Kozhikode Granthavari, Mamakam Kilippattu and Kandaru Menon Patappattu, along with Keralolpatti and Keralamahatmya, are the major native chronicles mentioning the Mamankam festival.

[3] The innate nature of the festival, dateable at least to the era before the Cheras of Cranganore (c. 800-1124 CE), muddled in myths and legends, is still disputed.

From that day forth, the Vaḷḷuvanāṭu chiefs started to send warriors to kill the Sāmūtiri (who was personally present at the fair with all his kith and kin) and regain the honor of conducting the festival.

The Māmānkam came to an end with the conquest of Kōzhikōde by the Sultān of Mysōre, Ḥaidar ʿAlī (1766 CE) and the subsequent Treaty of Seringapatam (1792) with the English East India Company.

[12] In August 2010, the renovation of Mamankam ruins was inaugurated up by the authorities, which came under the Nila Tourism Project with the support of State Archaeology Department, Kerala.

[12] As per a mid-2011 report in the Times of India, the Mamankam relics at Tirunavaya are "fading to oblivion" and in a ruined state due to the neglect of the authorities concerned.

Perar also acts as the main artery of communication with the interior Kerala lands, otherwise inaccessible due to the thick vegetation, in the rainy season.

The following is a description of the origins of the festival, prior to the hegemony of the chiefs of Valluvanatu over the Mamankam, based on native legends and myths[15] The fair was initially conducted by the landlords, led by an executive officer styled the Rakshapurusha ("the Great Protector of the Four Kalakas").

According to the original engagement with the prince, he was to continue as ruler only for a term of 12 years, at end of which he was to retire into private life or to leave the country altogether.

The king was obliged to kill himself, by cutting his own throat on a public scaffold erected in view of the Brahmin assembly, after completing his 12-year term.

(Duarte Barbosa mentions this to be the kingdom of Quilacare and not Calicut of which he has given very detailed accounts of the life and customs of the people there including the Samutiri in the first chapter of vol 2)[17] Sir James Frazer also supports this view in his extensive studies.

[18] Jonathan Duncan, in his "Transactions of the Bombay Literary Society", mentions at each recurring Mamankam festival all feudal ties were broken, and the parties, assembled in public conclave at Tirunavaya, readjusted at such times all existing relations among themselves.

[20] The native traditions continue to describe the evolution of the festival in the following manner When the influence of the Perumal increased in course of time, they refused to abdicate after 12 years, and the practice of fighting for the crown by warriors, at Tirunavaya, came in vogue.

The Perumal of Cranganore attended the Great Feast as before, but, instead of abdicating the crown in the presence of Brahmins, he seated himself in a tent pitched for him at Tirunavaya, strongly guarded by a body of spearmen and lancers.

[4] The last Chera Perumal Rama Kulasekhara conferred the chief of Valluvanatu the "right" to conduct the Mamankam fair as the Rakshapurusha - the Great Protector with 10,000 Nair warriors.

Immediately the Koya proceeded by sea, with his ships and men, and the Samutiri warriors by land to Tirunavaya, and subduing little chiefs, villages and Hindu temples on the way.

It seems, before Jupiter completed his cycle, the chief of Kozhikode captured Tirunavaya, proclaimed himself as the Great Protector and took over right of conducting the Mamankam fair.

It was arranged that when he came to Kozhikode he should receive, as soon as he crossed the river at Kallai, betel and tobacco from the hands of a Muslim man dressed as a woman - this being considered tantamount to a marriage.

The campaign was bitter and protracted, so much so the Kozhikode despairing of success, sought divine help by propitiating Valayanatu Bhagavati, the tutelary deity of Vellattiris.

[4] During the subsequent Mamankam fairs, all other chiefs of Kerala - including the ruler of Travancore[1] - were obliged to send flags as a symbol of submission to Kozhikode.

But the chief of Valluvanatu who did not recognize the Zamorin as the legitimate Great Protector but considered him only a "usurper" and used to send chavers (suicidal warriors) instead.

If these men could kill the Zamorin, who was personally present at the fair and was protected by thousands of his own warriors, the right of Great Protector would have "devolved" on the chief of Valluvanatu.

Vellattiri, after losing Tirunavaya and the right of the Great Protector, began to conduct the puram festival in the place of Mamankam, at Angadipuram (medieval Valluvappalli), his capital.

"Here in the temple of his tutelary deity Thirumanthamkunnu Bhagavati, he stood on a raised granite platform from where in the olden days his predecessors started the procession to Tirunavaya for the Mamankam fair in peace.

[25][26] "A community of bodyguards of the ruling families...who in pledging their lives to the royal households [of Valluvanatu]...in avenging the death of two princes these [Calicut] guards dispersed, seeking wherever they might find men of Calicut, and amongst these they rushed fearless, killing and slaying till they were slain... they like desperate men played the devil before they were slain, and killed many people, with women and children."

This account was based on the Kozhikode Granthavaris – Amid much din and firing of guns the Samutiri, the warriors, the elect of the four Nair houses in Valluvanatu, step forth from the crowd and receive the last blessings and farewells of their friends and relatives.

They have just partaken of the last meal they are to eat on earth at the house of the temple representative of their chieftain Vellattiri; they are decked with garlands and smeared with ashes.

Armed with swords and shields alone they rush at the spearmen thronging the palisades; they wind and turn their bodies, as if they had no bones, casting them forward and backward, high and low, even to the astonishment of the beholders, as worthy Master Johnson describes them in a passage already quoted.