Kathmandu: The Magar community, Nepal’s prominent indigenous group, worships water, land and fire. They worship earth, which means worship of nature. The worship of the soil and water by these ‘nature worshippers’ is what Bhume Puja is mainly about.
The Magar community has been celebrating the Bhume Puja in a grand manner, with flower picking, Bhume dance, and various competitions. This year members of the Magar community from across Nepal, living in Kathmandu, gathered at Khulamanch to celebrate the flower-picking ceremony. The festival, in which the Magar people worship nature and the earth, includes traditional music, dancing, and the symbolic picking of flowers from hills and highlands. The ritual is performed to pray for protection from natural disasters, abundant harvests, and peace and prosperity. After the flower-picking ceremony, participants celebrate together with traditional Bhume dances, preserving a cherished cultural heritage.
The Bhume Puja this year was marked on June 15.
