Nicobar Islands · Island Realms

Festivals

Festival	When	What happens
The ossuary or pig feast	Held periodically, not annually; timing set by the families concerned	The central rite of Nicobarese society. Some years after a burial the bones of the dead are exhumed, cleaned and reinterred, and a feast is held at which pigs are killed in numbers, the village and its guests dance through the night, and the obligations between families are settled. It is recorded in the literature under several names — Panuohonot is one that has been published — and the terminology varies across the group's languages. It is the occasion around which pigs are reared, coconuts are saved and standing is measured.
Christmas and Easter	December and spring	The largest fixed observances in the calendar of a population that is overwhelmingly Christian, with Nicobarese-language hymn singing, feasting and dance. Anglican mission work in the twentieth century, and the translation of the Bible into Nicobarese, are why.
Canoe race festivals	Mainly the drier months	Village crews race hodis against one another at public and official occasions. The competition is between villages, and the boats are built and maintained with that in mind.
Tsunami remembrance	26 December	Observed across the islands each year. In a group that lost a large share of its population in a single morning, this is a fixture of the calendar rather than a commemoration in the ordinary sense.

The festival calendar of Nicobar Islands — what is celebrated, when it falls and what happens. (4)