摘要：The article discusses religious narratives about the village deities of North Tamil Nadu
that can be conceptualized as myths, legends, and memorates according to a folkloristic
taxonomy of genres. These narratives confirm the power of deities to assist people
in hardships and give warning examples of supernatural sanctions that follow the
breaking of norms. Village priests (pujaris) are the religious authorities who control
both deities and oral traditions (aideegam) about them. There is a widespread belief
in the studied region about encountering the deities at night, when they ride around
their territory to protect it from evil powers. Such experiences are narrated both in
legend and memorate form. Religious folklore genres thus form the border zone in
which the social world of humans and mythical realm of deities are merged into one
textual space of mutual interaction.
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