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by Rikaza Hassan

The New Year has dawned. The 2006th year of Our Lord (Anno Domini - A.D.) is here. It is commonly celebrated the world over with special food, new clothes and gifts. Families come together irrespective of race or religion to share meals and goodwill, counting down the hours, the minutes and the seconds to the New Year December 31st of the previous year.

Then again others of a less traditional attitude gather in large numbers at discotheques, hotels and other recreational places to dance the night away as they countdown to the first day of the next year and spend the early hours of the day partying their wiles and worries away. The more conservative perform religious hours as the clock ticks away to the next year.

Oldest holiday

The celebration of the New Year is probably one of the oldest of holidays. It was first celebrated by the Babylonians of ancient Mesopotamia around 4,000 years ago. Known as 'Akitu', it began with the sighting of the first new moon (or visible crescent) after the Vernal Equinox, or the first day of spring.

They celebrated the springtime rains, the renewal of nature and the community. The story of the creation was read out at the festival to remind people of the order of the universe and how it was created out of the struggle between the god Marduck and the goddess Tiamut, in the clash between heaven and chaos.

The celebrations lasted for eleven days. On the third day the king is humiliated in a ritual, his powers removed, hit in the face by a priest and sent out to pray for forgiveness for his sins. Three days later he reappears, his royal insignia restored and ceremonies to ensure the support of nature in the coming year performed.

The Romans continued to observe their new year in late March, decorating their house with lights and greenery, holding feasts and exchanging presents. They also presented their emperor and other politicians with gifts, wishing them good fortune for the year.

However the Roman calendar was so continuously tampered with by various emperors that it fell out of synchronisation with the sun. In 153 B.C. in an attempt to set the calendar right, the senate declared the first of January to be the first day of the New Year, yet tampering continued until Julius Ceaser in 46 B.C. established the Julian calendar. In order to synchronise the calendar with the sun, Ceaser had to let the previous year to last 445 days.

The Mayans of South America celebrated their new year in the month of July in the Gregorian calendar. Each year was dedicated to a different god with new idols made, temples reconstructed and painted in blue - the sacred colour.

The ancient Egyptians celebrated the New Year with the Festival of Opet at a time when the Nile flooded and hence people were unable to work. The Feast was held in honour of Amon, marking the god's annual journey down the Nile. The Pharoah, the then god Amon, his wife and son were led in a procession in a makeshift temple down the river whence they are presented with offerings of food and drink.

Most exciting

One of the most festive and exciting New Year celebrations are held in New York City in the United States of America. People gather at the Times Square where an enormous brightly coloured electric apple is lowered to the ground at the stroke of midnight and telecast all over the country.

People hold hands, blow paper blowers and whistles, kiss each other and those equipped with a vehicle nearby honk the horns. Americans also watch championship football matches at stadiums or in the comfort of their homes - a tradition descending from the festivities held in California for the ripening of the orange crop. Certain people still consume a dish of black-eyed peas and rice though many now prefer champagne and cake.

The ringing of church bells at midnight Stroke is a custom that is practised in both Australia and South Africa, where gunshots are also fired. Australians spend January 1 at outdoor activities such as rodeos, picnic races and surf carnivals.

The Africans dress in colourful costumes and dance in the streets to the sound of drums, creating a carnival atmosphere. In Russia, Santa Claus is replaced by Grandfather Frost whose looks though similar to Mr. Claus, wears blue instead of red and arrives on New Year's Eve with his bag of toys. He also has the power of instantly freezing an evil-doer.

Large decorated trees are the centrepieces of major cities. The official New Year party is held at the Kremlin where as many as 500,000 dance tickets are sold in the weeks before the event. Meat and potato dishes primarily form the Russian New Year meal.

England sees people crowd Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus and stand to hear the chimes of London's Big Ben announce the New Year's arrival. People stand around; arms linked, singing Auld Lang Syne, a custom that is practised in most English speaking countries. An old Scottish tune and partially written by Robert Burns in the 1700s, it literally means 'old long ago'.

Old England practised the custom of first-footing: the first person to enter the house must be male, young, healthy, dark-haired, good looking and carry a small piece of coal, money, bread and salt to bring good-luck to the inhabitants. The exchange of presents at Christmas was first done on New Year before being brought forward. In certain parts farmers would wake up at dawn to carry a hawthorn bush to the field and burn it in straw. Girls would also drop egg whites into water in the belief that it would spell out the first letter of the name of the man they would marry.

The Jour des/Etrennes (Day of New Year Presents) or the French New Year that adopted January 1 in 1582 sees family dinner parties, exchanging of presents and greeting cards. The Germans would drop molten lead into cold water to decipher their future from the shape they made.

The Greeks take their New Year seriously as January 1 is also St. Basil's Day, a founding father of the Greek Orthodox Church. Many special delicacies are prepared including Vassilopitta or St. Basil's cake which has a silver or gold coin placed in it. The first person across the threshold of the house is said to bring good luck to the family and is usually meant to be the father or the son.

