Mother Goddess Worship for the Reinvention of Korkai Novel - An Ethnographic Study

Abstract

The novel 'Korkai' written by Joe D. Kruse is a Sahitya Academy Award-winning novel in the year 2013 which records the lifestyle of people along the coast of southern Tamil Nadu, especially from Thoothukudi to Kanyakumari. The Bharatava people living in the area converted to Catholicism a few centuries ago. Korkai Novel points out that many of those who converted are still involved in the worship of Mother Goddess. Ethnographic study is the study of the various aspects of the life of a race in order to understand the culture of that race. Literature can also be subjected to ethnographic study to identify the cultural elements of the people that the literature describes. This article highlights how the novel seeks to restore the worship of the mother goddess (Minor goddess worship) by applying the element of 'Religious faith', which is one of the ethnographic elements in the Korkai novel.