Chapchar Kut
07 Mar, 2025
Friday
Chapchar Kut on 07-03-2025
About Chapchar Kut 2025
Chapachar Kut is a festival of Mizoram, India. It is celebrated after the most difficult work of Jhoom operation or forest-clearing is done during March, Which means cleaning the remains of burning. It is a spring festival which is celebrated with great pomp and gaiety.
With the time Chapchar Kut started being celebrated in all the villages of Mizoram and very soon it became a very important cultural tradition in our society. Each village would have evolved its own brand of celebration over the years to suit its times, idiom and ethos. The usual standard of celebration was four to five days with specific emphasis or events for each day. The general sequence of celebration of Chapchar Kut is as follows:
Day 1: Lucei Waktalah
On the first day, pigs are slaughtered and feasted in the Lucei style, which means they slaughter
their pigs at the end of the day so that by the time the feast is ready, most of the children are fast asleep.The elders spend the day drinking beer. Young people prepare things for the festival and celebrate.
Day 2: Ralte Vaktalh
Slaughtering pigs early in the morning. Gathering of relatives and kith and kin for a pig-feast. Elders including women spend the whole day drinking beer. Young boys and girls enjoy themselves by singing and dancing while busy in the preparations. As evening falls, old women carrying cooked food and boiled eggs offer food to passersby at village entrances usually under banyan trees or near memorial stones.
Third Day
On the third day, the young men and women come out at night with their ornaments such as amber necklaces, ivory earrings and beautiful headgear. For information, the Mizos do not value or keep gold ornaments. Boys and girls form a circle in the village courtyard holding hands to each other to the beat
and tune of the drummer and in the middle the singer Mithun keeps time with his song to the tinkling of horns. All festivals are celebrated in this manner.Day four: Zupui ni
On the fourth day, Zupui is rice beer brewed with husk, it is a light beer, specially brewed for celebrations and special days. It is said that one can drink Zupui all day and not get drunk. Zupui is usually drunk by dipping it into a beer-pot through a siphon or pipe. Zupui given by various families on this day are distributed among people throughout the day. Cultural singing and dancing start again in the evening.
Day 5: Zu Thing Chavi Ni
On the fifth day, it is customary to try to finish all the zu, means beer that has been donated ollected for the Chapchar Kut.
Day 6: Epuar Avam Ni
The sixth day, the day of Siesta we would call it. They call it a day of rest after gorging themselves on meat and drink. It is forbidden to go out for work or hunting and to go outside the perimeter of the village on this day.
