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Ganga Dashmi
The
festival falls on the tenth day of the second fortnight of Jyaistha
(May-June). In Surguja district, the occasion is observed by the Adivasis
and the non-Adivasis. The classes of the Hindu fold celebrate it because
on this day the river Ganges had its descent on the earth. They
take a dip in any nearby river and make offerings. The tribals go in
batches with their women to the riverside to drink and dance. Games and
local competitions are arranged between both the sexes. The Adivasis take
the occasion just for having a feast and fun.
Ghaila and Bidri
Ghaila is the earthen
pot ceremony of the Gonds. It is a ceremony identical to the Akhadi or
Akadhi (Akshya Tratiya) of the Hindus. It is performed in the month of
Jyaistha (May-June). Certain rites are conducted by the village head-man and the
fields are harrowed by the peasants. Then follows the sacrifice of five
chickens by a Bhumia.
The sowing
season begins in Gondwana with the sacrifice of a goat and Thakur Dev is
propitiated in the Bidri ceremony. A feast is arranged and served to the
villagers. The rites are always performed by a Baiga. This
festival corresponds to the feast of transplantation of paddy seedlings
celebrated by the Munda and most other settled agricultural tribes of
Chhotanagpur.
Hareli or Hariri
Hareli or
Hariri falls on the day of Sravana Amavasya. In Mandla, it is celebrated
on the new-moon day of the same month. The festival is significant for
the agriculturists of central India. On this day, all peasants and
farmers offer puja to their implements. No one works the whole day.
Paddy seedlings are stuck over the doors of houses by Dewar priests in Mandla
villages. Men go and plant green twigs in the field with certain rites, wishing to have good crops.
Anadai, the goddess of crops, is invoked to
give them prosperity. Young boys give an additional touch to the occasion
by display of walking and running on stilts. In Malwa, the festival is
called Harya Gondiya, with the difference that it is observed exclusively by
women as Vrat, in the month of Asadha.
Kajri Navami
On the ninth
day of the waxing-moon fortnight of the month of Sravana, falls the Kajri
festival. In the Bundelkhandi-speaking area only those women, who are blessed with
sons, observe
this festival. Their worship-ritual continues
till the full-moon day of the same month. This day is also recognised as
Kajri Purnima and Savani. For the fisher-folk of the western coast of the
country, it is an occasion for offering coconuts to the sea.
On the Sravan
Shukla Navami, the women go to a particular field and bring earth from there. This is kept in leaf-cups and in these leaf-cups is sown wheat or barley.
These cups are kept in the inner room of the house, devoid of air and
sunrays. In the room where these cups are kept, the floor is washed with
cattle-dung and a part of the wall is also coated with the cattle-dung
solution. On this part a design is made with rice-solution. Figures of a
house, a child in cradle, a mongoose and a woman with a pitcher are drawn near
this design. It is this folk art which is known as Navami. Due
worship of this is performed before sowing the wheat or barley seedlings.
Everyday the worship is repeated till the fifteenth day and in the evening of
this Purnima day, the cups are taken for immersion. The ladies form a
procession, each carrying the leaf-cups on her head and go singing to some tank
where they are immersed. On the Kajri Navami the women keep fast.
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