Yangli festival

In news–The Yangli festival of the Tiwa community of Assam concluded recently.

The Yangli festival, also known as the Lakshmi Puja of the Tiwa people was organised with the traditional rituals in the Guva region of the state.
The Tiwa community mainly depends on agriculture as their main livelihood and this festival is also related to the same.
During this festival, the people pray for a good harvest and ask the Gods to protect their crops from pests and natural calamities.
This festival is celebrated once every five years by the members of the community.
Rice is one of the main crops of the region and the sowing of seeds for paddy starts soon after the completion of this festival.
According to the local traditions, the Yangli festival is the opportunity to welcome the Goddess Lakshmi to the earth and to bless them with a good harvest in the coming years.
Ceremonious sacrifices of animals including poultry and goats are done on the eve of the puja to welcome the goddess to the “NoBaro” or the granary of the Tiwa people.
As per the traditions of the community, the Rongkhi and Amchi people have to sacrifice one goat more than what is being offered by the other groups.

The Tiwa people-

They are a Tibeto-Burmese ethnic group primarily inhabiting the Northeast Indian states of Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland, and some parts of neighbouring Bangladesh and Myanmar.
They were known as Lalungs/Lalong/Laleng in the Assamese Buranjis and in Colonial literature and in the Constitution of India, though members of the group prefer to call themselves Tiwa (meaning “the people who were lifted from below”).
Some of their neighbours still call them Lalung.
A striking peculiarity of the Tiwa is their division into two sub-groups, Hill Tiwa and Plains Tiwas, displaying contrasting cultural features.
The founder of Tiwa community is Pha Poroi “Indrosing Dewri” who has contributed a lot to the construction of Tiwa society.
He also wrote the Tiwa national anthem called – O Angé Tiwa Tosima.