There was a time when we ruled everything east of kathmandu. Back then illegitimate children were considered outcasts of the society. Possibly treated worse than the blacks that were taken to the USA by the british, portugese or the spanish. they were termed "the lichhas" or illegitimate. When the king of palpa requested armed assistance the Kirat hang sent most of his army keeping about 1/4th back as reserve. This was the time the lichhas were waiting for. There was a rebellion and we were defeated. Thus came into being the Lichhavis. Then there were the mallas then shahs. During the period of lichhavis most of our written documents were destroyed. As were many of our palaces and a lot of our cultural rites banned. During the shah regime hinduism swept the nation so much so that during dashain In the eastern nepal where we reside they would send undercover agents to see wether we celebrated dashain or not. They would also send "jasoos" to spy on us. The "feri laagauney" that you see roaming arround nowadays that we give rice, besar, tarkari, masala, ghee etc. are the current leftovers of that.
For some of our rites where a bull sacrifice was needed we had to pay extra tax. To prove that we had celebrated mahaastami by sacrificing an animal to Kali .. in the main door of every kirat the family had to imprint their palm with the blood of the animal. Any house without such a mark would suffer the wrath of the government.
These are historical documented facts.
Now we get to Chandi. Chandi is a mythical goddess that slayed shumbha and nishumbha (pride and shame). It has absolutely nothing to do with our Udhauli and Ubhauli festival.
The Kirats being basically hunters and Farmers Just divided the year in 2 parts one fell according to the nepalese calender on mangsir and the other on baisakh full moon day. On the former we perform maangsirey ( not mangsirey like the nepali month mangsir but maang and sirey) or Udhauli and the latter is Ubhauli. These rites are known by many names as we Khambus have a wide variety of names. Bantawas call it sakewa, Chamlings call it sakela. It is also called sakkenwa, toshi, shyadar, sakhenwa, chasuwa, chasok tarunam etc.
It possibly started getting called chandi as an attempt to merge it into the majority hindu culture Just like Paruhang even earlier got merged with Shiva. The result being many of us Kirats mistakenly take paruhang as our god. Paruhang and Sumnima are our "adipurkha" or first ancestors. Thus we from this ubhauli on have started a campaign to get the original name back. Please feel free to call it according to the name given by your pachha but i'd urge everyone to stop calling it chandi.
For some of our rites where a bull sacrifice was needed we had to pay extra tax. To prove that we had celebrated mahaastami by sacrificing an animal to Kali .. in the main door of every kirat the family had to imprint their palm with the blood of the animal. Any house without such a mark would suffer the wrath of the government.
These are historical documented facts.
Now we get to Chandi. Chandi is a mythical goddess that slayed shumbha and nishumbha (pride and shame). It has absolutely nothing to do with our Udhauli and Ubhauli festival.
The Kirats being basically hunters and Farmers Just divided the year in 2 parts one fell according to the nepalese calender on mangsir and the other on baisakh full moon day. On the former we perform maangsirey ( not mangsirey like the nepali month mangsir but maang and sirey) or Udhauli and the latter is Ubhauli. These rites are known by many names as we Khambus have a wide variety of names. Bantawas call it sakewa, Chamlings call it sakela. It is also called sakkenwa, toshi, shyadar, sakhenwa, chasuwa, chasok tarunam etc.
It possibly started getting called chandi as an attempt to merge it into the majority hindu culture Just like Paruhang even earlier got merged with Shiva. The result being many of us Kirats mistakenly take paruhang as our god. Paruhang and Sumnima are our "adipurkha" or first ancestors. Thus we from this ubhauli on have started a campaign to get the original name back. Please feel free to call it according to the name given by your pachha but i'd urge everyone to stop calling it chandi.
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