SANKRANTI is an important
festival for Telugus and people in rural Andhra look forward to this harvest
festival, which has different attractions for different people. With crops harvested
people have both money and leisure to make merry with.
This is the festival of peasants. It is celebrated when the sun passes from
Sagittarius to Capricorn & the transition is called Makara Sankranthi.
A month before the festival the harvesting of crops begins.
Gangireddula Vadu comes with a colourfully dressed pet bull. The bull sways
its head, dances, sits and stands and does things in accordance with the rhythm
of the music and commands of its master.
The first day is called as Bhogi. On this day before sunrise youngsters collect
dry twigs, grass, waste paper etc., make a heap & light a bonfire. Women
and girls draw patterns on the ground using mortar powder. They make Gobbemmas
i.e., lumps of cowdung and place it on the drawings in front of their houses.
People pick up some ash from the bhogi fire & rub it on their foreheads.
The special dish of the day is Pongal, a mixture of husked greengram and rice
with salt and pepper powder cooked in a pot.
The second day is the actual Sankranthi day. In the evening men & women
go to their neighbours and relatives to offer sesame seeds, sugar & sugarcane
pieces.
Kanumu the third day is celebrated as a cattle festival. On this day the peasants
wake up early to bathe their cattle & paint their horns with bright colors
and tie bells around their necks. Some farmers go out to their fields, sacrifice
a goat or a sheep and sprinkle the blood in their fields. Still some others
take cooked rice and milk to the cattleshed offer some of it to the cattle and
take the remainder to their fields and scatter it there. They believe that this
offering keeps the ghosts away from their crops. In the villages on this day
cockfights are held.
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