- Advertisement -
Guwahati : Millions of football lovers eagerly waiting for the final match of FIFA World Cup 2018 to be played today between former champion France and Croatia.
FIFA World Cup held in every four years and there is a FIFA World Cup mystery happened in Meghalaya since couple of decades.
While the FIFA World Cup fever is going on across the world, a tiny insect in a remote corner of Meghalaya is also joined the football frenzy.
If you believe it or not, but it’s true that, tiny strange insects appeared in the villages in Ri Bhoi district of Meghalaya’s Khasi Hills about one month before every FIFA World Cup, and slowly disappears for the next four years.
A sub-species of the Cicada family, called Chremistica had emerged from the ground in several villages of Ri Bhoi district in every four years, typically one month ahead of the FIFA World Cup.
The tribal villagers of Ri Bhoi district have named the winged insect as Niangtaser (Niang is insect in Khasi language) and have nicknamed the strange insect as World Cup Insect.
This is still a mystery that, why the insect emerges at that particular area again and again before the FIFA World Cup.
The tribal villagers get to know that the FIFA World Cup is not too far, when they hearing about the whistling sounds of the insects.
The football crazy villagers have renamed the insect as Niang World Cup.
The villagers have organised a festival in every four years in Ri Bhoi district as the insect appeared and the festival named as Niangtaser festival was held in 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014 and this year.
Not only this, the tribal villagers, from young to old also eating the insects and it sold in market.
(By Hemanta Kumar Nath, Guwahati)
