ABSTRACT
Every year during the Tamil month of Maci (February-March), the village of Mailam is entirely given over to a religious festival which involves the main social elements among the inhabitants. This festival lasts nine days. First of all, it is an opportunity to celebrate Mailiyamman, the village goddess (krAma devadai), staging processions to appease her and marrying her in her temple. She can represent a potential danger for the villagers by the power of her anger because, like almost all Hindu village goddesses, she is a form of %akti (‘power’, female ‘energy’) which can be dangerous (e.g. Beck 1972, Brubaker 1979, Moffatt 1979, Reiniche 1979, Moreno and Marriot 1989, Biardeau 1995, Fuller 2004).
