The Kandhas Festival and Puja of Odisha

Authors

  • Santosh Miniaka, Dr. Sishir Kumar Tripathy

Abstract

Odisha has sixty two recorded tribal groups. Out of them, a few are important tribes. Among them, the Kandha tribe stands in a large number who are found all over the district of Odisha. However,  the present paper seeks the Kandhas festival and Puja. The kandha people are animists. For the good crop they observe Merriah festival once in between three to four year while to suppress the cholera chickenpox disease from the village they observe the Rakshi Bahalani in this way they observe Kandula Parab, Hire Paraba, Bali Parab, Ghanta Parab, Puni padi and also other festivals in the whole year.  They conceive of a large pantheon of a supernatural being who controls their whole life. They considered that everywhere there is animated by spiritual energy. In order to protect themselves, they would try to establish a friendly relationship with spirits through the appropriate rites and rituals. Most of their festivals are related to their agriculture and belief systems. There is a difference between the festival and the puja that’s how while the festivals are observed by the villager the Puja is observed by only one person.

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Published

2020-08-31

Issue

Section

Articles