In Romania some traditional families toss money into the water where they wash their hands in the hope that it would bring them money during the entirety of the new year. Peasants also foresee the future weather with the help of onions: they peel off the layers in the order of the months, put some salt on them and on St. Vasile's day, or January 1 predict rain or drought by means of the level of liquid salt left.

The Scots eat three cornered biscuits called Hogomanay on the eve of Hogmanay or the New Year. They also use juniper and water to clean their houses in a purification ritual. In certain villages, barrels of tar are set on fire and rolled through the streets to burn up the old year and let the new year in. In Austria midnight mass is attended and trumpets blown from church towers at midnight.

Fireworks are held in large cities and the Vienna Philharmonic performs an all Strauss opera. Dinner is a special affair as suckling pig is eaten, as a symbol of good luck. As the clock strikes midnight, the Spanish and the Portuguese eat a grape for every toll to bring good luck for the 12 months of the coming year. The Hungarians burn effigies known as 'Jack Straw' representing the misfortunes of the past year.

In Netherlands people burn Christmas trees in street bonfires to drive out the spirits of the old year. Belgium farmers wish their animals a Happy New Year, for blessings while in Denmark it is a good sign to find your door heaped with a pile of broken dishes. Old dishes are saved throughout the year to be thrown.

In Ano Viejo South America, the New Year is celebrated by making a dummy stuffed with old newspapers and firecrackers and lit up at midnight. In Puerto Rico children throw pails of water out of their windows at night to rid their homes of evil spirits, while in Bolivia families make beautiful straw dolls to hang outside their homes to bring them luck, while lentil soup or lentils and rice is served in Brazil to bring wealth in the New Year.

Family celebrations

The Japanese New Year Oshogatsu is viewed as an important time for family celebrations. A rope of straw is hung across the front of the house to keep evil spirits away and the Japanese begin to laugh at the dawn of the new year to bring themselves luck.

Temple bells usher in the new year and the joyano-kane or the 'night watch bell' is a series of 108 peals which frees the faithful from the 108 earthly desires in the Buddhist canon. Temples are visited and special dishes served.

The world in at large of course follows the Gregorian calendar, yet there are many other calendars which forecast the New Year to be on other dates than the first of January by the Gregorian calendar, foremost of which is the Chinese New Year. Celebrated with much fun fare and primarily in the colour of red (it is considered to be a colour of luck and joy), the Chinese New Year begins with the arrival of the second new moon following the winter solstice.

The Chinese let off fire crackers frighten away the evil spirits that come around New Year, and people seal their windows and doors to keep the spirits out of their homes. In 2006, the first day of the Chinese New Year will be the twenty ninth of January, in the Gregorian calendar and will be known as the year of the Rooster.

Other calendars include the Islamic calendar which is based on the cycles of the moon. The calendar consists of 12 months but only 29 or 30 days each month and the Islamic New Year moves 11 days forward each year. The first day of Muharram, the first month, is celebrated quietly throughout the world by Muslims, with special prayers being held. The Egyptians however tend to make their New Year celebrations a bit more festive.

In India New Year is celebrated on many different days in different parts of the country according to the particular calendar they use. The state of Bengal celebrates the New Year on April 13th and 14th. The Maharashtra New Year may fall between mid-March or mid-April and celebrated by the hoisting of flags. The Punjab New Year is on the thirteenth of April. The main Indian new year festival is Diwali, the festival of lights, falling between late October and early November.

Sri Lanka follows the Hindu calendar, celebrating its New Year on April 12th 13th and 14th. Houses are cleaned, sweets and kiribath are made and special Avurudu games are held as a part of the festivities. Another country that follows the same calendar is Cambodia where the festival lasts three days, people dousing each other with coloured water for blessings and visiting family and the local monastery.

The Jewish New Year of Rosh Hashanah falls in the seventh month of Tishri in the Jewish calendar commemorating the anniversary of creation when God opens the Book of Life and decides upon the fate of his creatures for the coming year. The festival lasts two days and is a time of self reflection.

In the South Pacific, the New Year is celebrated in mid-October with the appearance of the Pleiades (a group of stars) in the festival of Makahi. In Swaziland the new year is celebrated at the end of the year with the harvest festival and lasts for about a month with chanting, dancing and water collecting.

The Bahai people of Iran who possess their own calendar of nineteen months of nineteen days with a few days in between the last two months celebrate their new year on the spring equinox (March 21), the day beginning at sunset rather than sunrise.

Wherever you may reside, however you may celebrate the new year, wherever your new year may be, perhaps the one tradition that unites us all is the keeping of new year resolutions. The practice dates back to the early Babylonians whose most popular resolution was to return borrowed farm equipment.

These days however new year resolutions may range from the promise of losing weight, quitting a personal vice or making more money by working less harder. The traditions of the new year endures forever.

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