Pursere Kattuna
traditional ritualistic dance form performed by Tulu-speaking people from various castes across different parts of Belthangady taluk
Pursere Kattuna is a religious and traditional folk dance form of Tulunadu, performed mainly in the villages of Belthangady taluk in the Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka, India. The performance is held during the full moon in the month of Suggi according to the Tulu calendar.
Performance
Pursa Kattuna takes place from late evening until the early hours of the morning. Dancers visit the homes of people belonging to different social strata, blessing them with healing, prosperity and protection. The ritual includes acting, singing, dancing, symbolic storytelling and mythological mimicry. Performers interact with each other and with the public during the different stages of the enactment.
The style shows influence from the Natha Pantha spiritual tradition. Individuals embody different characters, and the performance continues throughout the night as a community event.
Characters and Costumes
Pursa Kattuna uses a wide range of costumes and roles representing various castes, professions, mythic figures and social archetypes. Costumes may depict:
Brahmins and priests
Mendicants, ascetics and fortune tellers
Koti Chennaya
Wild animals including bears, tiger, lion, monkey
Scholars, thieves, ghosts and spiritual entities
A Christian male character, Muslim fale character
Characters that challenge or provoke through humor, mimicry and farce
The performances are mainly initiated by the Tulu Gowda community, although people from other communities also join and participate.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Pursere Kattuna” as traditional ritualistic dance form performed by Tulu-speaking people from various castes across different parts of Belthangady taluk. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q132748975. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pursere Kattuna” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.