A peak into some of the rituals among the Betinats.

        The  Betinat's and I have been in close contact for the past five years . This  group of people is basically situated in the north-eastern part of India , in a small town called Jeedarling but people from this community are scattered all over the world in small groups . The Betinat culture is characterized by their immense faith in their deity also known as Ahddub or Yagnas .
        Every year in the month of February/March , this community celebrates their New year ,known as Rasol . This is one of the biggest festivals celebrated by this community beside" Akas Awad".  This festival continues for fifteen days , the first three days are the most important . On the first day the family goes to a Apmug near by and offers prayers and gifts to the Gods and Goddeses. From the second and third day family members scattered around the small town get together and are serve each other with different variety of food , the main delicacy being  Beef . There are different ways in which the meat is consumed . They start the meal by presenting some cold meat "shya"which is cut into thin slices , this is commonly taken by the elder people along with their home made drink "chyang". Then they serve another famous dish called "Lua" which is the lung of the beef cut into pieces and stuffed with powder ,but originally they say it would be stuffed with blood , then the"chimba" which is the tongue is served. They also serve "ghima" where they stuff the beef meat into the intestines .These are consumed by all the members of the community , from kids to elder people . Heavy discussions about God and politics  are found among the elderly  male members of the community , the females are normally helping out to serve the dishes and are found discussing about their long lost cousins and family affairs , the kids and the young adults are found joking around and playing games together . Beside meat another  meal they prepare are the "khapseyses" , these are big horn like   biscuits  made up of powder and sugar , the  miniature forms of these khapseyes are called "rhugrus" . The sole purpose of making these are to present it to the Gods on the first day of Rasol , where the members of the family get together and honor the Gods with khapseyes and many other gifts and these are also presented to the many guests coming to their household . The guests being their relatives come to their houses bringing gifts ,which is offered and kept in a separate room for the Gods. The sleeping pattern is jumbled during these fifteen days , family members circle around in groups going to different relatives houses .
       Another big event besides Rasol as said before is "Akas Awad" . This festival is a month long and it usually falls in the month of June/July. The main purpose of it being to honor the Deity and his life . The belief among the people are that the merit of any good deeds performed during this month is multiplied thousand times over . So the people go to different temples with gifts , restrain from eating meat , give gifts to the poor and light magical lamps . The Full moon and half moon have great affect on what they do during the entire month.
       So this review of the festivals celebrated by the Betinats has shown us that they are people who solely have faith in God .







Cultural relativism from what I understood means that there is no wrong and right , when we see different cultures we come to know that what may seem right in one culture may be wrong in the other , so we cannot judge a culture based on that .