Maridamma Festival & Fair
Maridamma temple is located in Peddapuram taluk in East Godavari
district. Maridamma festival is celebrated for thirty-one
days from the Amavasya in the month of Jyeshtha to the Amavasya in the
month of Ashadha. Thousands congregate with dances like kolatoms
and display physical feats and skills with sticks. They also revel
in music, dance drumming, garaga dances, processions and other communal
activities. A wide variety of house hold articles are sold in the fair
held during the festival. Cycle races, cattle shows, parrot circuses
and agricultural exhibitions are also held here. 'Kumbham' is
carried in decorated vessels, kept in open carts. Sometimes men and
women dressed to resemble those personages stand on the carts.
These carts are taken in procession to the temple to the accompaniment
of music and dance and offered to the God, then food is distributed
as 'prasadam'.
