- Title
- Dancers performing sakela sili dance steps at Tuwachung-Jayajum festival, ritual specialist blessing the dance ground
- Description
- Inauguration dance group of the festival with honoured guests and officials. Sakela or sakela sili is the traditional dance of the bhume ritual among the Rai. It consists of a basic step and sequences of dance gestures (sili) and is accompanied by dhol drums, chyamta cymbals and singing. For the Tuwachung-Jayajum festival the dance groups from nearby villages wrote banners with their specifications that were stuck to the center of the dance circle when it was their turn to dance on the official dance ground. Among the dancers are the president of the Kirat Rai Yayokkha, Chatur Bhakta Rai, and the official sili mama (dance leader), while the ritual specialist (with peacock featers on his turban), Jaruman Rai, a Chamling Rai from the nearby village of Aiselukharka, moves around the ritual centre of the dance circle which is marked by a branch of an isilim tree stuck to the ground.
- Keywords
-
researcher:Chatur Bhakta Rai
group:Rai>sub-group:Dumi Rai
researcher:Marion Wettstein
group:Rai
group:Rai>sub-group:Chamling Rai
researcher:Alban von Stockhausen
ritual-type:ancestral>ritual:sakela dance
mythology:Creation Story>sub-story:Story of Toma Khema and Kakcilipu
ritual-type:hinduist
ritual-type:ancestral
- Location
-
- Country: Nepal [geonames.org, tgn]
- Province/state: Khotang [geonames.org]
- Municipality: Halesi Tuwachung
- City: Salle [geonames.org]
- Area: Tuwachung-Jayajum
- Area: Tuwachung-Jayajum>place:Festival ground
- Location: Tuwachung-Jayajum
- description author(s)
-
- Marion Wettstein
- von Stockhausen, Alban
