When the crop is in, people celebrate.
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When the crop is in, people celebrate. Harvest festivals are among the oldest in the world, and nearly every farming society has one. They give thanks for food, share it among neighbours, bless the next sowing and let hard-working communities rest. The forms are very varied: a Thanksgiving turkey in North America, a Chuseok table of rice cakes in Korea, the Pongal pot boiling over in South India, a yam festival in West Africa, a Lammas loaf in England. What they have in common is gratitude and plenty. Many have been kept for thousands of years, and many are still the highlight of the village calendar.
For farming families the harvest is the moment when a year's work becomes food and income. A festival gives thanks to the sun, rain, earth, gods or ancestors that made it possible, and asks for the same next year. It is also a time of rest, reunion and generosity, when workers and landlords share a meal and the poor are fed. The festival marks the turn of the farming year, and often falls on a day fixed by the moon or the sun. Today it keeps a link between town and country for people who no longer farm.
The first fruits or first sheaf are often offered to the gods, a priest or the ancestors before anyone eats. Houses and places of worship are decorated with grain, fruit and flowers. A communal feast is common, with the best produce of the season. Songs, dances and games follow, and some places hold markets and competitions for the biggest vegetable. Many harvest customs involve the last sheaf, which is plaited into a figure and kept until spring. Rest from work, new clothes and visits to family are the other regular features.
Harvest food is whatever has just been gathered: new rice, new yam, maize, apples, wheat, grapes, pumpkins and nuts. The dishes are often the simplest, cooked in the open or in the first pot of the year. Festival dress ranges from the new clothes of Korea and India to the straw costumes of European harvest figures. Music is lively, with drums, pipes, fiddles and songs of the fields, and dances often mimic sowing, reaping or threshing. Many places have a harvest queen or king chosen from the young people.
Mechanised farming has made the harvest less of a communal effort, but the festivals remain, now often a celebration of local food and of the countryside. Churches, schools and towns hold harvest suppers and food drives, and many harvest festivals now collect for food banks. Urban dwellers travel home to the village for the festival, as in the big migrations before Chuseok and Pongal. Tourism has made some festivals famous, and organisers work to keep them true to their meaning, with locals still at the centre of the day.
Pongal in Tamil Nadu, Makar Sankranti in the north, Bihu in Assam and Lohri in Punjab all mark the winter harvest in mid-January. At Pongal, new rice is boiled in milk until it overflows, and a cry of "Pongalo Pongal" is raised.
Read: PongalChuseok falls on the full moon of the eighth lunar month, and families return home to honour ancestors, eat songpyeon rice cakes and share the first rice of the year. It is one of the largest travel periods in the country.
Read: ChuseokThe Mid-Autumn Festival is the harvest moon festival, when families gather to admire the full moon and share mooncakes. Lanterns are lit, and stories of the moon goddess Chang'e are told.
Read: Mid-Autumn FestivalTet Trung Thu is a children's festival with lanterns, lion dances and mooncakes at the autumn moon. Rice farmers also hold offerings after the harvest in many northern villages.
Read: Mid-Autumn FestivalRice goddess Dewi Sri is honoured at harvest on Java and Bali, with offerings of the first sheaves, and the seren taun in Sundanese villages brings processions, dancing and rice pounding. The festival is a way of thanking the goddess for the harvest, and the first rice is shared among all the families of the village.
Dewi Sri, being writtenRtveli is the grape harvest in autumn, when families and friends pick grapes, press them in clay qvevri and feast. The wine makers' tradition is on UNESCO's list.
Read: Rtveli
ThanksgivingThe American harvest feast.
ChuseokThe Korean autumn harvest festival.
PongalThe Tamil harvest festival.
Mid-Autumn FestivalThe harvest moon festival.
SukkotThe Jewish harvest festival.
New Yam FestivalWest African first fruits.
Harvest festivalThe German harvest thanksgiving.Harvest festivalThe British church tradition.The harvest moon gave extra light for gathering crops in the evening, and many calendars are based on the moon. Chuseok and the Mid-Autumn Festival both follow it.
No. In the tropics there are several harvests a year, and Pongal and Makar Sankranti come in January. The festival follows the main crop of each region.
It is a gesture of thanks to the gods, spirits or ancestors, and a way of saying that the harvest is a gift. Many cultures forbid eating the new crop before the rite.
