Trekking in Garhwal » Cultural of Garhwal

Garhwal is a region, which lies in the north Himalayas, where mighty gnages origins. It has diverse nature of culture as it sins with is natural mood. In Garhwal there are a lot of variety of traditional wearing cloth, different musical folk instrumental and lofty melodious seasonal songs itself, like chounphula , mangal, jagar and etc. Generally language uses by the peoples of garhwal are Garhwali and Hindi.

Garhwali Folks Songs: Mangal: Women sing mangal songs during marriage and other ceremonies Jaggar: Jaggar is sung during worship and in respect to God. Chhopati: Chhopati is a love song that is sung between the men and women in the form of questions and answers. Chhura: Chhura is the most popular songs among shepherds and are in a way of an old experienced man teaching a young shepherd the tricks of his trade.

Khuded: The song is sung to portray the suffering of women due to parting from her husband.

Bajuband: Love song sung by shepherds in form of conversation between man and woman.

Basanti: As the name suggests Basanti songs are sung during the approaching Basant (Spring) season.

Chounphula and Jhumeila: These songs form part of seasonal dances, which are performed from Basant Panchami to Sankranti or Baisakhi. Jhumeila is sometimes mixed but is usually restricted to women. Chounphula is a spinning dance performed by all sections of the community at night in groups by men and women.

Garhwali Folk Dance:

Pandava Dance: Narrating the story of Mahabharata accompanied by dance and music performs Pandava Dance. This is performed during Dussehra and Deepawali.

Langvir Dance: Langvir dance is a acrobatic dance performed by men. In this dance the dancer climbs a pole and balances himself at his navel on the top of the pole. Accompanied by dhola and music he balances and rotates on his belly at the pole and performs other acrobatic stunts.

Barada Nati: Barada Nati dance is performed during religious festivals or any other social occasion. Men and women wearing colorful costumes perform it.

Bhotiya Dance: Bhotiya Dance is performed by Bhotias and is related with death ceremonies. It is believed by them that the soul of the dead person is residing in body of a goat or sheep and by dancing the soul can be liberated.