Naked Dancing!!!!
Well, I bet that got
your attention. (I wonder how many hits this post will get). It’s a nice time
to be in Bhutan right now. The monsoon rains finished a few weeks ago and it
won’t rain now until next summer. We’re left with deep blue skies and some of
the most amazingly fluffy clouds I’ve ever seen. Now that the rain has stopped,
the festivals have started up again and of course the tourists have returned.
Curiously, most of the tourists I’ve met seem to come from Switzerland – I
guess they’re here just to see if Bhutan really does look like their home
country; by all accounts it does.
Well I thought you
might enjoy some of the pictures I took at the local tsechus (festivals). Some
are from Jakar which is our local big town and the administrative capital of
Bumthang. This tsechu took place inside the dzong. The dzongs are ancient
fortresses renovated and rebuilt throughout the ages having survived wars and
earthquakes. They are still used for local government and also as monasteries.
This tsechu was very crowded and there was little room for manoeuvre, so I’m
quite pleased with the photos I took. They just seem to me to be a riot of
colour, and the audience (all wearing ghos and kiras) is as colourful as the
performers.
The other set of
pictures are from our local tsetchu at Thakkar. This was a much more leisurely
affair and we were able to sit and have a picnic whilst watching the masked
dancing. Masked dancing is a mainstay of Bhutanese tsechus. There’s always a
‘joker’ character called Atsara who amuses the crowd brandishing a wooden
phallus. They seem to take great delight in embarrassing female foreigners who
almost invariably shriek and cower as he waves his wooden willy. I’m told that
the phallus symbolises the accomplishment of wisdom by the dubthops (saintly
beings) who once roamed the universe banishing evil by mocking worldly things.
Well, as the photos
show, when Atsara started pointing Percy at Amelie and Lois; far from being
intimidated, they just stood there having a right old giggle. I was very proud
of them as I watched from a distance and I couldn’t help wondering if poor old
Atsara felt he had met his match.
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| A festival for the monks... |
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| ...the ladies... |
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| ...the young... |
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| ...and the old! |
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| Atsara failing to frighten Amelie and Lois |
So what about the naked dancing? (I hear you ask). Well, last Wednesday (it was a full moon) Justine, Sarah (a Canadian teacher based in Trongsa) and yours truly headed off to Jambay Lakhang which you may remember from an earlier blog is one of the 107 monasteries built in one day to subdue a huge demoness.
Now, here I must
disappoint a few readers. Firstly, the naked dancers were all male and
secondly, cameras were strictly forbidden. Having secured the services of a
couple of baby sitters, the Divers were all set to paint the town red. This is
a famous and very popular tsechu. Upon our arrival, the first thing we saw was
a huge fire suspended on a frame. Brave members of the crowd were encouraged to
walk underneath to receive a blessing. We were warned to avoid wearing any
nylon type fabrics that may be flammable. We sensibly (though perhaps boringly)
waited until the burning bushes had fallen to the ground and we could walk under
the frame in relative safety.
That was about 9pm and
the naked dancing wasn’t until 1am. It was also by far the coldest night so far
of autumn; the ice on car windows clearly indicated that the temperature had
dropped below zero. We wisely headed off in search of a warm tent and found a
very pleasant ‘soft drink’ tent with a bukari (wooden stove) to keep us all
nice and warm. Of course they also served beer but asked us to hide the bottles
underneath the table in case a police officer came by. By and by, a police
officer did come by and happily sat down close to the bukari and didn’t seem to
care one jot about the fact that everyone inside was drinking beer. It was only us chillips (foreigners) who were
still bothering to try and hide our bottles.
As usual, we met loads
of fun, friendly people and a small crowd of Bhutanese were soon buying us
drinks. When we bought them some beer in return, they promptly heated it up to
boiling point on the bukari and insisted
we try it (it was as awful as it sounds) and we politely declined their further
offers of hot beer.
When 1am approached,
we headed over to the site of the naked dancing. There was a large bonfire (well
you’d want a bit of heat if you were dancing naked in sub-zero temperatures) and
a very large crowd. The dancers appeared with their heads covered (but nothing
else). Now, anyone expecting a cleverly choreographed, highly rehearsed routine
would have been very disappointed. To my (admittedly untrained) eye, it looked
like a bunch of naked guys who had just met, were jumping around a fire in a
bid to keep warm; but hey what do I know! I’m told that it is a deeply religious dance
that dates back centuries. My principal told me that when one year they didn’t
perform the naked dance, the village had all sorts of bad luck and harvests
were very poor.
Once the dancing
commenced, the crowd surged forward and security had to brandish burning logs
to get the crowd to behave in a more orderly manner. Once everyone had calmed
down the dancing resumed and everyone seemed to be satisfied with the
performance. Our friend and colleague Sarah, who had travelled all the way from
the other side of Trongsa seemed very pleased with the performance but kept
talking about hair for some reason. I’ve no idea why, I mean, their heads were
completely covered!
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