Seasonal Festivals of the World

Human beings have always watched the sky. Long before the first calendar was written down, small communities tracked the lengthening and shortening of the days, the slow return of the rains, the moment when the first green shoot pushed through the soil, and the moment when the last sheaf was carried from the field. Out of that watching grew the great cycle of seasonal festivals, a worldwide pattern of feasts, fasts, fires, and processions that marks the turning of the year.

This section explores that pattern in detail. It begins with the older European fire festivals of the Celtic year — Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane, and Lughnasadh — and the solstice fires of Midsummer and Yule. It then follows the Christian overlay that converted the older festivals into the feasts of All Saints’, Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun. It turns to the Jewish calendar of Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot, and Passover; to the Islamic cycle of Ramadan, Eid al-Fitr, and Eid al-Adha; to the Hindu festivals of Diwali, Holi, and Navaratri; to the Buddhist celebrations of Vesak and Loy Krathong; to the Chinese and Japanese lunar years; to the Mesoamerican cycle of the Aztec; and to the harvest festivals of West Africa and the African-American diaspora.

The Celtic Year

The Celtic year, as preserved in the medieval Irish and Welsh texts and in the modern folk calendars of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany, was divided by four great fire-festivals. Samhain (1 November) marked the death of the old year and the opening of the door to the Otherworld. Imbolc (1 February) marked the first stirring of spring, the day of the goddess Brigid, the milking of the ewes. Beltane (1 May) marked the flowering of summer, the driving of the cattle between two fires, the marriage of the May Queen and the Green Man. Lughnasadh (1 August) marked the ripening of the harvest, the games of the god Lugh in honour of his foster-mother.

Two of these festivals are treated in their own deeper articles: Samhain and the Midsummer tradition that, in its Celtic form, sits closest to Beltane. The Celtic year is also discussed in the wider European folklore tradition and in the Celtic section.

The Solstice Fires: Midsummer and Yule

The two great solar turning points of the year — the summer solstice around 21 June and the winter solstice around 21 December — are marked, in some form, by almost every traditional culture of Europe. The Midsummer article treats the subject in detail: the Swedish Midsommar, the Norwegian Sankthansaften, the Finnish Juhannus, the Danish Sankt Hans, the Estonian Jaanipäev, the Latvian Jāņi, the Lithuanian Joninės, the Russian Kupala Night, the Polish Noc Kupały, and the German Mittsommer.

The winter equivalent, Yule, was the great festival of the Norse year. The jólablót, or Yule sacrifice, was led by the king or the chieftain, and the jólanótt, or Yule night, was a time when the Norse Skalds composed and recited their praise-poems, when the wild hunt rode through the sky, and when the dead were thought to walk. Many of these older Norse customs survived in folk practice long after Christianisation, and they are still partly visible in the modern Scandinavian Christmas.

The Christian Overlay

Christianity did not, in most cases, abolish the older festivals. It re-imagined them. The feast of All Saints’ on 1 November was deliberately placed on top of the older Samhain; the feast of All Souls’ on 2 November gathered in the older practice of feeding the dead. Christmas on 25 December was placed at the winter solstice, when the older Yule was already being celebrated, and absorbed many of the older motifs: the Yule log, the Yule boar, the holly and the ivy, the carol-singers at the door. Easter, the Christian Passover, drew on the older Jewish festival of the same name and, in the northern countries, on the older spring rites of the Slavic and Germanic peoples. Whitsun, the Christian Pentecost, was placed in late May, near the older Beltane.

The result, as the dedicated articles on Samhain and Midsummer show, is a layered calendar in which the Christian, the older pagan, and the older agricultural festivals coexist in a single feast.

The Jewish Calendar

The Jewish liturgical year is a calendar of seasonal and historical festivals woven together. Rosh Hashanah in early autumn marks the creation of the world and the beginning of the Ten Days of Awe. Yom Kippur ten days later marks the close of the period with fasting and prayer. Sukkot, the feast of booths, is the older harvest festival of the autumn, in which the faithful dwell in temporary shelters to remember the wandering in the desert. Hanukkah in December is the later, post-biblical feast of lights. Purim in late winter commemorates the saving of the Persian Jews. Passover in spring is the older spring festival of the barley harvest, recast around the story of the Exodus. Shavuot in late spring is the older first-fruits festival, recast around the giving of the Torah at Sinai.

The relationship between the older agricultural festivals and the later historical festivals is one of the topics of the Bar Mitzvah article, which traces the connection between the Bar Mitzvah ceremony and the older Jewish seasonal calendar.

The Islamic Calendar

The Islamic calendar is lunar, and its festivals migrate through the solar year. Ramadan, the month of fasting, ends with Eid al-Fitr, the feast of the breaking of the fast. Eid al-Adha, the feast of the sacrifice, falls about seventy days later, in commemoration of the willingness of Ibrahim to sacrifice his son. The Mawlid, the birthday of the Prophet, is observed in many Muslim countries with processions, sweets, and recitation of the mawlid poem. The Mawlid of the saints, observed in Morocco, Egypt, Senegal, and elsewhere, blends the older pre-Islamic veneration of local holy men with the Islamic framework.

