All you need to know about the 'Unying Aran' festival of the Adis

ITANAGAR: All the communities have their own special festivals. Festivals are occasions to empower ourselves and form bonhomie.

 

The Adi tribes celebrate a number of festivals, but Unying Aaran is the prime festival for them.

Unying Aran is one of the oldest festivals of the Adi community commemorating the arrival of spring season.

 

It is celebrated on 7th March to herald the season of shifting cultivation.

 

Unying Aran is basically a hunting festival followed by the Adi tribesmen. It is the first festival of the Adi ‘new year’.

 

It is the festival which unites all the members of the community and they all pray for the bumper harvest.

 

ALSO READ: ‘Bhediya’ arrives in Arunachal Pradesh: announces Kriti Sanon

 

They celebrate this festival on ground with great enthusiasm and traditional rituals with intense and passionate feeling.

 

In this festival, it is tradition for all male members of a family to go on a hunting and stays in the jungles for a week.

 

The majority of Adi traditionally follow the tribal Donyi-Polo religion. Worship of gods and goddesses like Kine Nane, Doying Bote, Gumin Soyin and Pedong Nane, etc.

 

It is traditionally celebrated with ‘Bari’ songs sung by male elders and ‘Yakjong’ dance performed by youths (boys and girls) in villages. Through these performances, they narrate stories of the origin of the festival. Villagers also pray for the well-being of their tribesmen.