Poothan and Thira is a ritualistic art

Art

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....

 form found in the South Malabar region of Kerala

Kerala

or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....

 in India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, in which people dance in costumes representing Poothan, Shiva's lieutenant, and Thira, the goddess Kali, to the accompaniment of drummers.

It is usually performed once or twice a year in villages or towns to cleanse them of evil spirits as well as in temples - especially in the Pooram

Pooram

Pooram is an annual temple festival held in central Kerala after the summer harvest. Most pooram festivals have at least one ornately decorated elephant being paraded in the procession taken out of the temple precincts...

festival season between December and May.
A typical Poothan and Thira performance includes shouts and wild gestures and may include percussion and horns as well as drums. The dancers wear large fan-shaped head-dresses and imposing masks, often with sticking-out tongues and bulging eyes. The dancer playing Poothan usually wears a bright coloured tightly woven costume, often including bright red elements and embellished with gold-coloured trinkets that rattle when the dancer moves. The dancer playing Thira wears a semicircular black crown with symbols of the goddess

Goddess

A goddess is a female deity. In some cultures goddesses are associated with Earth, motherhood, love, and the household. In other cultures, goddesses also rule over war, death, and destruction as well as healing....

 embossed on it.

Performers are traditionally from the Mannan

Mannan

Mannan is a plant polysaccharide that is a polymer of the sugar mannose.Detection of mannan leads to lysis in the mannan-binding lectin pathway.It is generally found in yeast, bacteria and plants. It shows α linkage. It is a form of storage polysaccharide.-See Also:Mannan Oligosaccharides...

 Hindu

Hindu

Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...

 sub-caste of rural Palakkad

Palakkad

Palakkad , formerly known as Palghat, is a municipality and a town in the state of Kerala in southern India, spread over an area of 26.60 km2.The city is situated about north of state capital Thiruvananthapuram. It is the administrative headquarters of Palakkad District...

, southern parts of Malappuram

Malappuram

Malappuram is a municipality in the South Indian state of Kerala, spread over an area of 33.61 km2. It serves as the administrative headquarters of Malappuram district. As per the 2011 census Malappuram urban agglomeration is the fourth largest UA in kerala with a total population of...

 and northern parts of Thrissur

Thrissur

This article is about the city in India. For the district, see Thrissur district. For the urban agglomeration area of Thrissur see Thrissur Metropolitan Area...

.

The epic Malayalam poem Poothappattu by Edasseri Govindan Nair

Edasseri Govindan Nair

Edasseri Govindan Nair is a prominent Malayalam poet. His works include 19 books and over 300 poems in 10 anthologies, 6 books of plays and a collection of essays....

is based on the Poothan and Thira tradition.