To our knowledge, our opalocka Mariamman Temple is the first of its kind in North America. The goddess was not a local deity, connected to a specific location but worshiped throughout the Dravidian nation and now troughout the world. She was believed and worshipped by the ancient Dravidian people to bring rain and hence prosperity to them as their vegetation was mainly dependent upon rain. In Tamil language, the word Maari would mean rain and amman would literally mean mother but here mother nature. Mariamman is an ancient goddess, whose worship probably originated from pre-Vedic mother goddess cult of Dravidian people before the arrival of the Aryans in India.
