Occasion, Season and Duration

Festival>Chumpha>Occasion, Season and Duration

Chumpha festival is a new rice eating festival. Chumpha festival may be interpreted as ‘worship of granary’ and it is a celebration of good harvest. Chumpha festival is a festival of thanksgiving for rich harvest, gathered in the granary. The festival is held after harvest. Before the celebration of Cumpha festival, the village first cleanup pond. This festival is celebrated for seven days in the month of November and December; the Chumpha festival is a great festival of Tangkhul tribe.
Left: Harvesting time. Some men packing rice with traditional cloth especially  made for the purpose to be carried home to the granary, which is usually at the hill top. (Photo: Wungthing Raman)
Middle & right: Celebration of harvest with a test of strength transportation of rice from the field to the granary  young men take turns carrying loads weighing approximately a hundred kilograms packed with a particular cloth known as, shurkhom, langphai or khoramphai and phungui. (Photo: Wungthing Raman)

Unlike other festivals, women play a special role in this festival. This festival is marked for rituals performances and worship of the granary by the women of the house. The mother performs special offerings to the God of harvest and keeper of the granary. While the mother performs her rituals, no males are allowed to enter the house. Because of the nature of its celebration, it is sometimes known as the feast of the mother or the feast of the granary. After the paddy has been harvested and gathered into the granary, a day is fixed for the beginning of Chumpha festivals. One day ahead of the festival, men folk go to the ravine to collect crabs and bury it under the paddy wrapped in specific leaves or mud. Then the men folk leave the house to stay in the wild during the festival to enable their wives to worship the almighty without any disturbances. All manly implements and weapon such as bows, poisoned and non-poisoned arrows, spears, headgears, bangles, armlets, stocking made of bamboo, war tail, horns, shield, dao, firearms, sickle, hoe, spade, knife and others are removed from the house and keep outside the house or carried away by the men. Then the women go into the granary to worship “ameowa” in thanksgiving and to pray for prosperity, good health in the family and longevity of their food stock. Both men and women celebrated the festival in their own separate ways in the company of theirs peers. Men folk celebrate in the field, often in the field hutment, and women at home. At the end of the festival all domestics, utensils are washed and the house cleaned, manly implements and weapon are also cleaned and the fire in the house died out. Then a fresh fire is made in traditional way by rubbing dry wood with split bamboo and try grass stuff in it.