Celebration of Nauryz centuries ago
Nauryz is one of the ancient holidays on the earth. This special holiday for celebrating New Year of Iranian and Turkic peoples takes place on March 21st, the day of vernal equinox. On that day people celebrate a change from winter to spring. Some people believed the more generous the Nauryz will be celebrated the more successful will be the year, therefore this holiday had special traditions and rites. In my country, Kazakhstan, a few centuries ago the celebration of Nauryz was accompanied by various preparations and national traditions which some of them are still retained.
The preparation for Nauryz started from watching the sunrise and showing respect to nature. Adults and children picked up the shovels and met near stream to clean it. Once the stream was cleaned, planting the trees was the next essential part of rituals. After the ritual ceremonies three zhyrshy, Kazakh national singers, wearing brightly-colored national dresses went round the streets and squares and invited all people to celebrate Nauryz together.
During the celebration of Nauryz women cooked a lot of national food, which symbolized the prosperity and abundance. In the afternoon people cooked traditional food from bull meat. Since the bull was considered as the strongest animal, the food cooked with bull gave them strength and power. Also on Nauryz day the number seven was compulsory element for this holiday which personified seven days. Therefore people cooked Nauryz-kozhe,soup, which consisted of seven ingredients.
The celebration of Nauryz always consisted of mass games, traditional horse race and contests. The first and most significant game was wrestling between not only men but men and women. That competition was held only on condition that if man won he had a right to get married with her, however if woman won man had to fulfill her wishes. Second activity was singing songs, Nauryz-zhyr, which was created for celebrating this holiday since olden times. Next game for celebrating was competition in riddles and tongue twisters. The last part of celebration was performance of two akyns, poet-improvisers and in the end of the day people went around neighborhoods with lit torches, ending the holiday of vernal equinox.
Certainly, the modern way of celebrating Nauryz differs from celebrating of ancestors. Nowadays, this day became as a holiday of spring and unity between other peoples. However, ancient holiday Nauryz saved many traditions such as wearing national costumes, inviting people, singing songs, cooking Nauryz-kozhe which are still respectable in Kazakhstan.
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Kseniya Pak
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ReplyDeleteThe celebration of Nauryz in ancient time
Nauryz is one of the ancient holidays on the earth. This special holiday for celebrating New Year of Iranian and Turkic peoples takes place on March 21st, the day of vernal equinox. On that day people celebrate a change from winter to spring. Some people believed the more generous the Nauryz will be celebrated the more successful will be the year, therefore this holiday had special traditions and rites. In my country, Kazakhstan, a few centuries ago the celebration of Nauryz was accompanied by various preparations and national traditions which some of them are still retained.
The preparation for Nauryz started from watching the sunrise and showing respect to nature. Adults and children picked up the shovels and met near stream to clean it. Once the stream was cleaned, planting the trees was the next essential part of rituals. After the ritual ceremonies three zhyrshy, Kazakh national singers, wearing brightly-colored national dresses went round the streets and squares and invited all people to celebrate Nauryz together.
During the celebration of Nauryz women cooked a lot of national food, which symbolized the prosperity and abundance. In the afternoon people cooked traditional food from bull meat. At that time the bull was considered as the strongest animal, the food cooked with bull meat gave them strength and power. Since on Nauryz day the number 7 was compulsory element for this holiday which personified seven days, people cooked Nauryz-kozhe, which consisted of seven whole grains.
The celebration of Nauryz always consisted of mass games, traditional horse race and contests. The most famous was wrestling between not only men but men and women. That competition was held only on condition that if man won he had a right to get married with her, however if woman won man had to fulfill her wishes. Also people sang songs, Nauryz-zhyr, which was created for celebrating this holiday since olden times. Another game for celebrating was competition in riddles and tongue twisters. The day ended with performance of two akyns, poet-improviser. People went around neighborhoods with lit torches, ending the holiday of vernal equinox.
Certainly, the modern way of celebrating Nauryz differs from celebrating of ancestors. Nowadays, this day became as a holiday of spring and unity between other peoples. Ancient holiday Nauryz
however saved many traditions which are still respectable in Kazakhstan.