Tendong Lho Rum Faat

One of the oldest festivals in Sikkim and the most important in the Lepcha calendar — the Lepchas are the state's indigenous people, and this is their own thanksgiving.

Lepcha oral tradition holds that a great deluge drowned Mayel Lyang — the Lepcha name for their homeland — and that Tendong Hill rose above the water and saved those who climbed it. The festival gives thanks to the hill.

A bongthing, the Lepcha shaman-priest, opens proceedings with a ritual offering invoking the ancestral spirits of the land. Prayers are offered to Tendong, and the observance runs about three days around the state function.

The bongthing's offering, prayers to Tendong Hill, and the ascent by those who make it.

Tendong is thanked as a living protector rather than remembered as a place where something once happened.

A Lepcha deluge tradition, kept as thanksgiving to the hill that is held to have sheltered the people when the waters rose.