Rabha tribe's Farkranti dance from Assam, at North-east Festival: On dying a person becomes a bird

The compere tells us: "On behalf of Assam, we greet everyone here. We belong to the Rabha tribe of Asom. We will present the Farkanti / Farkranti dance. On dying, a person becomes a bird and flies away. This is symbolic and we are using a bird's head feathers here. We dance here for the person's atma / atman.

Rabha tribe dance from Assam, at North-east Festival in Delhi: On dying a person becomes a bird

Rabha is a prominent tribe in Assam and is recognized as a scheduled tribe by the constitution of India. We find their presence extensively in Assam, Meghalaya, west Bengal, Manipur, and Tripura and in Nepal too. According to the map drawn by the linguistic survey of India they inhabit places from Phulbari of Garo Hills district in Meghalaya stretching unto Rani of south Kamrup district in Assam.
Folk dances are a special feature of the scheduled tribes which is related to their daily life. Here, we are going to look at a comprehensive and brief description about the folk dances of the Rabhas and their significance.

1. The Farkranti dance: The word `Farkranti` is synonymous with funeral/ death ceremony. There is a story behind this folk dance. Once, all male Rabhas went to war. But many of them were killed and the possibility of their clans disappearing seemed inevitable as there were not many alive. Finding no way out the wives started searching for their husbands who were missing in the war. Without any experience or training in the art of war fare, the wives went to fight but in the process they lost their way to the battlefield. Then, interestingly their husbands’ souls came to show them the way in the form of birds-Manchelengka, Tandalengka and Badadika. They followed the birds and found the dead bodies of their husbands` lying in a cave holding each other. As a sign of reverence to the souls, they performed ‘Farkranti’ and promised to protect their clan.In this folk dance female dancers take sword and shield while male dancers dance with Manchelengka, the emblem of the Rabhas, in their hands.

Source - bipulrabha.com

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