Maring tribe, in Chansil village of Manipur, celebrates one of the oldest customary ‘Lhawa Chun’ festival. Revived this year, to keep alive the traditional spirit of ethnic traditional culture.

The festival marks the beginning of a new year and the people celebrate this festival by wearing traditional attire, sing songs, and dance to rejoice the unity of the community.

Chansil is primarily dominated by the agrarian community practicing organic farming. Apart from agriculture, the community used to celebrate customary/ local festivals with the neighboring villages, but down the line, these practices were forgotten with the time.

After the intervention of the FARM NE II programme in the village, the community started realizing the importance of ethnic traditional culture and customary festivals which used to be celebrated in the past by the ancestors. FARM NE Programme promoted these traditional practices and encouraging participation in the local festivals. The revival of these festivals opens the window for exchange and imparting knowledge of valued herbal medicinal plants and identification of the plants with the help of local medicinal practitioners.

This year in 2019 during the month of April, the community of Chanshil celebrated the local festival in a grand way where people from other villages also took part in the celebration. Earlier, this festival used to be celebrated annually after the Harvest season and before the sowing season by the ancestors/ forefathers, but in the course of time, the festival could not be held every year due to some reasons or another.

The festival was special as it marked the promotion of traditional dress, with the handover of knowledge to the younger generation. It also strengthens the unity of village by way of mutual sharing and handing over/knowledge sharing by the elders to the younger’s in farming activities like sowing, pest resistance, etc. The festival revives the traditional farming systems, which is organic in nature and promoted “Hinglam” (Labour pooling) as a sign of Unity in the celebration.

Though the festival used to be celebrated in the past years with less importance and participation, today it is celebrated with great responsibilities from the customary board, village authorities, women society, and youth society along with the participation of neighbouring villages.

Through this festival, the traditional farming system is encouraged and valued. Its traditional indigenous seeds of different varieties of crops/vegetables are going to be preserved and mobilized to reach different corners of the projected villages. The people of Chanshil with the village authorities planned and decided to continue the old traditional ways of practices alive in the years to come and also to impart the unique festivals to the younger generations that can continue to sustain down the generations.