Ali-Ai-Ligang

Understand

Where Ali-Ai-Ligang comes from

Ali-Ai-Ligang is the spring-sowing festival of the Mishing (Miri) people of the Brahmaputra valley of Assam, celebrated on the first Wednesday (the Ali) of the month of the Indian month Gon (Fagun, February-March) and on the following Thursday (the Ai). The festival is associated with the first sowing of the rice seed in the year, with the Mishing community offering prayers to the local deities of fertility and abundance and to the ancestral spirits. Ali-Ai-Ligang has been documented as one of the most important Mishing festivals, second only to the agricultural cycle of the rice itself. The dance is performed at the festival by the community on the central village ground, with the singing of the Mishing ballads and the rhythmic dance of the young people.

How it's practiced

Ali-Ai-Ligang is performed by the Mishing community on the festival day, with the young men and women dancing in a circle to the songs of the Mishing ballads and the rhythms of the indigenous instruments. The dance is gentle, with swaying steps and the characteristic hand-gesture of the Mishing dance vocabulary. Music is the Mishing Adivasi ensemble — the cymbal (jota), the cymbals (taal), the flute and the dhol. The dance is held at the village festival ground (the gora-bari), with the young people continuing through the evening of the festival. Costume is the colourful traditional Mishing dress — the women's pihu-sadak and the men's dhoti-kurta and the colourful gamucha shawl. The festival's wining is the sowing of the first paddy-seed.