Language
Pattole Palame
ಪಟ್ಟೋಲೆ ಪಳಮೆ
Compiled by Nadikerianda Chinnappa and published in 1924, this is the single most important written record of Kodava oral tradition: songs, customs, proverbs and ritual, gathered from within the community rather than described from outside.
The book
What it contains
DocumentedFolk songs and ballads, accounts of life-cycle and festival ritual, proverbs and riddles, and notes on clan and household practice.
Chinnappa collected material across Kodagu over years of work, writing it down in the Kannada script. The songs sit at the centre of the compilation: they are the form in which much Kodava history, genealogy and ritual instruction was actually carried, and many were sung to the beat of the dudi drum.
Because the material was gathered from many okkas and villages, the book preserves variation rather than flattening it — one reason later writers on Kodava ritual keep returning to it.
Sources & Further Reading
- Nadikerianda Chinnappa, Pattole Palame (ಪಟ್ಟೋಲೆ ಪಳಮೆ) — Kodava culture, folksongs and traditions, 1924 / 2003
- Wikipedia contributors, Pattole Palame
- Sahapedia, Kodagu: the ainmane, the kanni mule and ritual space
Reading it
A source, not a rulebook
Traditional AccountThe value of Pattole Palame is that it records what Kodavas said about themselves — which is a different question from what happened.
Afterlife
Editions, translation and reception
The work was reprinted in later editions and, decades afterwards, translated into English by Boverianda Nanjamma and Chinnappa — descendants of the compiler — which brought the material to readers outside Kodagu and outside Kannada. Chinnappa is remembered alongside Appacha Kavi as a founding figure of Kodava letters.
- Kodava Takk
Classification, script and speakers.
- Sacred traditions
Ancestors, Karana and kaimada.