Mythopoeic Demystification of the Mavelikatha: Reconfiguring Maveli as a Cultural Capital and Advertising Semiotic in the Spectacular Economy of New Media Onam

Abstract

This article interrogates the transformation of Maveli, once a folk figure embedded in agrarian rituals and oral traditions, into the most expensive advertising symbol in the new media economy of Onam. While local traditions recall Maveli as a cultural memory tied to land, labour, and communal ethos, contemporary urban culture reconfigures him as Mahabali—an icon commodified through media campaigns, corporate branding, and cultural industry spectacles. Ritual practices such as pookkalam, Onam games, and Onappayasam have been appropriated into consumerist frameworks, displacing their original communal and ecological significance. By contrasting the mythopoeic origins of Maveli with his present role as a semiotic resource in advertising, this study highlights the processes of cultural commodification, erasure of subaltern voices, and loss of folk memory. Drawing from folklore, inscriptions, and ecological traditions of the Western Ghats, the paper argues that Onam’s mythic core—once grounded in sun worship and agrarian cosmology—has been rebranded within a spectacular economy that privileges capital over community.