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.
🇮🇳 Ayodhya, India and 7 moreDiwaliदीपावली (Dīpāvalī)
A five-day festival of lights celebrated across India and its diaspora to mark the victory of light over darkness.Festival · 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
🇮🇳 India and 5 morePongal
Three or four days of boiling rice, garlanded cattle and thanks to the sunSeasonal · Sweets given and shared
🇮🇳 India and 2 moreSharad Purnima
A Hindu autumn full moon festival of night vigils, moonlit sweets and sacred dancesSpiritual · Feasts and festival meals
🇮🇳 Jaipur, IndiaGangaurगणगौर
A North Indian spring festival honouring Shiva and Gauri with clay idols and processionsFestival · Fasting and breaking the fast
🇮🇳 India and 1 moreLakshmi Pujaलक्ष्मीपूजा
A Hindu festival of lamps, prayers and offerings welcoming the goddess of prosperitySpiritual · Sweets given and shared
🇮🇳 India and 1 moreNaraka Chaturdashi
The dawn festival of oil baths, ancestor lamps, and harvest foods during DiwaliFestival · Breakfast
🇮🇳 Guwahati, IndiaBohag Bihu
A multi-day Assamese New Year festival of cattle rites, music, gifts and feastsSeasonal · Feasts and festival meals
🇮🇳 IndiaMagh Bihu
A harvest festival of bonfires, feasts and winter games in AssamSeasonal · Feasts and festival meals
🇻🇳 Hội An, VietnamTết Trung Thu節中秋
A mid-autumn festival of lanterns, mooncakes and folklore celebrated across VietnamFestival · Sweets given and shared
🇰🇷 South Korea and 1 moreChuseok추석
A Korean harvest festival of ancestral rites, seasonal rice cakes, and folk gamesFestival · Feasts and festival meals
🇮🇳 India and 5 moreNativity of Mary
A Christian feast day honouring the birth of Mary, the mother of JesusSpiritual · Lunch
🇨🇳 Suzhou, China and 4 moreDongzhi Festival冬至
A winter solstice festival of family reunions, ancestor rites and sweet rice ballsSeasonal · Dinner
🇮🇹 Rome, Italy and 7 moreSaint Joseph's Day
A 19 March feast honouring Jesus' earthly father, kept with altars and processionsSpiritual · Feasts and festival meals
🇲🇦 Morocco and 1 moreTweezaتويزة
A North African tradition of communal voluntary work, mutual aid and shared harvestsCeremony · Dinner
🇮🇳 Thiruvananthapuram, IndiaPongala
A harvest offering of sweet rice porridge prepared by millions of women in South IndiaFestival · Sweets given and shared
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
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