Nakchhong

The office of Nakchhong is rooted in Kirat Mundhum practice as a visionary, self-realized ritual specialist rather than a formally trained clergy. Sources emphasize that Nakchhong acquire ritual knowledge and powers through dreams and personal revelation: knowledge is believed to be passed to a nakchhong in his dreams, and upon waking he possesses the skills and powers of a shaman. Because Nakchhong are described as self-learned and without formal teachers, the office is legitimized by individual visionary experience and community recognition within seasonal and household rites; when a community lacks a recognized Nakchhong, the broader ritual duties implied by the Sakela shrine are typically fulfilled by other authorized ritual practitioners within the Mundhum framework (sources note comparable shaman-priest roles across Kirati groups though specifics are not detailed in the supplied materials).

Sources record that Nakchhong ornament themselves with porcupine quills and peacock feathers and use characteristic ritual paraphernalia. They are associated with working materials such as ginger (अदुवा), Pokhemma, tupla (cut pieces from the front part of a banana leaf), and chindo (a gourd filled with jand, millet beer). Beyond these ritual adornments and materials, the sources do not provide a standardized bodily description, uniform, or fixed physical attributes such as height or age.

Nakchhong serve as the main priest of the Sakela shrine and lead the community rites of Sakela/Sakewa, in particular the seasonal Udhauli and Ubhauli festivals. Their ritual competencies include announcing the beginning of Sakela by sounding drums from their house, performing household worship at the suptulung (three-stone house altar) as preparation, and conducting an ordered sequence of worship: four types of Mang (deities) are worshiped first, and only after that sequence is completed the Nakchhong is believed to acquire the power to worship Suptulung, Sikari devta (hunter deity), Nagangeni (snake deities), Simebhume, and Retkamang (eight ancestral spirits). They function as mediators between the living and ancestors/spirits, performing propitiation and obtaining power through dream-transmitted knowledge. The sources describe them as self-learned, visionary ritual specialists rather than holders of a transmitted scholastic tradition.