Costumes and the ‘KAGUL’ initiative.

Research and discourse of KAGUL.

 

Headwear worn by the head priest in the form of a crown is called ” Kagul”.

Pothupitiya family (mentors Somapala and Pala Pothupitiya)  falls under the region of Matara (a region in Sri Lanka) district of Southern traditional artisan communities of the “Navandanne” lineage ( Navandanne, artisans who have mastered thoroughly nine distinctive craftsmanship including metal, jewelry, textile, and wooden, architectural, curative, medicinal, performing arts). They have been generationally practicing and carrying this Curative tradition within their subaltern communities of Sri Lanka. Passing on the tradition from father to son, existing within the domains of the patriarchal inheritance. 

With each encounter with the master artisans of the Pothupitiya family, a conversation was developed to rediscover the technicalities, oral histories, cultural representations, and colonialistic influences on the southern traditional artisans. Multifaceted realities, formations, interpretations, and ethnographical studies on the islander’s practices, lifestyles, and socio-political attributes were also part of the subjectivity. 

 

Southern performative rituals prevailed as two distinguished sections;  “thovil” or exorcist rituals and the other   “shanthikarma” curative healing processes. The “Aathuraya” known as the ill person or the victim and the  “yakadura” also known as the head of the healing ritual, are the two distinctive characters of this process, apart from the performers taking roles of demonic entities. The exuberant process of ritualistic practice allows the healer to heal the ailed being physically and psychologically. Step-by-step ambiances, bodies, and souls transcend into the liminal realm. The patient and the observers gradually engulf the liminal world of supernatural entities, where demonic and divine forces ( forces of nature) exist in constant struggle and balance. 

The ritual process is carried out vertically from the lowest to the highest beings under each watch of time. Past midnight to the break of dawn is considered the peak time for demonic entities in their highest form. ( few demon characters even harbinger in the noon, twilight, or secluded spaces). The ritual ascends gradually, according to the cosmic hierarchy of order within the liminal world interconnected by the performative space. Create a form of trans ambiance during the entire act, shifting from its symbolic elements.

The attire or the ceremonial costumes worn by the “yakadura” main healer, also known as the  “adura” or the leader, must have the ability to connect with the liminal world. The performers, therefore, transcend into a singular being with the cosmic entities during the performative space. 

Textile patterns of the ceremonial attires contain rhetorical embodiments of healing and talismanic notions beyond mere decor. They exist to ward off negative/evil elements and interconnect the body with the liminal realms. The artisans must constantly carry out the precision of following these rhetorics to be communicated through the attires while making. There are hybrid entanglements within these performative practices that branched out to south Indian cultural attributes to influences of institutional  Buddhism and Eurocentric colonialism. 

Disembodying each pattern and symbolism, one must attest to connect with the branches towards the Thervadic Buddhism affluence branch shows interpretations of ‘Abhi dharma’ (philosophical discourse of meditative practices that exists in the teachings of Buddhism ). 

Some symbolical patterns indicate three liminal worlds, flora, and abstract patterns culminate energies within these cosmic plains. Other patterns interpret through forms and colors about  ‘Arya ashtangika margaya’ ( path to enlightenment), Pancha butha ( five elements) considered apo, the jo, vayo, and patvi. These five elements combine to harness the formation of living and nonliving entities accordingly. 

Within these teachings of Abhidharma, there is a hidden contextual integration of queer existence dormant within its cosmological interpretations. The soul has been moving as a transgressive, biomorphic energy source. Relentlessly transcends according to energy accumulations, contributed by ‘ Karma’ ( deeds ), creating a being devoid of structuralistic counterparts. 

This theoretical premise is called the “ Anathmavada” ( soul has no distinguish form as a constructive individual being called “ I” ) and leads on to a significant theoretical backdrop that lays the foundations for a queer discourse within the textile interpretations itself. This premise led to the culmination of a multifaceted of interpretations and discoveries to disclose the existence of bodies that have been segregated, erased, or perhaps never embraced as part of the larger narrative of cultural histography. 

The costume is worn by another performer during rituals.

Ethnographic trajectory of a gendered portrayal found from the archaic resource

Wesleyan publication imagery of the “Black prince entity”,1852 Wesleyan juvenile publications, printed in London in the 1800s, were sold at the Wesleyan mission house for a penny (image 1). These volumes of publications were considered handbooks or information publications about divinity practices to lay the foundation for the spread of Christianity within colonies. This publication was exclusively printed for young readers, giving an oeuvre about their perspectives of colonies, ritualistic belief systems, and cultural traditions through the Eurocentric gaze. In its 9th volume, published in 1852, we come across a depiction Under the title “ black female devil” with distinctive imagery of demons showcased devouring infants. This pop depiction circulated by the masses as the actual traditional portrayal of the black prince represented specifically under anthropological studies as an entity worshipped by the Cingalese community (Sinhalese community at present). Performers are misgendered or categorized under the binary taglines by the ethnographic gaze of the colonizers. Here we could observe the confusion of classifying the gender identity of the black prince, as the oral traditions represent the entity as a trans-sexual gender-fluid character personification. While deciphering the written analysis and the imagery: tracing the roots of its attire form. There arose disparities in the portrayal of the “black prince” identity within written historical material and oral ritualistic narratives known as “Janapravada.” The black prince becomes a protagonist character bringing forth multiple stories interconnecting narratives upon body and identity succumbs into racio-politicalized, gendered, historicized cultural object or artifact.

