Priest, Woman and Mother: Broadening the Horizons through Transgender/nachchi Identities in Sri Lanka

This article is based on a case study of (the pseudonymous) Karu Māmā’s life as a gurunnānse, his community, his practices and ultimately the negotiation of his identity as a transgender person within his community. To be more precise, it explores the lives of Karu Māmā and his transgender/nachchi (a local term used by a particular transgender group in Sri Lanka) daughters around the little Pattini shrine in his house and the annual gammaduwa ritual he performs as goddess Pattini. This ritual, I argue, is a unique illustration of his transgender and embodied performativity. It reminds us of the fact that we need to revisit and rewrite certain established discourses on transgenderism in Sri Lanka. Karu Māmā, who grew up with heteronormative, Sinhala-Buddhist discourses on birth, rebirth, family, notions of good and bad, as well as perspectives of gender, counters those dominant ideologies through his practices around his Pattini shrine and associated rituals. Moreover, I argue that this case study challenges the divisions that exist between genders, social classes, and castes around the Pattini ritual and narrates new interpretations. On the one hand, the rituals and practices associated with the Pattini dēvālaya in Daluwatte make a significant contribution to transgender identity negotiation. On the other hand, through well-known discourses of traditions, practices, rituals, and worshipping, this offers us new insights into motherhood, femininity, sexuality, and gender in contemporary Sri Lanka.