The festival marks the end of the monsoon season and beginning of autumn. More than hundred girls under the age of nine gathered for the tradition of worshiping young pre-pubescent girls as manifestations of the divine female energy. The ritual holds a strong religious significance in Newar community. It is a community affair held primarily to save small girls from diseases and bad luck in the years to come. Photo: A young Nepalese girl dressed as a Kumari or living Goddess, smiles for camera as she waits for Kumari puja at Hanuman Dhoka, Basantapur Durbar Square in Katmandu, Nepal, Tuesday, September 17, 2013. (Photo by Niranjan Shrestha/AP Photo)

A boy plays with a toy plane on the eve of a solar eclipse, in La Higuera, Coquimbo Region, in the Atacama desert about 580 km north of Santiago, on July 1, 2019. A total solar eclipse will be visible from small parts of Chile and Argentina on July 2. (Photo by Martin Bernetti/AFP Photo)

A chimpanzee in the Osnabrück Zoo in Lower Saxony makes contact with a small zoo visitor sitting in front of a pane on September 1, 2020. The two males Lobo and Lome moved from Leipzig Zoo to Osnabrück Zoo to strengthen the social structure of the existing group. (Photo by Friso Gentsch/dpa)

A girl attends a performance hosted by the Ministry of the Interior that includes police, border guards, and rescuers celebrating International Children's Day in Kyiv, Ukraine on June 1, 2021. (Photo by Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

Male members of the Zeleziar folk dance group whip and water the local girls dressed in traditional clothing, during Easter in Bociar, Slovakia on April 1, 2024. Boys and younger men visit the houses of young girls, whip them with fresh-cut decorated wickers and sprinkle water on them. By tradition, the whipping should give the girls strength, health, and abundance throughout the whole year. (Photo by Robert Nemeti/Anadolu via Getty Images)

A Pakistani scavenger girl writes on a notebook she collected from a garbage, while another girl sits next to her in Lahore, Pakistan, Wednesday, April 1, 2015. Thousands of children pick recyclable items from waste dumping points to earn living for their poor families. (Photo by K. M. Chaudary/AP Photo)

A girl plays kayagum, stringed Korean harp, at the Tongmun kindergarten No.1 in Taedonggang District of Pyongyang, North Korea Tuesday, May 16, 2023. (Photo by Cha Song Ho/AP Photo)

(L-R) Poppy Delevingne, Model of the Year Cara Delevingne, Joan Smalls and Karlie Kloss pose in the winners room at the British Fashion Awards at London Coliseum on December 1, 2014 in London, England. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)