boundaries separating a purer center from an impure and dangerous periphery.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Castes
- Real property
- Inter-community relations
- Settlement patterns
- Burial practices and funerals
- Eschatology
- Spirits and gods
- Prayers and sacrifices
- Cult of the dead
- Cosmology
- Mythology
- Cereal agriculture
- Research and development
- Classes
- Acquisition and relinquishment of property
- Political movements
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Kerala
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2017
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Asia
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- South Asia
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- article
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Anthropologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Teferi Abate Adem ; 2016
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- no date given
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1960-1995
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- southern Alappuzha district, Kerala, India
- NotesAdditional notes
- Yasushi Uchiyamada
- Includes bibliographical references
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 84646160
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Kerala (India)