Karam Thapadi Dance of Oraon Tribe of Jharkhand

‘Karma’ is one of the main festivals of Oraon community. This festival is also celebrated by other tribal communities living in the states of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and West Bengal. The dance is performed generally in the month of September. After the completion of the first phase of agricultural operations, the community prays to God, named "Karma Dev" for getting a bumper harvest. During the ‘Karma Festival’, a party of young boys and girls go to the forest and cut a young Karma tree or a branch of that tree, which symbolizes fertility and they bring this to the village and plant it in the middle of an open ground called ‘Akhra’. Young boys and girls spend the whole festival night singing and dancing around it. In this festival, the unmarried sisters worship God for the long life and prosperity of their brothers. During this festival, the young girls perform the dance around the ‘Karma tree’ by clapping their hands which is accompanied by songs, drums, and flutes.