natural pigments), b) Kottum Pattum (rendition of invocatory songs of Ayyappa and a stylised narration of the story of his birth), c) Koothu gesture-laden dance enacting the build-up story to the delivery of the lord) and d) Velichchappaadu (the slow-paced to frenzied dance of the oracle who eventually erases the kalam—the image of the lord sketched on the sanctified floor). It takes roughly a couple of hours for the kalam (image) of the lord to be completed, after which the rest of the three rituals would consume nearly three hours altogether. The picture of Ayyappa is sketched and embellished in five natural colours—white (rice powder), yellow (turmeric powder), green (ground semi-dry leaves of the 'vaaka' or manchadi' tree, red (a mix of turmeric powder and slaked lime) and black (powdered charred rice husk). The lord invariably holds his weapons like the sword and the bow-and-arrow, and, in more elaborate versions is sketched mounted on the tiger or the horse. The songs—accompanied by the beats of 'para', a smaller version of the chenda, and the cymbals called ilathalam—praising the lord bear a mix of quaint old Malayalam and Tamil with a streak of endemic tunes, some of which can be traced to classical ragas of the Sopanam style of Kerala music besides that belonging to the Carnatic idiom. The stylised rendition of the birth of Ayyappa, called Thottam, also sticks to the same mix of languages, but is devoid of music. The Koothu is enacted with no make-up but a defined set of costumes. Facial emotions are nil, dance movements are minimal and hand gestures would look the less refined versions of Koodiyattam and Kathakali. The Koothu is usually performed to the accompaniment of chenda, ilathalam and 'para'. The Velichchappadu (oracle), wielding a small sword, is bare-chested but for the garland and, canonically, with a flowy hair; the face either bearded or clean-shaven. Around the waist, he is draped in cloth pieces of white and red colours. The oracle begins with slow steps while circumambulating around the 'kalam', but the tempo gains with the circles he make—around 9 or 11 of them, overall. Then he leaps onto the image in a frenzy, but is calm when he later erases the image with both legs. The face of the lord alone is erased with the (right) hand. Out from the 'kalam', the oracle utters 'revelatory' sentences in (presumed) trance – 'kalpana' as