How the Hills Keep Their Stories
Most of Uttarakhand's folk stories were never written down by the people who first told them. They survived through song. In Kumaon, wandering singers called hurkiyas performed long ballads to the beat of the small hourglass drum (hurka). In Garhwal, the dhol-damau drummers and jagariyas sang the stories of gods and heroes at night-long jagar ceremonies, in which a deity is believed to enter and speak through a medium. Women sang their own songs while working in the fields and forests.
Because the stories were passed on by memory, every valley has its own version. Names, places and endings change from village to village. The retellings below follow the most widely known versions and point out where traditions differ.
Heroes and Heroines
- Teelu Rauteli — the teenage girl from Pauri Garhwal who rode into battle to avenge her father and brothers.
- Madho Singh Bhandari — the Garhwali general who fought on the Tibetan frontier and cut a tunnel through a mountain to bring water to his village.
Love, Loss and the Supernatural
- Jeetu Bagdwal — the flute player whose music enchanted the aanchhris, the fairies of the high meadows.
- Rajula and Malushahi — Kumaon's great love ballad, about a trader's daughter and a Katyuri prince.
Gods of the Villages
- Golu Devta — the Kumaoni god of justice, whose temples are hung with thousands of bells and letters.
Real People, Living Legends
Some of the region's most powerful stories are not old at all. Gaura Devi, who led the women of Reni village to protect their forest in 1974, has become a folk heroine within living memory — read her story in The Chipko Movement. The martyrs of the 1994 statehood agitation are remembered in songs sung at every Foundation Day — see The Statehood Movement.