RAMMAN FESTIVAL
Ramman is a religious festival and ritual theatre of the Garhwal region in India. It is a festival of the Garhwali People in the Saloor Dungra village of the Painkhanda Valley in the Chamoli district in Uttarakhand, India. The festival and the eponymous art form are conducted as an offering to the village deity, Bhumiyal Devta, in the courtyard of the village temple. The Ramman is unique to the village and is neither replicated nor performed anywhere else in the Himalayan region. The guardian deity of Saloor Dungra is Bhumichetrapal, also known as Bhumiyal Devta. The festival is held in her honour every year after Baisakhi, a harvest festival that also marks the beginning of the Hindu Solar New Year. On the day of Baisakhi, the village priest announces the date for the Ramman festival which falls on the ninth or the eleventh day after Baisakhi. The Bhumiyal Devta comes out in a procession to the temple on the day of Baisakhi. The second day, people offer hariyali (sprouted barley ...