Our sapramanja kattil story
Documenting the learning from assembling the “sapramanja kattil”, a traditional Kerala cot.
One of the things my wife inherited from her family home in Kerala was a traditional four-poster cot.
Built like a tank, the cot is an impressive creation weighing a massive 115 kilos and is 7.5 feet long, 3.5 feet wide, and a little over 1.5 feet high.
There are intricately carved head and foot boards, four-foot long posts at the corners, and thick carved legs. The posts, head and foot boards, and legs are painted in traditional orange and black vegetable dye colours.
The sleeping plank is an assembly of six separate sections joined by mortise and tenon joints and held together by wooden dowels.
The cot is thought to be over 100 years old and is a fine example of traditional Kerala carpentry. As far as I can tell, it is called a sapramanja kattil in Malayalam. Manja means yellow and kattil means cot. I'm not sure what sapramanja means so if you know, do tell.
The cot is thought to be over 100 years old and is a fine example of traditional Kerala carpentry. As far as I can tell, it is called a sapramanja kattil in Malayalam. Manja means yellow and kattil means cot. I'm not sure what sapramanja means so if you know, do tell.
The colourful sapramanja kattil was a status symbol in the old tharavads (ancestral households) of the Cochin and Travancore regions of Kerala. While the Malabar region also had similar cots made of good hardwoods, the ones I’ve seen were not coloured.
The internet has surprisingly scanty information on the cot. I did find a handful of references to sapramanja kattils (see this article in the Hindu and this picture in Pinterest) but in a world of information overload, these are meagre pickings. So if you have anything to add on sapramanja kattils, do let me know.
A carpenter in Palakkad dismantled the cot so that we could transport it to our apartment in Bangalore. But once there, the problem was to re-assemble it. Bangalore has no dearth of carpenters but we didn’t know anyone who was familiar with traditional Kerala furniture.
So I reassembled the cot with a little help from my wife.
It wasn’t easy. The Kerala carpenter had helpfully labelled all the parts so I knew what had to go where. But the pieces were heavy and soiled with age and use. It took me a week to clean the sections, sand them, oil them, and put them all together again.
It should be good for another 100 years or more.
To preserve our own learning, and as a guide to others who might need the information, this is how we assembled the sapramanja kattil.
A carpenter in Palakkad dismantled the cot so that we could transport it to our apartment in Bangalore. But once there, the problem was to re-assemble it. Bangalore has no dearth of carpenters but we didn’t know anyone who was familiar with traditional Kerala furniture.
So I reassembled the cot with a little help from my wife.
It wasn’t easy. The Kerala carpenter had helpfully labelled all the parts so I knew what had to go where. But the pieces were heavy and soiled with age and use. It took me a week to clean the sections, sand them, oil them, and put them all together again.
It should be good for another 100 years or more.
To preserve our own learning, and as a guide to others who might need the information, this is how we assembled the sapramanja kattil.
PS. This cot is not for sale (since some have asked).
The disassembled cot
Work in progress assembling the pieces
Treating the wood with vegetable oil to preserve it (I used coconut oil)
The final result
Cross-posted in Medium.
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