Nandi Festival Head

A finely painted Nandi festival head.

These heads are used in bull festivals known as kala velas. Bull festivals originated out of people’s desire to keep their bulls, bullocks and oxen healthy as they were used for ploughing and other work. In a society whose well-being was linked to good and bountiful crops and who therefore sought the benevolence of nature, these animals played a major role. The idea was to make an offering of them to their local deity- Bhagavathi. Their importance can be realised by the fact that at Mulayankavu there are forty pairs of these effigies at both the main festival in the Malayalam month of Medam (mid-April to mid-May) and their other festival in Meenam (mid-March to mid-April). The difference is that in Meenam there are also eleven single bullocks belonging to particular families in the area. These festivals are exclusive to the region of northern Kerala known as Valluvanad, formerly a small kingdom.