In West Africa in particular, the older harvest festivals and the newer Islamic festivals have been woven together in striking ways. The Griots of Mande recite the praise-names of the Prophet at the Mawlid and also perform at the older agricultural celebrations of the villages. The West African folk tradition is, in this sense, a meeting ground of the older and the newer calendars.

The Hindu Calendar

The Hindu calendar divides the year into six ritus, or seasons, and marks each with a great festival. Makar Sankranti in January marks the sun’s entry into the sign of Capricorn. Holi in March marks the victory of spring over winter, the burning of the old year, and the throwing of coloured powder. Navaratri in autumn is the nine-night festival of the goddess, ending in Dussehra, the victory of Rama over Ravana. Diwali, the festival of lights, in late autumn, marks the return of Rama to Ayodhya and the veneration of the goddess Lakshmi. The Kumbh Mela, the great pilgrimage that gathers every twelve years, is the most elaborate single festival in the Hindu world.

These festivals, in their many regional forms, are a central part of the Asian folk tradition and of the wider Indian and South Asian calendar.

The Buddhist Calendar

The Buddhist calendar varies by country, but it is built around the same set of great moments. Vesak, in May, is the triple festival of the birth, the enlightenment, and the death of the Buddha. Asalha Puja in July marks the Buddha’s first sermon. Loy Krathong in November, in Thailand, is the festival of the floating lanterns, with roots in older Indian and Mon harvest rites. Songkran in April, the Thai New Year, is a water-throwing festival with older Brahmanic roots. Obon in Japan, in August, is the festival of the dead, with marked similarities to the Mexican Day of the Dead and to the older European Samhain.

The Chinese and Japanese Lunar Years

The Chinese New Year, in late January or February, is the great festival of the lunar year, marked by the red banners, the dragon dances, the lai see red envelopes, the reunion dinner, and the giving of the nian gao rice cake. The Lantern Festival, fifteen days later, closes the season with the lighting of paper lanterns. The Mid-Autumn Festival, in September or October, is the festival of the moon, the mooncakes, and the gathering of the family.

The Japanese Matsuri are the great local festivals of the Shinto calendar, marked by the carrying of the mikoshi portable shrine, the dancing in the streets, the eating of festival food from the stalls, and the lighting of the great paper lanterns. The Gion Matsuri in Kyoto, the Kanda Matsuri in Tokyo, and the Tenjin Matsuri in Osaka are among the most famous.

The Mesoamerican Cycle

The Aztec, Maya, and Zapotec peoples of Mesoamerica had an elaborate calendar of seasonal festivals, in which the 260-day ritual calendar and the 365-day solar calendar were run in parallel. The festival of the dead, observed in the ninth month of the solar calendar, is the ancestor of the modern Mexican Day of the Dead, which is treated in the wider Latin American folk tradition. The Mesoamerican cycle also includes the great maize-planting and maize-harvest rites, the rain-calling ceremonies, the festival of the returning souls, and the elaborate Aztec month of the Miccailhuitontli, the “feast of the little dead.”

The Christian overlay in Mexico, Guatemala, and highland Peru placed All Saints’ and All Souls’ on top of the older dead-festival, in a pattern strikingly parallel to the Celtic Samhain becoming All Saints’ in Britain and Ireland.

The West African and African-American Harvest Festivals

In West Africa, the harvest festivals are built around the great staples: yam, millet, rice, and maize. The New Yam Festival of the Igbo, the Eid al-Kabir of the Muslim Sahel, the Festima of the Bamana, and the Kamablon of the Susu are all harvest rites. The Griot performs at many of them, reciting the genealogies of the lineage, the deeds of the ancestors, and the praises of the chief.

In the African-American diaspora, the harvest festivals were preserved in forms such as Kwanzaa, Juneteenth, the Pinkster festival of the Hudson Valley, and the ring shout of the Sea Islands. The older West African call-and-response pattern is still audible in the gospel music of the African-American church and in the chants of the New Orleans second line.

The Recurring Pattern

When these festivals are placed side by side, a recurring pattern is visible. The year is, in the folk imagination, a life. It is born in spring, courts in summer, ripens in autumn, and dies in winter. The festivals mark the hinges of that life. At the death of the year, the boundary between the living and the dead is thought to grow thin: the door to the otherworld opens, the souls return, the divinations are true. The great bonfires of Midsummer and the great bonfires of Samhain are two halves of the same ritual — the human need to stand, at the turning of the year, beside a fire in the dark.

The dedicated articles that follow open this pattern in two directions: backwards, into the older Celtic and European sources; and outwards, into the Midsummer fires of the north.