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Dear Friends
After Great Siv's Night, another cheerful festival is held, the folk festival of the Goddess of the Death Kali and her demons. The goddess Pαrvatν, the wife of Great Siva, has the name her father gave her, Kali or Black. Kala also means Time. For details, please see here.
Shiva, the symbol of masculine energy, mostly consists of meditation and is not much interested in the world. Particularly, the female energy of Shakti is the opposite, she does not really enjoy calm but constantly creates and transforms the world. Also fighting against the demons, and of course the victorious battle of enthusiasm will begin to dance and she fall into trance. Her dances is breaking the groundwork of the Earth itself, the gods try to stop her, but in vain, Kali in the trance does not hear at all. So they runs for Shiva, let him do something with his wife. Siva goes, he's trying what the gods and also in vain. So he lie between the dead corpses and when Kali steps on him, she'll wake up, she will bite his tongue in her horror and calm down.
This event is reminiscent of today's festival, it is a very old tradition, probably pre-vedic rather folk than priestly cultivated tradition. Many people change and paint as Kali or various demons. Others, in the worship of her son, Skanda-Murugan, stitch the lemons on the body, the other drag the wagons with the statue of a mighty goddess. Everything is accompanied by loud drums. It starts at about 10 am and ends on the fourth evening, when all the processions go to cemeteries on the outskirts of the city. There, many participants arrive in trance, crawling tongues, and people are trying to keep them to harm themselves or others. It is very good that most of the trident is made of paper, it might not be well
I uploaded a small video on youtube , the first shot is from the morning, the second from the end of the parade. You can see different masks and stitching of lemons on your photos, I do not consider it barbaric at all. On the contrary, it's a way of demonstrating devotion to God, overcoming pain and controlling your senses. Yeah, and those bones can be possibly right
Be happy, St. Nicholas is gone, but they will soon be burning of witches
Josef Fric
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