Village #2 Festival

It is now Sunday the 27th. We have been to several more festivals. One thing most of them have in common is that (usually) young men dance while on stilts. At the first village, two of them fell when the bricks were wet from the rain. This village's boys did a great job and really seemed like they were having fun.










This village's temple seemed too small to hold all of the villagers while they dance, so a nearby basketball court was put to good use. There they have an altar for offerings. I found it interesting that they offered a symbolic goat on their fire. In this picture it is decorated with lines of Yak butter and there is also fruit for offering on the same tray. This was the only village that we visited that did this. A later village burned meat/blood in their offering fire.

This village's Lhawa was a nice older man. We talked to him some outside of the festival when he wasn't possessed. In this first picture he is just going into possession. In the second, he is moving among the dancers making sure that they are doing what they are supposed to do. This Lhawa never hit anyone that I saw, but other villages' Lhawa's would hit, kick, push, or whack with a stick anyone who was where they shouldn't be or who was doing what they shouldn't be doing. It is a very unpredictable situation in which to be filming...