Chapchar Kut

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Introduction

Legend

Celebration

Chapchar Kut 2012

In local Mizo parlance, kut means festival. The three Kuts are Chapchar Kut, Mim Kut and Pawl Kut. All the three festivals are connected with agricultural activities.

The festivals are celebrated with feasts and dances. Chapchar Kut celebrates the arrival of spring.

The festival begins with Kut Puipate or the inauguration ceremony followed by the Then Katna or the time when the dance groups arrange themselves in the stadium.

Once the Then Hnihna begins, the elderly members of the society come dressed in their traditional costumes, representing the individual tribes of the region and take part in a fantastic procession called the Kut rore.

This is followed by the various tribal dances, the most important being the Cheraw or the bamboo dance. The function ends with the Then Thumna or the event where the local singers once again present the traditional popular numbers and are joined by the cheering crowd.

Chapchar Kut is celebrated in the month of March. It is the start of spring and nature starts playing with colour. This heralds the festive mood in the lives of Mizos and they prepare themselves to celebrate Chapchar Kut, the festival of happiness. It is considered to be the most important traditional festival of Mizoram and is celebrated with great pomp and splendour.

The Mizos traditionally have three main festivals namely- Mim Kut, Pawl Kut and Chapchar Kut.

The 'Chapchar Kut' festival is one of the oldest festivals of Mizoram. Farmers cut bamboo forests to make place for jhum or seasonal farming. The season, in which they wait for the chopped bamboo heaps to dry under sun before being burnt is called Chapchar. Kut means festival, as the farmers have nothing else to do during the season.

People wear colourful traditional clothes and hats made from beads and parrots' feathers. In this festival they don't wear any shoes. A traditional bamboo dance is performed where only women participate while the men sit on the ground and beat the bamboos against each other.

Chapchar Kut is celebrated in all the Mizo villages and is a very important cultural tradition in the society. Each village developed its own brand of celebration to suit its own time, idiom and ethos over the years. The celebrations carried on for four to five days.

This colourful cultural festival of Mizoram- Chapchar Kut has nowadays become the most popular and gazetted holiday is observed on the day.