FESTIVALS

Every aspect of tribal life is charming and colourful.  But the place of honour is occupied by tribal dance and music.  The invigorating dances set to the beat of tapping music of traditional instruments are a way of life for the tribals.  In all seasons and occasions, the people sing and dance in Koraput.

CHAITRA PARABA

            Chaitra Paraba is also called Pangal, a word which comes from South India. It lasts for the whole month of Chaitra.  All the tribes go gay.  Men and boys go out into the forest for hunting. If they come back without anything, they cannot show their face to the women. Therefore no animal escapes the hunters. If they get nothing else they even kill a jackal. Women dance and sing whole day in the streets and in village commons. All motor vehicles are stopped several times on the road by streams of girls who dance and sing across the road. It is only when few paise are paid that the vehicles are allowed to move. Two paise used to be ample. With the rise in prices this levy may have risen to twenty-five paise. A car going to Koraput from the plains may be stopped a dozen times before reaching Koraput. To witness a tribal dance for a few paise is a very cheap entertainment.

BALI JATRA

            This festival begins five days before the Bhadrapada full-moon and ends five days after it. The beginning of the festival is identified with the Nuakhia feast on which new rice is first eaten. Bali Jatra is an occasion of great rejoicing and men of all classes put on fancy dress and dance and sing. The festival takes its name from the ceremonial planting of various grains in wet sand brought from a nearby stream and placed in a  structure called bali Ghara or sand house.  But it is an occasion for many other celebrations. In Bissamcuttack tahsil a swing is set up with its seat studded with sharp nails, and on this a Bejju (witch doctor) is swung, goats, pigeons are sacrificed. The Bejju then walks upon burning charcoal. He spends most of the three night before this day in dancing wildly in a state of excitement, during which he prophesies both good and evil and pretends to grant boons to devotees.

OTHER FESTIVALS

            The “Sume-Gelirak’ festival held among the Bondas is unique in character. All the year round young men look forward to the Sumer-Gelirak. Even middle aged women, they say, look pretty then. It is a moral holiday, a week off from inhibitions, a relaxation from the tedious round of agricultural operations, break in the dietic monotony of everyday. The normal restraints that check the relationship of boys and girls in a village are largely forgotten. Members of the same Bansa or Kuda relatives in the forbidden degree find every freedom to flirt, excite themselves with obscene horse play and very occasionally even retire together to the woods. In a dance a girl may steal a youth’s cloth and wear it; this gives him the right, later on, to drag her away into the darkness and she must not object.The Sume-Gerlirak begins on Sunday and lasts for ten days. Beginning with routine propitiations of demigods and demons, it precedes to series of heavy meals, one of which is first eating of new beers. The dramatic castigation ceremonies follow, boys and girls make dancing expeditions to neighbouring villages, Bursung is worshipped, and finally Sisa (Priest) goes to the forest and performs a token cutting of grass and Kerang branches. Dancing begins on the fourth day and continues till the end. The castigation begins with little boys. Some one takes the Kinding sagar, the sacred drum, from the Sisa’s house and begins to beat it on the Sindibor. Other drummers join him and the people assemble. Small boys arm themselves with long switches-sago-palm branches stripped off their leaves-and two by two stand up before the Sindibor and hit each other as hard as they can. The Sisa and his assistant begin, they bow to each other with folded hands, dance round and round, and then with all their strength his one another with their switches. Blood soon flows from their wounds and when they have had enough the two men touch each other’s feed  and warmly embrace, each hugging and lifting the other in the air.

The greatest festival of the district is Dashara feast observed at Jeypore. This festival is held in honour of Kanaka Durga (Golden Durga) whose temple is situated within the palace. This festival lasts for sixteen days and a series of ceremonies are held throughout the period.  The legend of human sacrifice is associated with this festival but since long only animals like the goats and the sheep are offered for sacrifice. Curiously enough the flowers which adorn these animals are described as “Mariah Puspa” as a reminiscent of human sacrifice.  On the sixteenth day buffaloes are also sacrificed.

     Sivaratri, Holi and the Ratha Jatra are among the other chief festivals of the Hindus. On Sivaratri people gather in large number at the Gupteswar caves in the Jeypore Tehsil.  During Holi or the Swing festival imitation flowers of paper or Pith are tied in bunches to bamboo poles 20 feet or more in length, called dhandas. On the night before full-moon these dhandas are carried in procession with music and dancing to a bonfire which is lighted in the north of the town and are thrown  into flames. The god Vishnu is carried thrice round the fire. On the next day, the day of the full-moon, the image of the god is placed upon a swing hung for the occasion and is swung upon it. Swingsare set up in the night singing songs. On the following day everybody, irrespective of age and sex, throws coloured water and water and coloured powder on each other. At the Ratha Jatra idols of Jagannath are placed on cars (Ratha) and are taken out in procession at Jeypore, Koraput, Sunabeda and other important centers.

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