A second New Year's celebration for North Africa

11/01/2006

No sooner had the lanterns to welcome the universal New Year gone out that certain regions of the Maghreb began to prepare for Amazigh New Year on 12 January. In Morocco and Algeria in particular, the event is celebrated with all the splendour of a tradition anchored in morality.

By Lyes Aflou for Magharebia in Algiers – 11/01/06

[File] The Yennayer meal is centered around family

On 12 January, the Amazigh people of North Africa will celebrate their own New Year for the 2,956th time. The festivities are strictly a family affair involving specific dishes. Couscous with chicken is the predominant dish, which embodies the whole symbolism of the event. Families buy male chickens, preferably corn-fed and cut their throats in an ancestral practice dating back centuries. According to researchers, 12 January corresponds to the end of armed conflict between the Imazighen and the Egyptian pharaohs.

The Imazighen then had their own ancient calendar based on the changing seasons, the various cycles of vegetation and the position of celestial bodies such as the moon and the sun. With the arrival of the Romans, the Julian calendar came to replace the native one, which could no longer keep up with the new seasons as a result of agricultural innovations. According to historians, 12 January on the Julian calendar (instituted in 45 BC by Emperor Julius Caesar) corresponds to 1 January on the present Gregorian calendar (instituted by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582).

Given how deep-rooted the celebration is among the people, Algerian authorities are quite close to legally recognising Amazigh New Year as a public holiday under pressure from cultural associations working to restore cultural identity. Such recognition is part of negotiations currently taking place between the Movement for Arouch People (Kabylian tribes) and the government. In the Kabylia region, schools and universities did not await the official decision to close for the day.

The celebration comes at the end of the season of seeding, with the event being celebrated to seek a blessing for a good harvest in the future. The rich, copious meal of several dishes brings together all members of the family on a day of optimism to wish that the New Year should be one of prosperity, opulence and abundance. On this occasion, everyone sits down around a large traditional couscous meal seasoned with olive oil and full of chicken pieces.

For some Amazigh, it is essential not to eat spicy or bitter food so those will not be the flavours for the year ahead. The Yennayer meal is most influenced by the crops grown in the region and a family's material means. However, the food served must symbolise richness, fertility and abundance. Examples of dishes include irecman (a corn and bean mash) and hearts of palm.