A communal meal held after the harvest, often in a village hall or church, where the community shares the produce and the work is acknowledged.
Many do, by travelling to the village for the festival, by cooking the festival dish at home or by attending a market or church service in town.
Written by the EveryParampara desk with AI assistance. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.
The traditions written up so far, best known first.
🇮🇱 Jerusalem, IsraelSukkotסוכות
A seven-day autumn Jewish festival of temporary booths, harvest prayers and hospitalitySpiritual
🇩🇿 Algeria and 3 moreBerber calendarⵜⴰⵙⵡⴰⵙⵜ ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ (taswast tamaziɣt)
An agricultural timekeeping system used by the Amazigh people of North Africa to mark seasons and farming cycles.Seasonal · Dinner
🇮🇩 IndonesiaPasola
A ritual horseback spear contest in western Sumba marking the rice-planting seasonGame
🇪🇪 EstoniaJaanipäev
Estonia's midsummer night of bonfires, song and fortune-telling, on 23 and 24 JuneFestival
🇮🇳 Thrissur, IndiaPulikaliപുലിക്കളി
Painted tigers and leopards dance through Thrissur on the fourth day of OnamPerformance
🇯🇵 Kishiwada, JapanKishiwada Danjiri Matsuri岸和田だんじり祭
A high-speed festival of wooden shrine floats pulled through Kishiwada, JapanFestival
🇨🇱 ChileNgillatun
A communal Mapuche rite of prayer, sacrifice and dance to maintain cosmic balanceSpiritual
🇵🇪 Cusco, Peru and 4 moreIntiinti (Quechua)
The Inca sun deity, honoured with temples, offerings and the June festival Inti RaymiSpiritual
🇯🇵 JapanKadomatsu門松
A Japanese New Year gateway decoration of pine and bamboo where a visiting deity can restSeasonal
🇮🇳 Jammu, IndiaBhangra
A Punjabi harvest dance, first kept by farmers and now performed worldwidePerformance
🇮🇱 Jerusalem, IsraelShavuotשבועות
A late-spring Jewish festival of the wheat harvest and the giving of the TorahSpiritual · Feasts and festival meals
🇨🇳 China and 5 moreMid-Autumn Festival中秋節
An annual harvest festival celebrating family reunions, full moons and mooncakesFestival · Sweets given and shared
🇷🇺 Russia and 2 moreMaslenitsaМасленица
A seven-day Eastern Slavic festival of pancakes and bonfires marking the end of winter before Lent.Festival · Breakfast
🇩🇪 Germany and 12 moreSt. Martin's DayMartinstag
A November feast of lantern walks, bonfires, roast goose and new wineSpiritual
🇺🇸 Chicago, United States and 4 moreKwanzaa
A seven-day African American celebration of heritage, family and community valuesFestival · Feasts and festival meals
🇮🇳 India and 5 morePongal
Three or four days of boiling rice, garlanded cattle and thanks to the sunSeasonal · Sweets given and shared
🇯🇵 Tokyo, Japan and 2 moreTanabataたなばた
A Japanese summer star festival of written wishes hung on leafy bamboo.Festival
🇮🇳 India and 6 moreMakar Sankrantiमकरसङ्क्रान्ति
The Sun's northward turn, kept on 14 January with kites, fairs and river bathsSpiritual
🇨🇳 China and 7 moreGhost Festival中元節 / 中元节 (Zhōngyuán jié)
A full-moon night in the seventh lunar month for feeding ghosts and guiding souls homeSpiritual
🇧🇹 Bhutan and 4 moreLosarལོ་གསར་
The Tibetan Buddhist New Year festival of renewal, offerings, and family feastsSeasonal · Feasts and festival meals
🇮🇳 India and 1 moreUgadiఉగాది
A South Indian New Year feast celebrating life with sweet, sour, and bitter tastesSeasonal
🇮🇷 Isfahan, Iran and 4 moreMehreganمهرگان
An Iranian autumn festival honoring Mithra, friendship, and the harvestSeasonal
🇮🇳 India and 1 moreLohri
A northern Indian midwinter festival of evening bonfires, folk songs and harvest foodsSeasonal
