500 Big Foots to walk in Darjeeling on Friday

GANGTOK, 24 May: 500 students and supporters will walk from Raj Bhavan to Chowrastha in Darjeeling wearing ‘Big Foot (representing the feet of Yeti, a legend from the Himalayan folklore) Shoes’ as part of the Big Foot campaign on 25 May. The walk will begin from 10 in the morning from Raj Bhavan and will culminate at Chowrastha.
A press release informs that the campaign which is organised to symbolise solidarity on the need to keep the indigenous oral story and folklore alive will also make its way to the Limca Book of records 2013 for the maximum number of people wearing the same kind of shoes at the same time and the same place.
The walk is part of the Big Foot Campaign organised by Acoustic Traditional, an independent Bangalore-based, non-profit organisation, led by young indigenous people, working towards the promotion and conservation of oral storytelling and tribal oral history, especially of mountain and forest communities.
The Yeti is relevant to the local culture in many different ways. Almost all oral history suggests (Mundums of the Kiranti/ evident in Bongthism of the Lepchas) that man actually received wisdom from the animals.  Many Lepcha folktales suggest that Yetis were friendly beings, although wild in their nature. In fact, there is also a shared perception among the shamans that Yeti and Ban Jhankris are one and the same; that they are not real beings in flesh, but rather guides to the spirit world – the ultimate and the original shamans from whom shamanism begins.
The “Big Foot Walk” will celebrate the importance of legends in sustaining a community’s cultural, historical, spiritual and scientific legacies, the release adds.