KALAY- Naga Traditional New Year Festival 2019 is being held in Laeshi Township, Naga Self-Administered Zone starting from January 14th and it was attended by Sagaing Region Government Committee, military personnel, Naga ethnics and locals.
“Naga Traditional New Year Festival is being held alternately in the townships situated in the Naga Self-administered zone. In 2017 and 2018, the event had been held in Lahe and Nanyun Townships. In the past, the government supported the festival. Now, Naga Traditional Literature and Culture Central Committee will be hosting this New Year Festival without aid from the authorities. Significantly, we built traditional six housings. We are striving to earn the income after providing accommodation in the traditional housings for home and abroad visitors. We firstly build Naga ethnic traditional housings,” said Aung Htut, Chairman of Naga Traditional Literature and Culture Central Committee.
The Naga Traditional New Year Festival is held from January 14th to 16th and sports competitions, photo booths, traditional dances as well as traditional costumes and music show will be performed in the event.
“Concerning Naga New Year Festival, we felt that our traditional was gradually disappeared. We found that there are two points. There must be changes so also there has been external pressure. We saw a lot of visitors and they said that they were very happy. We aim for the visitors who will be observing our lifestyle and tradition. Our culture isn’t led the money. We want to show our tradition and culture to the visitors. We are poor. We, the highlanders, are now running in the forests and mountains without wearing the dresses. But, we have culture. We would like to show and preserve our culture. However, we have no chance to freely inscribe our culture. We are very sad about the case. For example, Mount Saramati is very famous and it is one of the ultra prominent peaks of Southeast Asia. Rhododendron flowers bloom around the mountain. In our opinion, if there is no various kind of flower, the Saramati is meaningless. Myanmar has many cultures and customs. We belief that government will help the Naga people to inscribe their own culture, the Saramati will be very beautiful,” said one of the locals from Leshi Township.
