SOHRAI PAINTINGS

Sohrai is the harvest art painted during harvest season (October-November) with chewed Saal twigs (kuchi/ datwan) using natural ochres and earth colors pounded and mixed with water. The houses are painted with large symbolic ritual forms painted  in red, black, white. The red represents the blood of the ancestors, the white is painted with rice ground with milk into a gruel and represents food, black of course represents the Mother goddess, as this is still a strongly matriarchal society.

The Kurmi Sohrai of Bhelwara is painted in triple lines of red, black, and white outlining the forms painted on the yellow walls. In the nearby Churchu and Potmo complex of villages, between Bhelwara and Jorakath the Kurmi-Mahtos decorate their houses with glyptic form of wall painting using large masses of red, black, white.

The symbols of Sohrai art are comparable with the rock paintings of the chalcolithic period done in the prehistoric caves in the forests of Hazaribagh. Other symbols of fertility appear like the fish, lotus, ladle, etc. The main symbol is the Ghoda or horse with Pashupati on the back, also bull and elephant with Pashupati, and also the Tree of life on the bull’s back appear. The Oraon Sohrai is decorative with floral designs, animal and bird forms like peacocks, deer and elephants, etc. and Ganju Sohrai has wild animals of the forest painted, but also sometimes comb-cut, such as deer, boar, rhino, peacock, florican, tiger, elephant, duck, X-Ray, etc.