[Curiosities] Yennayer: Morocco Celebrates the Amazigh New Year

[BirSaNN]

The new year is often celebrated with festive meals and parades.

Rabat - Amazigh people in Morocco and across North Africa will celebrate the Amazigh new year, Yennayer, on January 12.

This year will mark the 2973rd year in the Amazigh calendar, and as always will be celebrated by the Amazigh people with parades and festive meals.

The word “Yennayer” is believed to be a combination of the words “Yenn” (One) and “Ayur” (month) in Amazigh. The celebration took on a formal status in the 60s when the Paris-based Academie Berbere started counting the Amazigh years from 950 BC.

Like many other celebrations, the Yennayer festivities are based around family gatherings, with most families getting up early in the morning to get ready by preparing a range of traditional dishes and wearing traditional clothes.

They prepare Couscous, with some hiding a seed of dates or almond piece with the promise of entrusting whoever finds it with the keys to the family’s food storage room.

Other dishes common in the celebrations are “tagola,” a combination of corn, butter, ghee, Argan oil, and honey, as well as “irkmen,” a thick soup made from fava beans and wheat.

Music, dancing, and parades are also center-stage to the festivities. The songs express love, prosperity, and fertility. The year’s beginning coincides with the flowering of almond trees, making it a good occasion to hope for agricultural prosperity.

In rural areas, people also seek to put an emphasis on socializing, trying to resolve outstanding misunderstandings and exchanging food between neighbors.

Despite the importance of the occasion, and the big role that Amazigh people and culture play in Morocco, Yennayer is not recognized as an official holiday by the country.

As the festivities draw near, Amazigh activists continue to draw attention to their cause and demand more attention from the government, although the process of integrating the Amazigh language and festivities seems to still be slow.

Some in the past have gone as far as to question the holiday’s validity, calling it “a french invention.”  Amazigh activist Abdelwahed Dirouche responded to this criticism in a 2018 interview with Morocco World News.

“You cannot just say it’s a French invention,” he said, adding that the holiday is not only important to the Amazigh people, but to Moroccans in general.

“Yennayer promotes religious and cultural pluralism in a world today plagued by terrorism and extremism,” he stressed. “Yennayer is not a holiday with religious rituals, but one that celebrates the natural wonders of children and the environment.”

The current Moroccan government, led by Aziz Akhannouch, vowed in 2021 to prioritize the officialization of the Amazigh language,in line with the goals set by the country's 2011 constitution.

Morocco’s Ministry of Digital Transition signed an agreement with the Ministry of Youth and Culture on Tuesday to support and promote Amazigh culture and festivities in the country.

However, reports such as the latest one from the National Federation of Amazigh Associations (FNAA) maintain that the process still faces a lot of difficulties, especially in education and institutional integration.

link: https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2023/01/353466/yennayer-morocco-celebrates-the-amazigh-new-year