Worship of family god in the fishermen community in Tranquebar 1981
The drawing illustrates the tradition in the fishing community of worshipping the paternal family or clan god (kuladevata). The deity can be a male, female, an animal or an object, like a holy stone.
On certain occasions the fisher family will make a pilgrimage to the temple or holy place of the kuladevata or kuladevi. This is to obtain the blessing of the god, for example after an auspicious occasion such as a wedding.
In 1985 artist Elsebet Morville produced a series of fourteen drawings for ethnographer Esther Fihl in relation to her fieldwork in Tranquebar in 1981. This drawing is made according to Fihl’s photos and notes.
Tranquebar – or Tharangampadi – is a village on the Coromandel Coast of south India. A large part of the population in Tranquebar are fishers or working within business related to fishing. The language is Tamil and the majority of the inhabitants adhere to religious traditions of Hinduism, but there are also smaller communities relating to Christianity or Islam.
