Jhakri Dance Festival begins with fanfare in Rukum

By Raju Lamichhane Rukum, July 21: Jhakri Dance Festival has started with much fanfare in Bhume Rural Municipality- 1, Lukum in East Rukum. It is said that the Jhakri Dance, which began on Tuesday, will continue till coming Saturday.

The dance is performed in Lukum every year during the time of Sawan Sankranti festival. The dance is also known as Rake Tiwar meaning Jhakri Ram.  'Sawan Sankranti' is celebrated as Tiwar and Rake festival in the Magar-dominated areas of the district. Every year in the first week of the Nepali month of Sawan, especially on Tuesdays and Saturdays, all kinds of Jhakris (shamans) gather in Lukum village to celebrate the festival.

According to Tilak Magar, a local cultural campaigner, in ancient times, due to a divine disaster, one person used to fall prey to witches and demons every day in this place. 

Later, Bhairam Jhakri appeared in Lukum village to reduce human casualty by appeasing the witches and demons, he added.

It is the believed that same Bhairam Jhakri, playing the drum and dancing with his decorative clothes, chanting mantras, pushed the witches under the ground forever, crushed them with a big stone and disappeared forever, said Magar.  

 In commemoration of that day, Jhakri fair is organised every year at the place where the witches were buried.

Sunil Roka, a local, said that the Jhakris gathered on that day and observed each other's planetary positions.

On the first Tuesday or Saturday of Sawan, the Jhakris sit on the bank of the river and chant mantras. 

It is believed that the witch, because of the strength of the mantra chanted by Jhakris,  comes out from the river in the hope of getting something to eat.   At the same time, the Jhakris take the witch under their control. 

They say 'Rakse Ayo' and stop them with the mantras and run desperately to a place called Jholeri Bisauni.