What Theyyam Actually Is
The performer does not play a deity. According to the tradition, the deity enters the performer's body. By the time the elaborate headgear, some rising three metres above the ground, is fully assembled and the drumming reaches its peak, the man inside has, by the logic of the ritual, ceased to be a man. Devotees approach the Theyyam not as an audience but as supplicants. They bring offerings. They receive blessings. They touch the feet of what they believe is a god standing in a paddy-field clearing at three in the morning.
