Kavant is a harvest festival celebrated in the North-Eastern region of Gujarat, Kavant. The festival is mainly a social gathering of people belonging to Rathva tribe to extemporaneously recreate the joy of existence and life. People together to discuss matrimonial prospects and barter goods. The festival with wild abandon through dance primordial blending the rhythm with the shashaying of the forest and the frolicking of the animals in the undergrowth. Surrounded by the beating of drums, the susurrations of a variety of flutes and the stamping of feet, the Rathvas dance in a vast group keeping time to the rise and fall of the crescendo of arrhythmic music in their tryst with destiny. The men folk wear a belt attached with pebble filled gourds and a string of brass bells. As they stamp their feet and gyrate their hips the bells and the pebbled gourds add percussion metronomical beats tintinabulating in the air. Some of the men carry cane sugar signifying the harvest and wear an elaborate headgear which is a conical hat stuck with small framed photos of local deities surrounded by an array of peacock feathers. Rice paste and ash are blended to make a dye painting the bodies with circles and dots in a ritualistic salutation to the jungle cat. Some men and women gather together to form a human pyramid and the surrounding atmosphere rides with the heightened energy and human spirit.
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