A harvest festival is an annual celebration that occurs around the time of the main harvest of a given region. Given the differences in climate and crops around the world, harvest festivals can be found at various times at different places. Harvest festivals typically feature feasting, both family and public, with foods that are drawn from crops.
In Britain, thanks have been given for successful harvests since pagan times. Harvest festivals are held in September or October depending on local tradition. The modern Harvest Festival celebrations include singing hymns, praying, and decorating churches with baskets of fruit and food in the festival known as Harvest Festival, Harvest Home, Harvest Thanksgiving or Harvest Festival of Thanksgiving.
In British and English-Caribbean churches, chapels and schools, and some Canadian churches, people bring in produce from the garden, the allotment or farm. The food is often distributed among the poor and senior citizens of the local community or used to raise funds for the church, or charity.
Oromos in Ethiopia also celebrate Irreecha, a harvest festival and thanksgiving, marking the end of the rainy season and the beginning of the harvest. It is a time of gratitude and celebration within the community.
Harvest festivals in Asia include the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋節), one of the most widely spread harvest festivals in the world. In Iran Mehrgan was celebrated in an extravagant style at Persepolis. Not only was it the time for harvest, but it was also the time when the taxes were collected. Visitors from different parts of the Persian Empire brought gifts for the king, all contributing to a lively festival. In India, Makar Sankranti, Thai Pongal, Uttarayana, Lohri, and Magh Bihu or Bhogali Bihu in January, Holi in February–March, Vaisakhi in April and Onam in August–September are a few important harvest festivals.
Jews celebrate the week-long harvest festival of Sukkot in the autumn. Observant Jews build a temporary hut or shack called a sukkah, and spend the week living, eating, sleeping, and praying inside it. It is reminiscent of the tabernacles Israelite farmers would live in during the harvest, at the end of which they would bring a portion of the harvest to the Temple in Jerusalem.
Customs and traditions in English-speaking world
An early harvest festival used to be celebrated at the beginning of the harvest season on 1 August and was called Lammas, meaning 'loaf Mass'. The Latin prayer to hallow the bread is given in the Durham Ritual. Farmers made loaves of bread from the fresh wheat crop. These were given to the local church as the Communion bread during a special service thanking God for the harvest.
By the sixteenth century, several customs seem to have been firmly established around the gathering of the final harvest. They include the reapers accompanying a fully laden cart; a tradition of shouting "Hooky, hooky"; and one of the foremost reapers dressing extravagantly, acting as 'lord' of the harvest and asking for money from the onlookers. A play by Thomas Nashe, Summer's Last Will and Testament, (first published in London in 1600 but believed from internal evidence to have been first performed in October 1592 at Croydon) contains a scene which demonstrates several of these features. There is a character personifying harvest who comes on stage attended by men dressed as reapers; he refers to himself as their "master" and ends the scene by begging the audience for a "largesse". The scene is inspired by contemporary harvest celebrations, and singing and drinking feature largely. The stage instruction reads:
"Enter Harvest with a scythe on his neck, and all his reapers with sickles, and a great black bowl with a posset in it borne before him: they come in singing."
The song which follows may be an actual harvest song or a creation of the author's intended to represent a typical harvest song of the time:
Merry, merry, merry, cheery, cheery, cheery, Trowel the black bowl to me; Hey derry, derry, with a pop and a lorry, I'll throw it again to thee;
Hooky, hooky, we have shorn, And we have bound, And we have brought Harvest Townhome.
The shout of "hooky, hooky" appears to be one traditionally associated with the harvest celebration. The last verse is repeated in full after the character Harvest remarks to the audience "Is your throat clear to help us sing hooky, hooky?" and a stage direction adds, "Heere they all sing after him". Also, in 1555 in Archbishop Parker's translation of Psalm 126 occur the lines:
"He home returnes: wyth hocky cry, With sheaues full lade abundantly."
In some parts of England "Hockey" or "Horkey" (the word is spelled variously) became the accepted name of the actual festival itself:
"Hockey is brought Home with hallowing Boys with plum-cake The Cart following".
Another widespread tradition was the distribution of a special cake to the celebrating farmworkers. A prose work of 1613 refers to the practice as predating the Reformation. Describing the character of a typical farmer, it says:
"Rocke Munday..Christmas Eve, the hoky, or seed cake, these he yearly keeps, yet holds them no relics of popery."[1]
Early English settlers took the idea of harvest thanksgiving to North America. The most famous one is the harvest Thanksgiving held by the Pilgrims in 1621.
National Harvest Thanksgiving ceremony in Poland's Jasna GóraRoman Catholic sanctuary in Częstochowa, Poland.Presidential Harvest Festival in Spała, Poland
Nowadays the festival is held at the end of harvest, which varies in different parts of Britain. Sometimes neighboring churches will set the Harvest Festival on different Sundays so that people can attend each other's thanksgiving.
