Huthri in Coorg : Part II
a rhythmic dance with sticks; on the last day of Huthri celebrations; Coorg, Karnataka.
Huthri is the harvesting festival that is usually celebrated in November or December every year. In Coorg, it is a 4 day festival and we were lucky to witness the celebrations on the last day in Murnad.
The people from one family start from their ancestral home to the centre of their village to join other families from the same village and then they head out to the pre-decided place where people from other villages would come to meet: it was at Murnad for the villages in this area where a platform had been built under a tree in an open field. Every village that would come in would first go barefoot around the sacred platform before meeting up with people who had come earlier, getting blessings from the older people and catching up.
Once all the villages had gathered there was a meeting of sort conducted by the elders - where I guess issues with the celebration and how to make it netter next time were discussed - and then a rhythmic dance around the platform with sticks repeated by different groups. The gathering was over with a final salute and then everyone including the village folk who had come to witness the gathering dispersed.
Part I