 

When we decipher this image, questions arise about how the influence of hybrid cultures affected a lower caste community that was allowed to wear a long-sleeved, frilled jacket with an upper Tippet collar. The artists created a symbolic depiction of ritual attire and also embraced many attributes taken from the cultures of Dutch, Victorian, and South Indian “Dravidian” influences. How it is specified in the script as a Cingalese traditional attire becomes questionable. Retracing its roots, attributes in making a traditional identity attire and textile tradition represents the symbolic formation and influence of hybrid cultures embraced from the Colonial periods. Upper jackets and high neck collars or trippets known as “mante” are considered part of elitism. High neck collars known as “mante” or “tippets’ are symbolically worn to showcase the status of an upperclassman.

Tippet or Mante worn by the Last king of Sri Lanka Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe who ruled the Kandyan Kingdom.

We could observe within this imagery above that the attire indicating upper caste status was worn by a lower-class performer( according to the feudal system) within the ritual process. Carava or beruva, Achhaarige, or other artistic lower caste community performers during the colonial rule had worn these forms of long-sleeved jackets(Earlier, due to South Indian influences, the performers were affluence to wear a short-sleeved Jacket). We can observe from the murals and archival material from this period that long-sleeved jackets, frilled hands, and many other colonial attributes became popular trends in mundane society.

Image of the black prince elephant hunting.
‘ Exorcism and Art of Healing in Ceylon’ by Paul Wirz , in the year 1954.
Copyrights by E. J. Brill. Leiden, Netherlands.

 

Costumes were recreated while observing the image portrayed of the black prince.

           Attire is worn for the Black Prince persona for the 2024 Colomboscope edition.

Mante is worn as a upperwear, in this image. 
 A short jacket worn by the persona here is an attire worn by mothers for the comfort to breast feed their baby. 
( worn by my own biological mother )

Black Prince Performative Documentation

Black Prince Performative Documentation( Part 2)

 

During the Kotte period, the collar “mante” was awarded to the elite commoners and officials as an honorarium for the service provided to the kings (De Silva, 1990, p49). Accordingly, King Narendrasimha is portrayed, in historical imagery a collar decorated with precious stones (Codrington, 1910, p17) According to Gangarama, Degaldoruwa murals depict jackets with long sleeves, V-neck shaped, or round-shaped necklines that have been popular. Frills, layered waist wear, and the headdress known as “Kaagul ” take the form of Portuguese and Dutch headwear. The crown worn by King Vimala Dharmasuriya indicates a trident and a Buddha figure In Front. Their many indications show similarities to the Portuguese period. (In the year 1506, Don Laurence D’almeida gave six scarlet Beret caps to one of the state offices of Ceylon) (Ferguson 1907). Many royal members during the Kotte and Kandyan eras within the courts embraced Christianity. ( Dutch nonconformist churches established in southern and Colombo regions). Furthermore, they begin to gradually embrace these newer cultural traces and languages into the practices within the island. Later in the post-independence period, the imagery and ritualism transformed accordingly. Due to socio-political situations and cultural reformations, such as in 1956, the act legalized only the Sinhalese Act, paved the way for thirty years of civil war, and made its influences the rituals’ cultural identity structuralism. Pottu or Bindhi worn on the forehead gradually diminished as an application as the act directly connects with the Dravidian cultural identity.

   KAGUL 

Instagram link of Kagul initiative

 

 “ What you meant to Be is not what you  want to Be”

Reclaiming space, history, and cultural representation of the queer being in Sri Lankan demography and traditional textile making. 

 

The Southern ritualistic textile tradition continued as an intergenerational practice within the community, passed on from father to son. Apprentices were also selected accordingly by the mentors ” Specifically” all male-gendered children were recruited at the age of eight years or younger. They trained for nearly twenty years or more to be a fully fledge performer/practitioner; the aftermath would pass on the baton of continuity. 

Euro-centric colonialism,  socio-political, and economic phenomena attributed to the gradual disruption of the continuity of its lineage. One of the key aspects that affected the future continuity was the economic crisis that caused men to choose other means to contribute to the role of a breadwinner. There is a tinge of unpredictability on the aspects of future continuation that uninformative showcases vulnerability that the tradition and its costume-making soon will be erased.

 KAGUL as a platform’s core initiative, is to provide a milestone to recruit young apprentices and practitioners as initial steps to deflect the downfall and solidify a secure enclosure to this exuberant lineage of costume making. 

In this journey, the platform sheds away from the traditional continuity structure, adding on practitioners beyond gendered, cultural mitigations. ( textile embroidery  workshops created for queer bodies, women, and other segregated personals as a  new entrepreneurship platform)

Our core discourse is around exploration through the context of speculation to find more about the tradition’s making process and conversations around the dormant queer eco-feminist conversations. Archaic material, oral narratives, textile-making histories( hybridity which is affected by the interconnecting of various disciplines ),  and conversations with the community of practitioners provide reliable traces to enrich this continuous process of mapping a textile tradition’s existence. 

“ What you meant to Be is not what you want to Be” converse around the borders of dissemination and inclusion of identities, bodies, and stories of these subaltern communities. Perhaps reclaiming the presence of the past, present, and the futurity of the traditional costume-making process. Wearables exist not just as a beautification enhancer but as a symbolic signifier of reclamation in the narrative of Sri Lanka’s portrayal.