Tradition · Garo harvest thanksgiving · India
Wangala
The Garo post-harvest festival of the Meghalaya hills, offering the first grain to Misi Saljong, the sun god who gave cultivation, and thanking him for the year. It is danced to long drums in a line — a hundred at the modern Asanang gathering, which is why it is called the Hundred Drums festival — with men and women in two rows, buffalo-horn trumpets and the gong. It marks the end of the agricultural year and the point at which the granary is full.
- Function
- Religious institution & practice
- Confidence
- Not assessed
- Location
- 25.510, 90.210
Worth knowing
Most Garos have been Christian for over a century, so the festival is now kept largely as cultural inheritance rather than sacrifice — the rites to Misi Saljong are performed by the few who still hold the old religion, and danced by everyone.
Connections (1)
- In the same set asChapchar Kut
Two festivals of the shifting-cultivation year, in adjacent hills, marking opposite ends of it. Wangala is the Garo thanksgiving after the harvest, offering the first grain to Misi Saljong and danced to a hundred long drums. Chapchar Kut is Mizo, and falls in the gap: the jhum plots have been slashed and are drying, the burning has not begun, and there is nothing to do. One celebrates the granary full, the other the only week of the year with no work in it.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Wangala”. Meghalaya arts and culture department records; Milton Sangma, History and Culture of the Garos.
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