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Festivals of Ethnic Minorities

Baha Festival

 

Baha Parva or Baha Utsav is a festival celebrated by Santal tribals. 'Baha' means flower in Saotali language. Men, women and children dress up in traditional attire during the Baha Parbe (flower festival).

Baha Utsav The people of Santal class celebrate Phalgun month after Dol Purnima every year. In this festival all the deities are smeared with dung. Men go out hunting in groups. At the end of the festival there is dancing. Girls decorate themselves with fresh flowers. Thakurgaon has a significant population of Santal community. Every year the Baha Parva dance is displayed along with other tribal festivals in the Jangal Mahal festival.

Karam Festival

 

Karam is one of the religious festivals of minorities. This festival is celebrated on the Shukla Ekadashi tithi of Bhadra month. Different ethnic groups including Santal, Onrao, Mahato, Baraik, Kurmi, Singh, Pahan, Mahali celebrate Karam festival in their own way. This festival is called Karam Utsav as this festival is celebrated by cutting the branches of the Karam tree following various ancient customs.

The branches of the tree are worshiped by burying them in the ground. Hence it is also known as Dalpuja or Vrikshapuja in some places.

To celebrate the Karam festival, men and women of the minority community fast from sunrise to sunset on the first day of the puja. While fasting, they dance and sing to the beat of madals, drums, kartals and jhumkis and bring branches of karam (khil kadam) from the area. Then they built a puja altar. When the sun's light falls in the west, the branches of that karamgacha are planted on the altar of worship. At night they arrange offerings full of flowers, fruits and sit around the altar and start the puja. The priest recites religious stories in the light of the festival. Along with that goes the underlying explanation of the story. When the explanation is over, the young men and women start dancing around the altar. After the puja, the fasting girls break their fast by inviting each other with food like chitai pitha, kusali pitha etc. At the end, the relatives and guests are entertained with rice and dal made from rice and dal.

This Karam Puja is mainly performed with the aim of getting rid of danger and scarcity. It is said that the two brothers of the tribals are Dharma and Karma. Dharma used to worship Karamgacha; But he did not do karma. Karma one day picked up the karam tree of Puja and threw it in the river. After that he fell into various dangers and hardships. If Karma finds that tree again and starts worshiping it, the deficiency is removed.