🇰🇷 South Korea and 1 moreGanggangsullae강강술래
A Korean harvest dance where women hold hands and sing in circles under the full moonPerformance
🇮🇳 Gaya, India and 1 moreShraddhaश्राद्ध
Rituals of faith for the ancestors, kept yearly and through Pitru PakshaSpiritual
🇪🇬 Luxor, EgyptOpet Festivalḥb nfr n jpt
An ancient Egyptian festival in Thebes celebrating divine kingship and the Nile floodSpiritual
🇺🇸 Washington, United StatesThanksgiving
An annual American holiday of gratitude, family gatherings and an autumn harvest feastFestival · Dinner
🇯🇵 JapanHadaka Matsuri裸祭り
Japanese festivals where participants clad in loincloths seek luck and purificationSpiritual
🇦🇲 Armenia and 2 moreVardavarՎարդավառ
An Armenian midsummer festival where people playfully douse each other with waterFestival
🇮🇳 IndiaVishuവിഷു
The Malayali new year, kept on 14 or 15 April with an auspicious first sightingSeasonal · Feasts and festival meals
🇰🇭 Cambodia and 4 moreRoyal Ploughing Ceremonyព្រះរាជពិធីបុណ្យច្រត់ព្រះនង្គ័ល
A royal agricultural rite opening the rice season across mainland Southeast AsiaCeremony
🇨🇴 Pasto, ColombiaBlacks and Whites' CarnivalCarnaval de Negros y Blancos
A week of street games, parades and music held every January in Pasto, ColombiaFestival
🇮🇳 India and 2 moreSharad Purnima
A Hindu autumn full moon festival of night vigils, moonlit sweets and sacred dancesSpiritual · Feasts and festival meals
🇰🇷 South Korea and 1 moreDaeboreum대보름
A Korean festival of the first lunar full moon, marked by fires, wishes and feastsSeasonal · Feasts and festival meals
🇺🇦 Ukraine and 1 moreDidukhдідух
A wheat sheaf kept at Christmas to honour ancestors and pray for a bountiful harvestHome
🇮🇳 Jaipur, IndiaGangaurगणगौर
A North Indian spring festival honouring Shiva and Gauri with clay idols and processionsFestival · Fasting and breaking the fast
🇰🇭 Siem Reap, CambodiaCambodian New Yearបុណ្យចូលឆ្នាំថ្មី ប្រពៃណីជាតិ
A three-day harvest festival marking the traditional solar new year across CambodiaSeasonal
🇵🇪 Cusco, PeruQoyllur Rit'iQuyllurit'i
An Andean mountain pilgrimage uniting indigenous star lore and Catholic devotionSpiritual
🇮🇳 India and 2 moreSohrai
A harvest and cattle observance kept by indigenous communities in eastern IndiaSeasonal · Feasts and festival meals
🇮🇳 India and 1 moreNaraka Chaturdashi
The dawn festival of oil baths, ancestor lamps, and harvest foods during DiwaliFestival · Breakfast
🇲🇾 Penampang, MalaysiaKaamatanTadau Kaamatan
An annual May harvest celebration of thanksgiving and community across Sabah, MalaysiaSeasonal
🇬🇭 Accra, GhanaHomowo
A harvest festival of the Ga people in Ghana to remember surviving famineFestival · Feasts and festival meals
🇩🇿 Algeria and 4 moreYennayerⵢⵏⵏⴰⵢⵔ
The Amazigh New Year celebrated across North Africa with feasts and blessing ritesSeasonal · Dinner
🇮🇳 India and 1 moreCheti Chandچيٽي چنڊ
The Sindhi New Year festival celebrating the arrival of spring and JhulelalSeasonal · Feasts and festival meals
🇨🇦 CanadaThanksgivingAction de grâce
An annual Canadian autumn holiday celebrating the harvest with family feastsFestival · Dinner
🇮🇳 Guwahati, IndiaBohag Bihu
A multi-day Assamese New Year festival of cattle rites, music, gifts and feastsSeasonal · Feasts and festival meals
🇪🇬 Cairo, EgyptSham Ennessimشم النسيم
An Egyptian spring festival of picnics, salted fish, green onions and painted eggsSeasonal
🇮🇳 Sambalpur, IndiaNuakhai
An agricultural festival in Western Odisha welcoming the first rice of the seasonSeasonal · Feasts and festival meals
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
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