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| Monday, 26 April 2004 |
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The traditional Avurudda - gone with the April showers by Florence Wickramage Several familiar characteristics of village Avurudu celebrations are fast receding into history as was experienced by the writer spending this year's Sinhala and Hindu New Year in rural Anuradhapura. My mind goes back to the New Year celebrations spent in my village years ago. The joyous Sinhala New Year season in those by-gone days was a `village family affair' during which the villagers as one family unitedly busied themselves in preparation for the celebrations several weeks ahead. With the arrival of the Koel bird and the blooming of Erabadu flowers in village gardens, the Maha harvesting begins. New rice is kept aside for the "Aluth Sahal Mangalyaya" in the temple while a portion of it is stored in the Wee Bissa at village homes for the Avurudhu Kiribath.
Village farmers also prepare their fields for the next paddy planting season during this month. New clay pots make their appearance at little Kade's in the village as it was customary for villagers to use new earthenware for cooking meals in the new year. The inviting aroma of Kavum, Kokis, Athirasa which women start preparing well in advance for celebrations and the smell of burning cadju for a tasty meal wafts in the breeze. Seasoned plantain bunches are placed in three feet long trenches cut in the garden where fire smoke from an adjoining pit is fanned in to ripen the plantains in time for the New Year day. An "Onchilla" is tied in one of the huge trees in the garden for the children and young lasses in colourful redda-hatte to enjoy themselves swinging high and swinging low to the accompaniment of "Onchili Waram". Another important feature in village homes was the preparation of a new hearth for the New Year. Fresh cow-dung mixed with water into a paste is spread around the hearth and sometimes on mud-floors in their houses. As new year approaches in most of the village homes the mortar and the pestle is put to good use in pounding rice for the preparation of sweet-meats. New Year celebrations in the village was not complete without raban playing by small groups of women seated round the large rabana. They first heat the rabana over a fireplace prepared in the garden before playing it while singing "raban sural". Among other activities that are not even heard of today is the `Thirikkala Race' undertaken by young men. The Pancha Keliya and the Olinda Keliya have also disappeared from village celebrations. Village women in the golden days performed "ganu-denu" with the well in the garden after which the first pot of water taken from it was preserved in the home until "ganu-denu" in the next Sinhala New Year. Religious observances and reuniting with each other forgetting old differences was also a prominent feature during the Sinhala New Year celebrations. Whatever remains of these traditional features could, I presume, be seen only in the most remotest of villages interior. Bak Maha (April) season in the village was a season of plenty in the truest sense of that word. Trees laden with fruit, flowers in full bloom, birds busy building nests - the whole area awakens for spring. As carefree children how happily we played on the fields and valleys and ran amongst trees to pick Kadju Poolang - that luscious fruit the Cashew tree yields is now only a memory. Most of the traditional features of the Sinhala New Year are not observed today as I witnessed this year. Prominent among them is the Raban playing and villagers getting together as one village family is no more. Regrettably the Sinhala New Year is fast becoming a `stage-play' mooted by the electronic media, with tiring long drawn-out commentaries as has been proved by the fast developing modern technology. In addition an important feature in traditional Sinhala New Year celebrations - the oil anointing ceremony with its underlying deep meaning of wishing good health and long life to human beings and performed at auspicious times, is now applied on `elephants'! How fast are our traditional values disappearing? |
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