Khasi Festivals in Shillong and other parts of Meghalaya

Ka Shad Suk Mynsiem

The annual spring dance, performed to celebrate harvesting and sowing.The Dance is performed in relation to the agricultural cycle (i.e. the harvesting period and the beginning of the sowing period).

The participants in the dance are both male and female. The female dancers have to be unmarried  while their male counterparts do not have any such restriction.

Ka Pom-Blang Nongkrem

For five days, this festival gives thanks to the Lord Almighty for a good harvest and the participants pray for peace and prosperity of the community. It is among the most prominent of ancestral cultural revivals.In earlier days, this festival was celebrated in mid-summer, but today, in conformity with other cultures and for convenience, it is held either in October or November every year.
"Smit", the capital of the Khyrim Syiemship near Shillong, is today the official venue for this very ancient festival.
Today, when the Syiem dances in front of the Wooden Pillar called "U Rishot Blei", Biblical echoes seem to appear, reminding one of how Princess Jezebel danced before a wooden pillar ("Ashera" in Hebrew) watched by her father Ethball of the Philistines. The ritualistic sacrifice of goats is also remarkably similar to Biblical history. The Syiem is the administrative head of the Hima (Khasi State). The Syiem (Ka Syiem Sad) is the custodian of rites and rituals. One who prepares the ritual is the elder sister of the King and the Myntries (Council of Ministers) who are the caretakers of all ceremonies, the priests and high priests and all the people join this gorgeous dance festival. Not only to the Gods, ritualistic offerings are made to the ancestors like "Kalawbei U Thawlang" of the ruling clan, Suidnia, the First Maternal Uncle and to the deity of Shillong, asking their blessings for a bumper harvest.
Once the religious rituals are over, the dancers begin their rituals. Unmarried girls in very fine costumes, bedecked with gold and silver crowns on which they place lovely yellow flowers, dance, once again within a circle, shifting forward and backward, moving barefoot in the dust. Men dance, with open swords in one hand and a white yak-hair whisk in the other, in a wide circle. They advance and parry and feint and retreat to the rhythmic beats of the drums and the brassy sounds of cymbals with flutes creating a network of melody in the background.

Ka Bam Khana Shnong

Nobody knows when this "Village Community Feasting Festival', began, but it is an event that everyone - men, women and children - look forward to. It is a social get-together and a time to thank God for the year gone by and seek his blessings for the New Year.

 Originally, the entire village would participate with each home contributing cash or kind (rice, pumpkins etc.). It was expected that the rich would contribute more. And no one, no matter how poor and unable to contribute, was left out of the festivities.
Khasi feasts are rich with succulent "pork" preparations. The colorful ceremony of bringing pigs on a decorated cart escorted by drummers and dancers  is a sight to please all eyes.
A group of elders, adept in the culinary arts, are selected for cooking. The main group of people arrives in a procession at mid-day. Drummers and pipe-players accompany them. Usually a person or two would act as "jester" or clown and lead the procession and all the people dressed in their holiday finery dance and sing and laugh to make the hills ring.
When the feast begins, women, children and the elderly are served first. Meanwhile, the men enjoy a draught of rice-beer.

Umsan Nongkharai

The festival is held in spring (April or May), commencing on Sugi Lyngka with a ceremonial sacrifice of a goat and two cocks before the supreme deity of the Khasis - Lei Shyllong. It ends on Sugi-Shillong, with prayers offered at midnight that aim to connect the finite and the infinite. After the prayer, male dancers dance to rhythmic drumbeats and trilling flutes, lasting till sunrise. On the second day of the festival, prayers are offered for protection against storm and hail. On the third day, divine blessings are sought for material prosperity. On the fourth day a symbolic ritual of using bamboo-spades to scoop up water from both sides of a stream -a "fertility" ritual-is enacted. And on the fifth and final day, public worship (Knia Shoh Dohkha) is done and cocks and nine fish from the river Umran are offered as special gifts.

Shad Beh Sier

This deer-hunting dance is dedicated to occupational merry-making. In off-harvest-season, male hunters roam the dense forests for deer prey. A kill or two, usually made with bow and arrow, becomes a local celebration. Young and adult males mount the slain deer on a bamboo bier and parade it through villages. The hunters with the first arrow-hit are rewarded with the "antlers" of the deer. In-case a "doe" or female deer is brought down, he is given the "skin" as a trophy. The very funny words used by chanters are greeted with loud and appreciative cries of "hoi" and "kiw" by onlookers.

Khasi Festivals in Shillong and other parts of Meghalaya