Kinnaur & Spiti · Western Himalaya & Trans-Himalaya
Festivals
| Festival | When | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Fulaich (Ukhyang) | August–September | The flower festival of Kinnaur. Young men climb to the high pastures and bring down particular wild flowers, which are offered to the village deity and to the households that lost a member during the year. It is a harvest celebration and a collective remembrance of the dead in the same three days, with chhang, kayang dancing and animal offerings, and the dates differ from village to village. |
| Losar | Winter, by the local lunar reckoning | The new year of Spiti and the Bhoti-speaking villages, marked with house cleaning, offering-cakes, khapse biscuits made in quantity, house-to-house singing and masked dance at the gompas. The Spiti observance does not always fall on the same day as the Tibetan or the Ladakhi new year, since local convention placed it earlier in the winter. |
| Chakhar | Held at multi-year intervals, by village | A major Kinnauri observance held not annually but at long intervals set by the village and its deity, so that a person may see it only a few times in a life. When it comes, it runs for days, brings back families who have moved away, and involves the whole village in feeding and hosting. Individual villages hold it in different years. |
| Ladarcha | July–August, at Kaza | Spiti's fair, historically the meeting point where traders from Ladakh, Tibet, Kullu and Rampur exchanged wool, salt, grain and livestock at the end of the passable season. The trade that gave it its purpose has gone; the fair continues as a cultural and livestock event. |
| Lavi Fair, Rampur | November | The old trade fair at Rampur on the Sutlej, downstream of Kinnaur, which for centuries was the point at which Tibetan and upper-valley produce — wool, pashm, horses, dried fruit, chilgoza — met plains goods coming up. It remains one of the largest fairs in Himachal and horses are still traded at it. |
| Sazo | Winter, in Kinnaur | The observance that marks the village deities departing for the winter, after which the god's public functions stop until it is welcomed back in spring. Practically, it closes the ritual calendar for the months when travel between villages is impossible anyway. |
| Monastic festivals at Key, Tabo and Dhankar | Winter and early summer, varying by gompa | Each monastery holds its own annual festival with cham masked dance, ritual cake offerings and a large gathering from the surrounding villages. Tabo's has drawn very large crowds when senior teachers have attended. |
| Kinner Kailash parikrama | August–September | The circuit of the Kinner Kailash massif, a hard multi-day walk over a pass above 5,000 m undertaken as pilgrimage. It is organised by the district and closed in bad years, and altitude sickness is the standing risk rather than the terrain. |
The festival calendar of Kinnaur & Spiti — what is celebrated, when it falls and what happens. (8)