The Gammadu Festival

Gammadu Festival is an ancient custom which is still very popular among the village folk. Usually it is an annual festival, especially offered to the Goddess Paththini, a Goddess who is supposed to have remained a virgin, thus the only one to be clear of one's sins.

Gammaduwa is held to get her blessings so that the people not only in the village but the whole country are blessed with peace and prosperity.

It's an open event which is always sponsored by the Paththini shrine or a prominent person in the particular area.

Gammaduwa starts in the night and goes on till 6 a.m. the following morning.

People are treated to a different but a most delicious dinner where they will be served rice, and seven other dishes cooked all together, along with bananas and oil cakes, served on either bananas or nelum leaves. What's special about the food is that it's cooked by men only. Women are not permitted to even help out. The belief is that if the tradition is not practised by an expert it could have a lot of side effects on the person who does it.

The annual Gammadu Festival Korathota was held recently amidst a plethora of dancers from the navy, army, national dance troupe, Peace Foundation and the University Dance Troupe.

Umangi