| The Wancho
Dance
The Wancho tribes perform dances during appropriate occasions like festivals,
ceremonies etc. Ozele festival of Wanchos is celebrated in February-March
after the sowing of millet. It lasts for four days and was observed in
Longkhau village. The dance is performed from about 9 p.m. to 11 p.m.
inside the chief's house. Among the male-folk, boys, youths and adults
take part while among women, only girls and those young married women
who have not joined the husband's family, take part in the dance. The
dancers, dressed in their fineries, stand in a circle surrounding a bonfire.
The girls stand on one side of the circle holding each other's hands.
The male dancers hold a sword in the right hand and most of them place
the left hand over the shoulder of the dancer to the left. The male dancers
start singing when all take a short step with the right foot to the right,
flex the knees with an accompanying forward swing of the sword and gently
bring the left foot up to the heel of the right one. They repeat this
sequence of movements. When the singing of the male-dancers, end, which
is generally on the eighth or ninth step, all stamp their right foot twice
on the ground. The female dancers take up the singing in reply. They stamp
the right foot twice on the ground during their turn of singing, once
generally in the fourth step and the next at the end of the singing which
generally falls on the ninth step. Again the male dancers take up the
singing and thus the dance continues.
All the male dancers have a cane basket hanging at the
waist over the buttocks. The basket is decorated with coloured straw tassels,
monkey skulls or wild boar's tushes. The straw tassels of the baskets
are decorated with coloured beads. The straps of some of the baskets are
decorated with white conch-shell discs. Each basket has a bell fitted
at its bottom. The tinkling of so many bells is the only musical sound.
All have anklets of straw and girdles of one or two loops of red cane
or of bands of cowries or beads just below the knee. The boys and a few
youths are naked but others wear a loin-cloth which is white or light
blue in colour with two red stripes at the ends decorated with small beads
of different colours. This loin-cloth is tucked in position with a cane
waist-band which is about six inches broad. The armlets are either of
ivory, brass or red cane loops. The handle of the sword is decorated with
coloured goat's hair. All wear some bead necklaces. Some wear necklaces
of coins. The ear decorations are tufts of red woolen threads or ear-plugs
decorated with the red seeds. Some have head-dresses made of bamboo, silver-shaped
in a cone and decorated with horn-bill feathers. Some have red cane head-dresses
decorated with wild boar's tushes. The hair up to the middle of the crown
is brought forward and cut so that the fringe reaches just up to the top
of the fore-head while the hair of the back is kept long and tucked round
a red or yellow coloured rectangular piece of wood, called the Kahpak.
Some of these kahpak's are studded with small pieces of glass while some
are decorated with carvings of the human figure or human skull or with
a tuft of coloured goat's hair. The side of the head are shaven. |
