Tribal pujas and festivals in Tripura

Through the centuries many of the tribal people of Tripura were obliged to succumb to the religious and ideological dominance of Brahmanism and Buddhism but they were not ready to reject their traditional Gods and Goddesses. In the priestly Brahmanical and Buddhist Pantheons, the tribal gods and goddesses were accepted and the traditional observances associated with them. A Hindu tribal or a Buddhist tribal is not a separate class of Hindu society or a Buddist society, there is no differences between a caste Hindu and a tribal Hindu and the same is applicable to tribal Buddhist also.
It is possible to find out various tribal elements in Brahma nism and Biddddhism .In Tripura fourteen tribal gods and goddesses have taken their places in our formal religion, more particularly at the time of the Kharchipuja, the fourteen deities are receiving offerings of the lakhs of non tribal populations.
Tribal pujas and festivals in Tripura deals with the religious pujas and festivals of the Hindunad Buddhist tribals who were indeed indigenous to the land and they have managed to survive to this day by struggle. What gave strength to the Adivasis or Adimjaties in their grim struggle for existence?
No doubt, it was their affinity to spirits, nature deities and ancestores. They had their own religious beliefs and customs and rites and ritual of pujas with animal sacrifice, wine and bamboo made pipe containing holy water. They had a priestly class called Achai or ochai or ojha along with the chief prisest Chantai and a pantheon of nature deities, spirits and ancestors.