Village #5

This village took participation of its members very seriously. It seemed like all of the men and women were expected to dance at some point. The Lhawas (there were three) would go into crowd with a stick to force village men and women into the dances.
This village also had the most members participating in cheek and back piercing of any other by far. I saw boys as young as 6 to 8 y.o. with their cheeks pierced. It was hard for me to watch actually...
Here are a few pictures:

The main Lhawa with a HUGE pole which he did use on people.















Back piercing. Different men and boys chose different numbers of needles to be pierced by. On this boy's back, you can see scars from previous festivals. There were at least three waves of piercings done in this village.
The needles were washed with barley alcohol and then used again.
As the men/boys danced, the skewers often fell from their backs to the ground.












Cheek piercing. The youngest boys didn't pierce their backs, just cheeks. I haven't included any of those pictures.