ERC Advanced Grant · 2024
Voices from the Deep South: the rise of Pattu song cultures of South Asia
VOICES offers a new, large-scale perspective on the history of song-performing cultures of South India in premodern and colonial contexts. More than a song, pattu stands for a multitude of interrelated constellations of song traditions - a galaxy of regional song cultures. One region alone (Kerala) boasts nearly eighty song genres, many of epic proportions: from songs of heroes and place through verses to awake a deity or activate a curse, to songs of ecstatic praise. Most are embedded in recurring ritual events, linked to matrilineal order and performers of subaltern roots. Some connect to minorities: Christians, Muslims, Jews. Pattu invokes practices of deploying skills stored in songs to…
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