Choi Nari ceremony held in Kailash

Annual Chawmoss Festival continues in the remote valley

CHITRAL: The Kailashi community performed the traditional ‘Choi Nari’ ceremony as part of their Chawmoss Winter Festival in the Kailash Valley of Chitral on Sunday.

The annual winter festival has been underway for the past week in the three valleys of upper Chitral where the Kailash community is settled including Rambur, Birir and Bumburet.

Besides Choi Nari, other rituals of the festival include Mandahek and Sharaberak.

In Sharaberak, residents of the three valleys made different items using flour such as figurines of Ibex, shepherds, cows, and other signs of their elders. These items are then dried sun.

After the sun sets, they are cooked on the fire.

Once ready, they are distributed amongst the community as a gift, which aims to highlight the importance of prosperity.

Moreover, the Kailash community expresses joy by singing formal songs while celebrating the festival.

In Mandahek, community members light a bonfire of pine wood as they observe a five-minute silence.

The aim of burning pinewood is to remember their loved ones.

The Chawmoss Festival usually begins on December 7 and ends on December 22.

This year, the Tourism Corporation of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (TCK-P), on the directions of Senior Tourism Minister for Tourism Atif Khan, arranged for lights in the village during the festival.

In this regard, various places, lanes, intersections, community centres and other places were lit up. Arrangements were made to provide facilities to tourists who had travelled to the remote valley to observe the Kailashi culture.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, December 16^th, 2019.