Nowruz Festival
7 min readThe “Nowruz festival”originally is farsi and means “new day “and new year marking the start of the New Year and the spring return the Nowruz Festivalis held on January 1 according to the Iran calendar (equivalent to March 21 according to the gregorian calendar or the vernal equinox according to the Chinese lunar calendar), and is the festival of the spring in real sense of the Solar terms. the nowruz festival lasts for about 3 days to 15 days so the March is also called as a nowruz month.
The Nowruz Festival is an ancient festival popular in vast areas such as the Central Asia, the West Asia, the Caucasus and the Balkan, and it has a history of over 3,000 years. When ancient nomadic ethnic groups were survived through the cold winter and ushered into the season featured by that the ice molten, the grass and trees resume growth, the earth recovers and the livestock breeds, the herdsmen joyfully celebrated the coming of the springand were ready to start grazing on the grassland, so the festival came intobeing. There are more than 30 ethnic groups celebrating the Nowruz Festival at the same time around the world in 2009 the United nations educational Scientific and cultural Organization enlisted the nowruz festival into the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. In 2010, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution to name March 21 according to the Gregorian calendar as the International Nowruz Festival”, and designated this day as the”World Peace Cultural Day”. In current, there are at least 15 countries all over the world regarding the “nowruz as the national festival Iran and Afghanistan also regard the”Nowruz”as the start of the New Year.
On this day, there are over 300 million people around the world celebrating the nowruz Festival in various ways ban Ki-moon the secretary general of the United Nations, has started to send festival greetings to the people celebrating the festival all over the world on the march 21 every year since 2010. He said in the nowruz festival speech of 2013, on the occasion of the international Nowruz Festival, i sincerely wish the celebrating people and hope that all the people can take this opportunity to recapture the beauty of the nature, the hope brought to us by the spring and the function of the culture in building peace.
The Nowruz Festival is a day for relatives and friends to be happy together, a day for taking dinner together happily and a day for singing and dancing. In China, the ethnic groups, such as the Uygur, the Kazak, the khalkhas the Tajik, the uzbek and the tartar celebrate the nowruz festival on march 21 each year in various forms, such as the singing the dancing and traditional entertainments. In May 2010, the Nowruz Festival was enlisted into the State Level Intangible cultural heritage of folk Custom Items.
About the origin of the nowruz Festival, the Kazak ethnic grouphas one legend in folk. According to the legend, once upon a time, there were 3 Kazak brothers respectively named Adz, madz and nowruz. They lived a rich and happy life in individual pasture villages, but the heavy flooding in one spring rushed away all the livestock of the two big brothers. After the flooding, the two big brothers found that both nowruz and his livestock were lost. Over the years, Nowruz had not been home the two big brothers were deeply grieved and thought that their little brother was dead, so they held sevenday worship, forty-day worship and annual worship. Later on, they worshiped the spirit of the dead brother. Many years passed, Nowruz and his livestock came back in the spring Nowruz together with his livestock escaped from the danger and went to a faraway place with abundant water and grass when the floods came that year. Nowruz also carried his two big brothers to that place, and they’ ed the peaceful and happy life in that place. Because the day he came back was the Vernal Equinox Day, so they named the Vernal Equinox Day as the Nowruz in order to thank nowruz. since then the nowruz has been gradually evolved into the festival symbolizing the good luck, happiness and peace of the Kazak ethnic group.
About the birth of the Nowruz Festival, there is also one legend spread in the Kirgiz ethnic group Long time ago, the Kirgiz people lived the good life on the vast and lush prairie. One day, Kalmak people under the command of two leaders looted the Kirgiz village and arrogantly boasted, If you don’t surrender, we will release two dragons to eat up all the Kirgiz people on the grassland! “Confronting the unexpected ferocious attackers, the herdsmen didn’t know what to do for a moment at this time, one elder called nowruz came out boldly to lead the Kirgiz people to tremendously fight against the Kalmak invaders The Kalmak relied on their large population and strong horses to forcibly occupy the grassland on which the Kirgiz people lived for generations and the Kirgiz people were forced into the deep mountain Nowruz didn’t reconcile to the failure and he actively allied the tribes such as the Kazak and the tartar to establish a vast and mighty joint army to resistagainst the Kalmak invaders Nowruz led soldiers to collect a poisonous thorn herb named Adirasman in the deep Pamir Mountain. And then, they put up a pot to boil the poisonous herb with water, and took poisonous solution toknead dough to prepare oil crusty pancakes. On March 21, they sent the oi crusty pancakes to the Kalmak people. the Kirgiz people ignited piles of campfires on the mountain top to calmly observe the movement at the foot of the mountain. The hungry and thirsty Kalmak people who had eaten the poisonous oil crusty pancakes fell onto the ground in succession just like cut wheat straws. The Kirgiz people were like the breached floods to rush down from the mountain top to kill the Kalmak invaders completely. The grassland restored to its regular serenity, and the kirgiz people lived the happy, stable and peaceful life again. Later on, people ignite piles of the campfires to celebrate on march 21 in order to commemorate the hero nowruz and the victory day of resisting against the Kalmak invaders.
The nowruz Festival is the Uygur’s festival of ringing out the old Year andringing in the New Year and hoping that the spring could bring the luck and happiness. A Nowruz Festival song fully expresses the content in this aspect:
The Nowruz Festival is coming; the commodity price is low ered.
The spring rain is arriving; ears of the wheat have full grain
The poor is alive,
Each family is full of joy
The hen hatched chickens today,
The arrival of the Nowruz Festival dispels the mournfulness
The ladies get together happily,
The girls and the boys are incomparably happy
They cock their hats and wear fresh flowers on ears, The song ripples and everywhere is full of laughter
During the festival, every family of Uygur, Kazak, Kirgiz and so on eats Nowruz meal”formed by mixing 7 kinds of food such as mutton, crystallizedilk millet wheat and rice, so as to wish abundant food in the new year On the holiday the Kazak people dressed in the festival clothes gather in crowds and groups to walk from one pasture village to another, visit from door to door eat Nowruz porridge, sing “Nowruz song embrace with each other celebrate the New Year and wish good weather for the crops, fat cattle and sheep and prosperous population in the New Year. On this day, each family also gives the sheep head to the elderly. the elderly chants Bata(blessings)
when he accepts the sheep head wishing the safety of the families, a number of livestock and abundant milk and food. In the evening, the guys and the girls n the pasture village gather together and ignite the bonfire to sing and dance as well as play musical instruments, enjoying themselves thoroughly throughout the night. At dawn, they bow to the rising sun and splash animal milk around, and then come back home respectively. For the Kirgiz people, each family ignites the bonfire by achnatherum splendens in front of the yurt when the animals come back from the pasture. Both the human and the animals jump across the bonfire to get rid of the bad luck, illness and disaster of the past year and welcome the safety, happiness and harvest of the next year. For the Uygur people during the Nowruz Festival, a person dresses up as a winter elder, and then takes off cotton-padded clothes and wears unlined clothes after the performance so as to welcome the arrival of the spring. The close relatives and friends gather together to wish the harvest. The Uygur people start the spring plowing and sowing after the festival. the tajik peoplecall the Nowruz Festival as”Shogon Bahar Festival”. On the eve of the festival, a ch family does some cleaning and draws fixed patterns on the wall as well as sprinkles flour onto the wall for blessing, and they also bake a big naan for celebrating the festival. On the festival, people follow a publically recommended”Shogon”(leader) to visit each family, and the ladies of each family sprinkles some flour on the left shoulder of the visitors to show good ck. During the festival, the tajik people also hold various traditional cultura d recreational activities.
