Festival Amatu or of the Goddess of the Village

The Festival Amatu, one of the most important for the Hani, is celebrated in honor of the goddess of the village. Although there are many legends concerning him, the most widespread account that in ancient times there was a monster that was terrifying the Hani, since it was feeding on persons. So that it was leaving calmly the people it had come to an agreement, for which it was demanding from them two young boys will sacrifice him every year.

There came one year in which it touched him the shift to be offered two Amatu children. This one, refusing to lose his children, looked for a solution. So in the night he started singing that the beef was much better than that of person, until the monster listened to it. Amatu did a dealing with the monster, for which in exchange for stopping feeding of human meat, the village would offer him every year two beautiful maidens as wives.

The monster accepted. Amatu then disguised his two children like girls, hiding between his clothes sharp knives. Then he instructed them so that, when the monster, drunkard for the celebrations of the wedding was remaining asleep, they were extracting his knives and were killing him.

The children did thus. The Hani since then venerate Amatu as the protective deity of his village.

The festival has four stages well defined as the tradition, with diverse focused activities to ask for the protection on the village, his nations, his cultivation and his cattle. It is a character holiday eminently agrarian.

The festival has suffered a big transformation in the last years, accelerated possibly by the need to give him coloring and to turn him into a tourist attraction. A homage rite to a feminine deity has turned into a homage to the dragon, into many of from whose more important activities the proper women are excluded.

Apart from the sacred character of the celebration, the young people sings and dances to the rhythm that his drums and cymbals mark.

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