New Year: Festival of renewed traditions

Miran PERERA

Each country has a specific festival that it identifies with its indigenous culture, religion and way of life. Around these festivals are built those age long traditions or commonly termed as Sinhala Charithra or Tamil customs.

To Sri Lankans a Sinhala and Tamil new year is such a festival. Historically symbolic of an agricultural community, New Year is the celebration both of the harvest and of future expectation. In our country almost every month some festival or other is celebrated.

As Sri Lanka is a meeting place of four world religious Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and Islam, most of the festivals are associated with a religion. However, the most widely celebrated festival is the Sinhala and Tamil New Year which stimulates society, enlivens the nation and fosters national consciousness.

Nonagathe

The dawn of the New Year is calculated with astrological precision taking into account planetary influences. The ‘cukoo’ call of the ‘Koha’ during the harvesting time of Maha, the major rice crop of Sri Lanka reminds that the New Year is approaching.

These set out the traditional pattern of the New Year, the time when the New Year dawns and that the period before the New Year referred to as the Nonagathe when all activities cease and people spend their time in religious activities.

During this time the beautiful Erobodu flowers begin to bloom. The bounties of farmers begin to fill. Nature brings the message and people prepare for this annual festival celebrated all over the country. The New Year observances commence with the sun entering the asterism of Aries.

The rituals begin with the observance of ‘Nonagathe’, when people stop all work and go to temples for religious rituals. The preparation of a new hearth is done before hand and in villages where houses are mostly built with wattle and daub, cow dung is collected and mixed with water to a paste is applied on the hearth to make it new.

The time for lighting of the hearth is set out as it is new and that of partaking of the first meal. The Sinhala and Tamil New Year is essentially a period of the family when all angers are forgotten and reuniting with loved ones and mutual ties are strengthened.

It is also the time for the village as a community to get together and enjoy the New Year that has been ushered in. The lighting of the new hearth done at an auspicious time marks the beginning of festivities. The whole family then clad in new clothes in the lucky colour, eat together the first meal also at the auspicious time.

It is symbolic of a new beginning even as dousing the flames of the hearth and resting from the mundane activity of house work, expresses a period when the mind free from day to day tensions can meditate on the good.

Kiribath

It also symbolises the idea of forgetting all past angers and hatreds.

The mortar and the pestle is used to pound rice which is new and some are kept aside for the ‘Aluth Sahal Mangalya’ which takes place 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. Since the festival is closely aligned to an agricultural community nature reaches out to make this season unique.

It is customary for villagers to use new earthenware for cooking rice and kiribath in the new year.

These clay pots make their appearance at little ‘Kades’ in the village. Farmers also prepare their fields for the next paddy planting season during this month.

Bunches of plantains are at times artificially ripened if needed by smoke to eat with Kiribath - milk rice. Close to the date of the New Year the wind carries the aroma of the treacle-based sweets made specially for this season.

Also the inviting aroma of Kavum, Kokis, Athirasa, which women start preparing well in advance for celebrations and the smell of burning kadju for a tasty meal, wafts in the breeze.

Village women long ago during new year 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.

Today leading monetary institutions play a prominent role at Ganu-Denu during New Year. Bak Maha or April season in the village is a season of plenty in the truest sense of the word. Trees laden with fruit, flowers in bloom, birds busy building nests, significantly the Koha bird in yellow regal splendour awakens the whole village for spring.

Traditions

The children play on the fields and valleys picking Kadju Poolang a luscious fruit the cashew tree yields.

‘Onchillas’ are tied to huge trees in the garden for the children and young lases in colourful ‘redda-hatte’ to enjoy themselves swinging high and swinging low to the accompaniment of ‘Onchili waram’. Most girls dressed in such finery sing these songs wherein Sinhala literature they abound with such melodies.

During New Year celebrations in the village it was not complete without Raban playing by small groups of women seated round the large rabana.

As necessity demands the Rabana is placed over a fire and its skin heated to stretch tuning its beat. The women play the Rabana while singing Raban sural composed specially for the New year purposes.

The Erabadu trees give them much needed shade while its flowers are a feast to the eyes while in full bloom. In early times Raban playing was the only sound that greeted the New Year unlike today when crackers and fireworks herald in the New Year.

Among other activities that are not even heard of today are Thirikkala races undertaken by young men. The Pancha Keliya and the Olinda Keliya has been gradually forgotten. Yet some villages keep up these traditional activities.

Special games are part and parcel of the New Year festivities. Usually the whole community in the village and towns are involved in all these festivities while the Aurudu Kumaraya and Aurudu Kumari or Pancha Kalyani is crowed by popular choice. Games such as climbing the greasy pole.

Kotta Pora, (Pillow fighting) Cross country Marathon and cycling for men and women, riding the giant wheel made out entirely of wood are popular activities. Searching for the hidden guest has now become extremely popular. Most villages and towns now hold New Year festivals or Aluth Avurudu Uthsava. These mostly consist of sports and other recreational activities.

Yet prominence is given to religious activities as well where all visit the temple for devout observances, during ‘Nonagathe’ time. Earlier the New Year festival was celebrated mainly by the Buddhists and the Hindus in our country. Now Christians too participate in New Year celebrations and it has become almost a national festival.

Major Festival

The Sinhalese have celebrated New Year from time immemorial. Robert Knox writes that during his time New Year was a major festival of the Sinhalese and it was celebrated in March.

It could be that during the latter part of the Kandyan rule the Nayakkar Kings who gave Royal patronage to the New Year shifted the festival to April to fall in line with the Tamil New Year called ‘Pudu Varsham’. Several familiar characteristics of village Avurudu celebrations are fast receding sadly to history. During this festival in our homes traditional customs are strictly observed such as worshipping of elders.

Modern society has impinged on these customs and now in most homes many of these customs are not rigidly followed.

Regrettably the Sinhala New Year is fast becoming a stage play mooted by the electronic media with tiring long drawn out commentaries of New Year village festivals.

Auspicious times

The festivities end with the anointing of oil where at the auspicious hour an elder anoints the young with oil, invoking the blessing of the Gods.

There are also auspicious times set apart to go for work in the New Year and to watch the New Moon.

The oil anointing ceremony is an important feature with an underlying deep meaning of wishing good health and long life to human beings and performed at auspicious times. The Sinhala and Tamil New Year is essentially a period of the family when all angers are forgotten and family ties are strengthened.

It is also the time for the village as a community to get together and enjoy the New Year that has been ushered in. The customs and traditions of the New Year are important for it is part of our heritage as citizens of a nation.

We should try as much as possible to hand over these customs for the future generations to follow.