Restudy of Kotahalu Yaagaya at Anuradhapura District in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Since Sinhalese people consider puberty as a special event in a young girl’s life they perform many customs and rituals of the ancient past. Secondary socialization processes have been beginning of this event and thereby internalize future responsibilities as a woman, wife, and a mother in the girl’s mind. This celebration referred as Kotahalu Mangalya, and it contained with many meaningful customs and practices. When girl attained puberty in inauspicious time Kotahalu Yaagaya is performed by Sinhalese shamans after the seclusion period of her. A principal researcher had conducted a deep study on this ritual in 1990 at Pandulagama in Anuradhapura. In fact, she was one of eyewitnesses who had watched this ritual when performed over one whole night by shamans of Nochchiyagama, in Anuradhapura. Twenty-three years after that study, the group of present researchers have revisited to the same area in 2013 and 2016 and conducted a restudy. Accordingly, objectives of this research were to restudy and understand the contemporary status of the same ritual and make an attempt to resurrect it, after more than two decades of the first study in 1990. Further, it is interesting to study the reasons and factors for this kind of cultural events becoming disappear with the passage of time. It is also important to study the reasons for this type of cultural events becoming obscure with the passage of time. Purposive sampling method was carried out for the present data collection. Basically, data gathered by employing the interview method, including in-depth interviews. Among them fifteen key informants were eyewitnesses as well as the women who were subjected to this particular ritual. Finally, researchers compared data which were gathered more than two decades back, and data gathered two decades after the first study. Sedaraman (1968), explained the many reasons for fading this ritual in the present society. Among them one is that since the shamans are looking down and their successors reluctant to continue the shaman tradition as like as their ancestors. In fact, Sedaraman’s explanation was proved by the experiences of researchers’ regarding the attempt of resurrecting Kotahalu Yaagaya. Young descendants of shamans at Nochchyagama lineage made an attempt to learn and perform it. But they completely failed and gave up the task due to difficulties to recite verses of this unique ritual as they were not practiced it from their childhood. It is extremely difficult to reconstruct this diminished cultural event, namely the Kotahalu Yaagaya which consists of many tuneful and meaningful verses. Accordingly, like many other cultural events Kotahalu Yaagaya also has become history.

Keywords: Kotahalu Yaagaya, puberty ritual, Sinhala culture, socialization, shamans