Corban Festival
5 min readJubilant and Grand Festivals
The characteristics of cultural and religious diversity of Xinjiang are also embodied on festivals. The ethnic minorities in Xinjiang have a variety of do with religious sacrifice and folk customs in the land Besides celebrating to festivals with a long history, the appearance of which usually has something New Year’s Day and National Day with compatriots all over the country, ople in Xinjiang have their peculiar festival celebration Religious Festivals.
Corban Festival
The Corban festival is a grand festival of islamic ethnic groups such as the Uygur, the Kazak, the Hui, the Kirgiz, the tajik, the Uzbek and the tartar. “Corban”is the transliteration of ara bic and means”Sacrifice”which is evolved from a religious legend in the ancient Arabia area, so the corban festival is also called “eid al-Adha “. the corban the id al-fitr and the maulid al-Nabi are the three major festivals of the Islam to pilgrimage in the early December of the islamic calendar each year, aneccaAccording to Islamic rules, Islams fulfill the religious work and go to Mecca celebrate on the last day(December 10) in a form of slaughtering sheep and coWs. The last day exactly is the 70 day after the ld al-Fitr. Slaughtering the estock for the sacrifice in the Corban festival is a custom of the arab people A long time ago according to the legend, the prophet mahdi ibrahim dreamed at one night that Allah ordered him to kill his own son Ismail for the sacrifice to Allah so as to show his faith to Allah mahdi ibrahim obeyed the order of Allah and took his son to the valley. While mahdi ibrahim was going to raise a knife to slash his beloved son allah dispatched an angel bringing a ram th angel said to Mahdi ibrahim that Allah had seen his faith and he could replace his son by the ram for the sacrifice.
According to the legend the arabs had the custom of slaughtering the livestock for the sacrifice every year. Since Mohammed established the islam the custom has been inherited and December 10 of the islamic calendar has been regarded as the corban festival which has become the grand festival celebrated together by all the islamic ethnic groups all around the word. There is a difference of about 11 days between the Islamic calendar and the current Gregorian calendar each year, so the gregorian calendar date of the Corban festival each year is not fixed According to the traditional customs, every family will clean and rebuild the houses and yard to be new and tailor or buy new dresses, especially the livestock as”Sacrifice”shall be bought in advance. Women should make fried dough twists, bake oily crusty pancakes, prepare various cookies and purchase various candies.
On the morning of the festival, men take a bath and wear clean clothes to take part in the prayer in masjids. The religious service on the morning of this day is the biggest religious service all the year round and all the adult men must take part in the prayer in the local masjids, which shows a spectacularscene. the most famous prayer is the big prayer in front of the Idgah mosque in Kashgar. After the prayer, musicians board the door top of the Idgah Mosque, beating iron drums and blowing Tajik clarinets; and then the men in the square in front of the mosque will dance the ebullient sama dance.
After the festival prayer, each family is headed by an elder in the family to the graveyards to pray for dead relatives According to the tradition, the morning after the prayer of the festival is the best time to carry out the cultural sacrifice for the pleasure of Allah, so the first thing for the men back home is slaughtering the sheep and cows. Duringthe festival, every family would slaughter a sheep if the economic situation allows. If the family owns sheep and cows, one of the sheep or cows will be determined early and fed alone with grass and feed. In the Tajik ethnic group, a lamb with black eyes and pure white wool is chosen from the lambs to feed alone the year before the festival. Before the slaughtering, people paint the eyes of the sheep beautifully and then carry the sheep to the roof to slaughter and coat the sheep blood onto children ‘s foreheads and cheeks to show goodluck. the Kazak people do not tie legs of the sheep when they slaughter the sheep. According to the legend, the sheep to be slaughtered is the one used for riding to go to the heaven, and if the legs are tied, people will be unable to go to the heaven Therefore, all the family members come to hold the sheep to keep it from moving when slaughtering the sheep On the morning of the first day of the festival, each family slaughters the livestock for the blood sacrifice The families are busy in stewing meat, filling dough lungs and rice intestines and carbonadoing sheep head the festival atmosphere is very rich according to the tradition, the meat of the slaughtered livestock cannot be sold, one part of which is given to the elderly, disabled, people without family and the poor, one part of which is used for entertaining guests paying a New Year call, and the last part of which is left to the hosts to enjoy themselves. Nowadays, with the social development, the old charity custom has faded away. But the hoststill take out large blocks of stewed mutton to entertain the guests when the guests come to pay a New Year call, personally cutting the mutton and passing to the quests golden fried dough twists on the table or a piece of tablecloth and placer nd During the festival, each family places a big plate of delicious mutton al various cookies and candies in small dishes around. people dressed in the best clothes and the best jewelries pay visit to each other, greet to each other and enthusiastically entertain the guests coming to wish the happy New Year People having misunderstandings and contradictions with each other at ordinary times visit each other to eliminate the misunderstandings and contradictions so the festival is full of the harmonious atmosphere On the first day of the festival, people firstly visit the relatives and neighbors who have encountered family sufferings such as funeral recently, and express condolences; and then they visit the elders of both the wife and the husband and lastly, they visit the neighbors and the elders. During the festival, parents should give festival money to children and hold various celebration activities People are immersed in the festival atmosphere of cheer, laughter, sing and dance, and are filled with joy.
Although the official holiday of the festival is three days, the folk New Year s activities are usually continued for ten days or half a month the folk New Year’s activities are an important presentation of reinforcing the social ties and strictly maintaining the courtesy which demands reciprocity.
