Passions in the landscape: ancestor spirits and land reforms in Kerala, India

Uchiyamada, Yasushi

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.

Abstract
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.

Castes

Real property

Inter-community relations

Settlement patterns

Burial practices and funerals

Eschatology

Spirits and gods

Prayers and sacrifices