The paper focuses on songs used in the art form PaliyaNrittam by the Paliya community. Paliya is a tribe residing in udumbanchola and Peerumedutaluks of Idukki district, Kerala. Mainly the PaliyaNritham is performed during the festival of ElathPalichiamma, the clan deity of the Paliya, which is performed in the Tamil month of Chitra. There are mainly five songs that we can see in PaliyaNrittam. Prayer Song, Worship Song, Clown Song, Mullaperiyar Song, NelluKuthu Song. Major theme of the songs used in PaliyaNrittam is the daily life events, agriculture and clan deities. In this study the researcher examines the following areas: (i) Narratives and rituals in PaliyaNrittam (ii) Role of arts in various spheres of Paliya’s life. (ii) The current state of tribal songs of Paliya community. All the information for this study collected through extensive field work. The songs used in PaliyaNrittam is a representation of their culture and traditions. There are very few people who know the songs and art forms of the Paliya people today. The changes in the culture and lifestyle of the Paliya people are also reflected in their art.

Nimya Joseph is an Assistant Professor at NICHE, Kanyakumari. She holds an MA in Linguistics from the University of Mysore and is UGC-NET qualified. Her research interests include linguistic analysis, language documentation, and empirically grounded field-based studies. She previously worked as a Museum Project Scientist at KIRTADS, where she was involved in systematic fieldwork and data collection. The data collected during this period contributed to the development of this research paper.

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