Goalpara (Nishangram), Dec. 18: The two-day Wangala festival, organised by the A’chik Cultural Forum in collaboration with the Garo Students’ Union at Nisangram, Damra, under Goalpara district, concluded today.

F.W. Momin, minister of community and rural development, was the chief guest on the first day of the festival while Goalpara deputy commissioner graced the festival on its concluding day as the chief guest.

Dolly K. Sangma, chairman of the festival panel, said it had “brought solace and joy”.

Wangala is the annual harvest festival held in the Garo hills of Meghalaya. The festival is celebrated in honour of Saljong, the god of fertility, and marks the onset of winter and the end of a period of toil, celebrating a good harvest.

Wangala is also known as the 100 drums festival and mainly includes indigenous groups offering sacrifices to appease Saljong.

The festival extends from two days to a week, with the first day focusing on the ragula ceremony.

On the second day, the chachat soa ceremony is held. People of all ages dress in colourful costumes and feathered headgear and dance to music played on long, oval-shaped drums.

“Although the dances performed have some variation every time, the main idea remains a queue of two parallel lines — one of men and other of women, clad in their festive finery,” Sangma said.

An organiser of the festival said other highlights of the festival included the orchestra of men playing drums, gongs and flutes, punctuated by the sonorous music of a primitive flute made of buffalo horn.

Vishma Thapa, a local resident who takes keen interest in the festival, said the bamboo drums create a melody he cannot have enough of.