Panjurli

Bhuta kola mask representing Panjurli, the boar. Bhuta kola is an ancestral cult which is still practiced in the Tulu Nadu region of Karnataka. Its ceremonies are characterized by the interaction between the audience and the performer which encarnates the invoked spirit. The performance is usually organized and sponsored by the wealthy local families, once a year, or each time there is the need to solve a problem in the community or to consult the oracle. The performer, in transe, answers to practical questions, solves family and other quarrels, acts as a judge whose words are not questioned. The bhuta kola can last several nights. It includes ritual objects, as metal masks and ornaments, that will be kept in shrines, and offerings as fruits and animals for sacrifices. The performer acts with heavy metal adornments like belt, mask, ankle bells, sometimes with a plastron.In Tulu Nadu, boars often invaded and destroyed the cultivated lands so the farmers started worshipping and giving offerings to Panjurli, the spirit of the boar to appease him keep the wild animals away. This belief was later absorbed by Hinduism which transformed Panjurli as an animal of goddess Parvati, sent to earth to protect the righteous nad the truth.