Dumje Festival - Everest Region

Dumje is a very special festival of Sherpa community of Solukhumbu region, Nepal and is celebrated in the month of May or June, every year and lasting for four days. The festival in essence celebrates and honors the anniversary of Guru Rimpoche’s birth on the lotus flower. As the legend has it, the commencement of the festival is credited to Lama Sangwa Dorge, who was also the the founder of the earliest monasteries in the Solukhumbu region in Nepal. During the festival various Tantric dances, initiations and ‘Nen –Seg-Phang-sum” i.e. trampling, brurining and throwing are performed to dispel the evil spirits. The Sherpa seasonal festival of Dumje may therefore be understood as an attempt periodically to express and resolve the problem through a complex juxtaposition of sexual, aggressive and ecological metaphors and symbols.

The earliest recorded event of Dumje festival is supposed to have started some 360 years ago coinciding with the birth anniversary of Guru Rimphche. Celebrated in five different parts of Solukhumbu region namely, Tengbohe, Namche, Khumjung, Pangoboch and Junbesi, the main theme of this festival is to subdue all the evil spirits that are believed to harm the sentient beings. Moreover, this is also the occasion whereby it also serves as a religious and community duty to help bring the villagers together. Taking into turn, each year six families are picked to provide food and drinks to the entire community over the course of the four day festivities at the Gompa (monastery) followed by various religious ceremonies, prayers, readings, mask dances, blessings, etc.

The exact dates of Dumje festival varies from year to year since it is based on Tibetan Lunar calendar which in itself changes every year. Please contact us for this year’s precise date of this festival.

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