The Secret Behind Upcoming “Hornbill Festival” in Tripura!

The Tripura state government’s initiative of organizing a two-day Hornbill festival in “Hathai Kotor (Baramura hills)” may fall in the lines of Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh to woo tourists, but there lies a different story underneath.

BY: MRINAL BANIK

Agartala, January 28, 2020:

The Northeast part of India has always been considered as a land of diverse believes and convergence of totemic practices, mainly practiced by the indigenous communities.

Many worship specific non-human living entities as their totem with a belief that it maintains a supernatural string of relations, explicitly, with their clan.

The Tripura state government’s initiative of organizing a two-day Hornbill festival in “Hathai Kotor (Baramura hills)” may fall in the lines of Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh to woo tourists, but there lies a different story underneath.

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This reporter travelled to Hawaibari, South Hatrai and Narayan Bari areas located in the lap of Baramura hills, now known as “Hathai Kotor” to find out the reason behind its yawning acquaintance with the Hornbill.

Around 2000-odd villagers of the area belonging to both tribal and non-tribal communities have a different view on Hornbills, rather than the people of other parts of the state.

“The Baramura hills (Hathai Kotor) is known for preservation of oriented pied hornbills. Since the tribes started living in Baramura, hornbills used to come here. The communities used to worship this bird as totem of their clan. And since then, no hornbill is harmed by the residents of the hills,” believes an octogenarian of Hawaibari.

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Not only the tribal people, he added, the Bengali community people who also co-exist with tribes in the hill range never tried to breach the system of not harming the hornbills. Now, both the communities preserve the hornbills with the same devotion, he continued.

Speaking to Inside Northeast, SDFO of Teliamura GK Ray said, “Hornbills are spotted in different parts of the state, including Trishna Wildlife Sanctuary, Kalaharii and so on. But the reason behind organizing this festival here is to address the association of hornbills with the locals. As the locals do not encroach the liberty of the bird, this bird also feels safe here and gets spotted every now and then”.

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Ray also told this reporter that special steps were taken to preserve the birds. “We have mapped altogether 60 trees throughout the region where the birds weave nests. This process has been undertaken jointly by the forest official and the local JFM committee. All these trees have been mapped with GPS and patrolling are being conducted to preserve the trees” he told this reporter.

On the forthcoming festival, slated to be held on February 8 and 9, he said, “We have already started preparing for the festival. The belief of the locals will be depicted in the festival. About 10 to 12 stalls are going to be set up in the eco-park. NGOs working with wildlife will also participate.”

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Notably, five to six pairs of hornbills are spotted frequently in the region. And, a huge number of tourists and photographers across the nation visit to this eco-park every year. The authorities expected that this festival would further boost the tourist inflow in the area. Recently, the forest department had set up a hornbill viewpoint in the venue where the festival is going to get organized. According to a survey, the total number of hornbills in Tripura stood at 300 till now.

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