ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Pallar puberty rites. It argues that the puberty rites are quintessentially Non-Brahmin for three reasons. First, the rites are an attempt to safeguard what Non-Brahmins perceive as the precious, distinctively female ability to create children. Second, they enact a symbolic marriage that emerges as a necessary corollary of symbolic construction of fertility as sacred female power. Third, the rites resonate with central aspects of the roles of both women and men in Non-Brahmin kinship. “To come of age” is the most common term used in all castes for girl’s attaining puberty. To the Non-Brahmin castes of Aruloor, the occasion of a girl’s puberty is a very auspicious moment, but it is also fraught with ritual impurity. The Christian Paraiyar of Aruloor are Roman Catholic by religion, and so it might be assumed that they do not celebrate puberty rituals. The proclamation of female power in puberty rites jars sharply with the reality of women’s new insecurity.
