Enamavu | village

India / Kerala / Chavakkad /
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Enamakkal or Enamavu has never seen an important historical event through it. No important event has come out of it in near history, but it is said the Church was built about 1500yrs ago. Today, one may not call this a village since it has no instances that can define it as a village. There is total lack of any infrastructure. A narrow road goes through it, an off and on clinic run by the church, a school run by the church-which needs a lot of catching up with times, a scheduled bank which is more than enough for Enamakkal residence. etc It remains isolated yet connected to the world by its expatriate population. People are laid back have no collective thinking, since everyone is independent with ample financial resources from Gulf or elsewhere. When I started to live here in 1980s it had a semblance of the village in it which I could see it losing in an accelerated pace during next decade of the 90s. Commercial success of the outside world and drawn by it griped the next generation and catapulted them to another world, yet it changed their in-house living conditions only and made no connection between him and his immediate surroundings. The lack of collective thinking for Enamakkal by these people have kept the govt. involvement to the barest minimum. In short, due to all these reason it has become an idyllic place untouched by corrupt environment. This can be turned to its asset. And Thrissur badly needs an airport, here I do see along with a natural harbour (Enamakkal Bund is a natural harbour – at least a study to that effect would be great effort) a small airport in the vicinity of harbour (a rare occurrence – a harbour plus an airport) would go a long way to make the central part of Kerala connected and kick start the History of Enamakkal in the future which is at a standstill. - Written by Milton Mathews Cheruvathoor House. A resident of Enamavu
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Enamavu
Enamavu is the boundary of South Malabar.River Enamavu is the shortest one in India particularly in the state of Kerala. The little hamlet was the part of the kingdom of Cholas whom had a great Empire ranging vast area. The capital village was then called Irimbranellur still exist in the banks of Enamavu river which now merges in Canoily river and later in to Indian ocean/Arabian sea.
Irimbranellur was the head quarter of the King who ruled many years the till boarder of Venkitangu which was ruled by another Tamil king those days.The language spoken around was Tamil(chenthamil).The paddy collected from the vast fields stored on shore and the place was called Irimbranellur which means -an iron storage of paddy.
Revelry between the king of Venkitangu and the rulers of Irimbranellur was constant for a long period when the king of venkitangu did dig a long and deep canal to separate two lands to avoid attacks. This canal was filled up later after many years once the warring kings came to an agreement to be frank(It is leaned that it was the initiative of then next generation rulers) according to the copper-plate charters and stone inscription of the tenth and eleventh centuries.
There are many myths and legends foretold about the cholas and their special interests on the part of their empire. The most important was the agricultural aspects; the land in the eastern side of this conical ends . And the western waters was not connected with sea at the way that is now seen.
It was in the modern times that a chira was erected to prevent saline water entering to the paddy fields by British.The place where Chira was built called Konchira. The chira was a must construction so that salty water may not enter to the wast field of paddy cultivation. Later after about ten years of independence the Regulator(Bund) was constructed with modern concrete technology .
One of the Chola ruler had built a house for his beloved mother in the place where she can live away from paddy fields and its breezy atmosphere.
The place where the house built was called EN
AMMAVU, this was later became Enamavu.

Enamavu Church
The history of Enamavu Mount Carmel Church dates back to the year 495 AD.A small shed was built for the prayers and other needs of the faithful around, there were only few Christians faithful there that time. Later in the year 500 and after more Christians beginning to concentrate near by villages as the community was getting strong enough to be a part of the society . But the building of a then modern church was done when the Portuguese and Dutch came to the western coast of Malabar side of this part of the world.A beautiful church was built after 1498 when Portuguese started to influence the local faithful.They gave valuable to the Mar Thoma Christians and they even married local Christian women in order to establish their domination in cultural diversity.Portuguese Built many Churches in the west coast keeping to increase their activities both commercial and cultural. Portuguese dominated 150 years ,during this period Mar Thoma Christians had a revolt against the Portuguese way of liturgical version and the Eastern (Syriac) version of liturgical activities of local Christian.The Koonan Kurisu Oath in 1653 was a turning point ,84 Churches came together under the Syrian rite, Mar Thoma tradition. Enamavu Church was one of these 84. The Church was under the patronage of then Crangannore Archbishop Francisco Garcia.After the Koonan Kurisu Oath taken place ,Fr.Sebastiani and Fr.Hyacinth were sent from Roma to the Malabar coast to find out if Mar Thoma Christians still like to have the Patronage of Pope . Both of them visited Enamavu In1655 and found the strong faithful Christians in and around Enamavu.
The Church built by Portuguese was a marvelous one which was later Tipu Sultan attacked and tried to destroy .
Enamavu River is the boundary of South Malabar, there is still a ferry(Enamavu Kadavu) which was an important entry point to Kochi Kingdom and to Malabar.
Enamavu has got a modern version of name Enamakkal which has got just less than 125 years of history; the name came after cannoli canal built. Enamakkal means just have a rest place so that can have enough time to prepare further journey.And it is observed that mostly Christians use the version of Enamakkal in records and otherwise but suppose not to forget Enamavu is the place where one of the oldest Churches in India situated so not to desert the very traditional name of the village.
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The old Christian community in Enamavu is no more,due to migrations from far place to Enamavu and wise verse . There are few families who claim they inherit those who were converted straight from Mar Thoma.But the family names like Pulikkottil,Poruthur,Cheruvathur,Kanjirathingil,Thek-kekkara etc are found in Kunnamkulam and nearby locations.But they are spread among Orthodox and other Eastern Christian sectors.Those families claim that they are the most aristocratic in Christian traditions but scattered among different denominations .
Any how,due to frequent and steady migrations taken place at very long time span the first Christians disappeared from Enamavu .The present residents in the village could claim only not more than 200 years of heritage and the life graph is changing in a very fast scale.
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Coordinates:   10°30'37"N   76°5'59"E

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This article was last modified 6 years ago