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Send to friend1. The winter festival - Magh Bihu or Domahi of Assamese is a festival of enjoyment. It is post-harvest winter festival. It marks the gathering of harvest (Barua, 1957).
2. Magh Bihu is also known as Bhogali Bihu or the Bihu of enjoyment. A fire ceremony is closely associated with Magh Bihu, but more significant is Uruka- the Bihu eve (Goswami,1995).
3. On this day womenfolk get ready for the next day with varieties of snacks made of newly harvested rice crops especially grown for delicious snacks like .chira,pitha, laru etc. The lunch taken on this day is chira, pitha, akhai, curd and so on.
4. The pithas made of rice are of various kinds such as ghila pitha, malpoa pitha, sunga pitha, teekli or ketli pitha, bara or kholasaparia pitha., sutuli pitha, pani pitha and so on. One special preparation especially in lower Assam is mah-karai, a combination of roasted rice, blackgram, sesame and pieces of ginger.
5. The tekeli-pitha, a kind of idli, is prepared from salted rice powder steamed on the mouth of a small pitcher or even cattle. Another kind of preparation is sunga pitha, moist rice powder mixed with molasses put in a green bamboo tube and roasted in fire.
6. Another preparation made in Upper Assam is sunga-saul, the sticky bora rice steamed in a green bamboo tube. People grow varieties of rice for different pitha and other snacks particularly for Magh Bihu. This festival is celebrated by a number of other ethnic tribes of Assam in different names.