Tribals celebrate harvest festival with bull dance

Ranchi, Nov 10 (IANS) To mark the beginning of the annual harvest festival, tribals in Jharkhand organised a bull dance competition for paying respect to animals.

The bull dance was organised Sunday by the Santhal tribals in a stadium of Karandih village of Jamshedpur district, around 160 km from here, to celebrate the Sohrai festival.

'We celebrate harvest festival by worshipping animals. In Sohrai festival, bull dance is organised. It is our respect for animals who help in farming,' secretary of Adivasi Youth Club Ishwar Soren told reporters.

He said 12 bulls participated in the dance programme where the bulls were bathed and decorated before they danced to the drum beats.

For the competition, bulls are tied up and then goaded into getting angry and jump fast to the drum beats.

According to tribal myth, animals, particularly cows and bulls, were unhappy with the way they were being treated by humans and approached the tribal god Maraburu. The god directed Santhals to worship animals as they help in farming. That was how the bull dance started.