From a rustic tradition to world recognition, Meghalaya’s Wangala festival marks a flourishing heritage

TURA The biggest organised harvest festival of Meghalaya’s Garo community expanded from a hundred to a thousand drums on its golden jubilee on Saturday (November 14, 2026), creating a world record. Also read | The Hundred Drums Wangala https://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/The-Hundred-Drums-Wangala/article15616905.ece Also known as a ‘100 drums festival’, the festival of farmers is the occasion when the tribal people offer sacrifices to please their main deity Saljong – the sun God. The harvest festival marks the end of a period of toil and signifies the onset of winter.

Called dama in the Garo tongue, each drum is almost 4 feet long. Wangala was given a formal shape in 1976 after a Block Development Officer, who felt the drumbeats were losing their reverberating sound, scouted 10 dama players and organised a Wangala at the Chandmary Field in Tura, the second-largest urban centre in the State. Captain Williamson A.

Sangma, then Chief Minister, felt 10 drums were not enough and organised 100 drummers for a repeat festival in December 1976 at Asananggre, about 16 km from Tura.