What is Jallikattu?

About Jallikattu:

• Jallikattu (or sallikkattu) is also known as eru thazhuvuthal and mañcuvirattu.
• The bull-taming sport is popular in Madurai, Tiruchirappalli, Theni, Pudukkottai and Dindigul districts — known as the Jallikattu belt.
• Jallikattu is celebrated in the second week of January, during the Tamil harvest festival, Pongal.
• A tradition over 2,000 years old, Jallikattu is a competitive sport as well as an event to honour bull owners who rear them for mating.
• It is a traditional sport in which contestants try to tame a bull for a prize; if they fail, the bull owner wins the prize.
• Jallikattu is considered a traditional way for the peasant community to preserve their pure-breed native bulls.
• Kangayam, Pulikulam, Umbalachery, Barugur and Malai Maadu are among the popular native cattle breeds used for Jallikattu.

 

 

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Q1) What is the significance of Pongal?

Pongal is an important Hindu festival celebrated in Tamil Nadu. The four-day-long festival celebrates the harvesting of crops like sugarcane, rice and turmeric; it falls around the same time as Lohri (celebrated in North India) and Makar Sankranti (celebrated in Western India) in mid-January each year. It is essentially a thanksgiving function wherein farmers thank nature, the Sun God and the farm animals for helping in growing the year's produce while other people thank the farmers for producing the crops.

 

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Source: The Hindu