SAKEWA AND RAI COMMUNITY

Sakewa is a great festival of ‘Kirat Khambu Rai’ and is celebrated in Sikkim at Namchi. Every year people of Sikkim celebrate this occasion with great pleasure and they perform their own dances and ‘Rai’ songs. The ‘Rai’ is one of the ancient indigenous ethno- linguistic tribe of the Eastern Himalayan region. They are also called Kirators and worship different forms of nature such as the Sun, the rivers, water, trees, stones, mountains, serpents etc. The leaf of a Chestnut tree has special spiritual value and they call it Wai Bak. This festival makes them feel more as a part of community than an individual. Christians, Hindus and members of other organization like Manav pharma Sansthan, Brahma Kumaris etc also join the celebrations. Sakewa also marks significance to the age old term Ublauli which means migration from the plains to the hills by the ancestors with the onset of summers. As their ancestors began to settle down and as the education system was introduced they started adopting new religious philosophies and trends. Today, they see diversification in their community with sub- caste, many of them following different religions and philosophies but their identity remains the same, that’s a very reason they write ‘Rai’ as their surname.