The Kirat Paddy Dance of Limbuwan

The Agricultural dance of Limbuwan is called the Ya-Rakma or Paddy dance or Dhannach in the Nepali language. Ya means paddy and rakma means to trample. So Ya-Rakma means to trample paddy with a view to separate the grains or paddy from its ears.

Introduction of Paddy Dance

In the early times, people cultivated land and sowed crops and when the crops became ready for harvest, they cut them down into bundles and trampled the ears of the crops or threshed the hay and dried the paddy plants with their arms and brought the corn home. When they knew that one man was needed for threshing one bundle of crops, they experimented in threshing ten bundles of crops by ten men at the same time. When they were successful in threshing corn in a better and a quicker way, at that time, an old man Shorokpa proposed them to work in the field in a dancing manner. He first of all introduced the system of planting paddy in a dry field. He arranged a dozen young boys to stand in a line at one corner of a prepared flat field holding cross sticks making opposite angles of about 20 degrees in their hands. He then asked a dozen young girls to stand behind the boys with a bag of corn seed to be dropped into the holes made by the young boys. Now, when the old man started singing and marching before them, the whole line of boys and girls
marched after him singing, making holes and dropping seeds into the holes according to the rhythm of the song. In such manner, the young boys and girls were also encouraged to work in the fields.
When the paddy became ready for harvest, the old man instructed them to cut and dry the paddy in the sun for some days. He then, instructed them to hold their hands side by side and tread over the hay three times and raise their left feet together. He again instructed them to trample the hay three times and raise their right feet together. Thus, they turned back and forth together for four or five times and threshed the entire bundle of paddy with their feet. Later on, the same system of threshing paddy with their feet became the famous Paddy-dance or Ya-rakma. After the death of that old man, people named this Paddy-dance the, “(Ku)Shorokpa-dance.”
As the Ke-Lang, the Paddy-dance differs from district to district. There are all together ten districts in Limbuwan, so there are at least ten different kinds of Paddy-Dance. The famous dances are known by the name of Panchtharey, Tamrangey, Siridhakpey, Phedappey, Chhotharey, Chaobisey, Athabrey, Lapchey and Tambarkholey.
This agricultural dance is practised in the winter season when the paddy becomes ready for harvest. A small round flat land in some part of the paddy field is chosen, the sods are removed, washed, plastered with cow-dung and made smooth and clear. Then paddy with its hay will be heaped in one corner of the prepared floor. After some days when it is time for threshing, the owner of the paddy field invites men and women to work and dance.
During the day time, they thresh the bundles of paddy with their arms and deposit the hay with the remaining paddy in one corner of the floor. At night when the dancers assemble, the workers spread some amount of hay in the middle of the floor and allow them to dance over the hay. They dance in a circle holding one another's hand. The workers will keep on changing the old hay for the new one as the dance continues.