Moatsu Festival

The Moatsu is a festival celeberated by Ao People of Nagaland. This is a festival of community bonding celebrated in May for 3 days. As a celebration, the villagers express their friendship for each other by exchanging gifts, making new friends, feasting, bon fire etc. Moatsü is celebrated in the first week of May every year. Various rituals are performed during this period. The Aos observe Moatsü Mong after the sowing is done. The festival acts as a time for recreation and entertainment after the stressful work of clearing fields, burning jungles, sowing seeds, cleaning up the Tsubu (wells) and repairs and construction of houses by elders of the Putu Menden, stretching over a week. The Moatsü festival is marked by lively and high-spirited songs and dances. The whole festival full of merry making and fun is observed only for three days from May 1 to 3. During this festival one of the symbolic celebrations is Sangpangtu, where a big fire is lit and men and women sit around it putting on their complete best attire, the womenfolk serve the wine and meat. Village witch doctors forecast whether good or evil days are awaiting the people and the village by readings of the celebration of the Moatsü festival. This festival was also marked with ritualistic public fornication of a young virgin and a pubescent boy to mark the fertility of the land at the time. This ritual was stopped since the advent of Christianity to the land.