Until the 20th century, most farmers celebrated the end of the harvest with a big meal called the harvest supper, to which all who had helped in the harvest were invited. It was sometimes known as a "Mell-supper", after the last patch of corn or wheat standing in the fields which were known as the "Mell" or "Neck". Cutting it signified the end of the work of harvest and the beginning of the feast. There seems to have been a feeling that it was bad luck to be the person to cut the last stand of corn. The farmer and his workers would race against the harvesters on other farms to be first to complete the harvest, shouting to announce they had finished. In some counties, the last stand of corn would be cut by the workers throwing their sickles at it until it was all down, in others the reapers would take it in turns to be blindfolded and sweep a scythe to and fro until all of the Mell was cut down.
Some churches and villages still have a Harvest Supper. The modern British tradition of celebrating the Harvest Festival in churches began in 1843, when the Reverend Robert Hawker invited parishioners to a special thanksgiving service at his church at Morwenstow in Cornwall. Victorianhymns such as Come, ye thankful people, come and All things bright and beautiful but also Dutch and German harvest hymns in translation (for example, We plough the fields and scatter) helped popularise his idea of a harvest festival, and spread the annual custom of decorating churches with home-grown produce for the Harvest Festival service. On 8 September 1854 the Revd Dr William Beal, Rector of Brooke, Norfolk, held a Harvest Festival aimed at ending what he saw as disgraceful scenes at the end of harvest,[2] and went on to promote 'harvest homes' in other Norfolk villages. Another early adopter of the custom as an organized part of the Church of England calendar was Rev Piers Claughton at Elton, Huntingdonshire in or about 1854.[3]
As British people have come to rely less heavily on home-grown produce, there has been a shift in emphasis in many Harvest Festival celebrations. Increasingly, churches have linked Harvest with an awareness of and concern for people in the developing world for whom growing crops of sufficient quality and quantity remains a struggle. Development and Relief organizations often produce resources for use in churches at harvest time which promote their own concerns for those in need across the globe.
In the early days, there were ceremonies and rituals at the beginning as well as at the end of the harvest.
Encyclopædia Britannica traces the origins to "the animistic belief in the corn [grain] spirit or corn mother." In some regions the farmers believed that a spirit resided in the last sheaf of grain to be harvested. To chase out the spirit, they beat the grain to the ground. Elsewhere they wove some blades of the cereal into a "corn dolly" that they kept safe for "luck" until seed-sowing the following year.[citation needed] Then they plowed the ears of grain back into the soil in hopes that this would bless the new crop.
Church bells could be heard on each day of the harvest.
A corn dolly was made from the last sheaf of corn harvested. The corn dolly often had a place of honour at the banquet table, and was kept until the following spring.
Lammas, also known as Loaf Mass Day, is a Christian holiday celebrated in some English-speaking countries in the Northern Hemisphere on 1 August. The name originates from the word "loaf" in reference to bread and "Mass" in reference to the Eucharist. It is a festival in the liturgical calendar to mark the blessing of the First Fruits of harvest, with a loaf of bread being brought to the church for this purpose. Lammastide falls at the halfway point between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox. Christians also have church processions to bakeries, where those working therein are blessed by Christian clergy.
Sukkot, also known as the Feast of Tabernacles or Feast of Booths, is a Torah-commanded holiday celebrated for seven days, beginning on the 15th day of the month of Tishrei. It is one of the Three Pilgrimage Festivals on which Israelites were commanded to make a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem. Biblically an autumn harvest festival and a commemoration of the Exodus from Egypt, Sukkot’s modern observance is characterized by festive meals in a sukkah, a temporary wood-covered hut.
Shemini Atzeret is a Jewish holiday. It is celebrated on the 22nd day of the Hebrew month of Tishrei, usually coinciding with late-September or early-October. It directly follows the Jewish festival of Sukkot which is celebrated for seven days; thus Shemini Atzeret is literally the eighth day [of Assembly]. It is a separate — yet connected — holy day devoted to the spiritual aspects of the festival of Sukkot. Part of its duality as a holy day is that it is simultaneously considered to be both connected to Sukkot and a separate festival in its own right.
Corn dollies or corn mothers are a form of straw work made as part of harvest customs of Europe before mechanisation.
Bihu is of three types and it is an important cultural festival unique to the Indian state of Assam – 'Rongali' or 'Bohag Bihu' observed in April, 'Kongali' or 'Kati Bihu' observed in October or November, and 'Bhogali' or 'Magh Bihu' observed in January. The festivals present an admixture of Tibeto-Barman, Austroasiatic and Indo-Aryan traditions entwined so intricately that it is impossible to separate them—festivals which are uniquely Assamese to which all communities of Assam had contributed elements. The Rongali Bihu is the most important of the three, celebrating spring festival. The Bhogali Bihu or the Magh Bihu is a harvest festival, with community feasts. The Kongali Bihu or the Kati Bihu is the sombre, thrifty one reflecting a season of short supplies and is an animistic festival.
Shavuot, or Shvues, is a Jewish holiday, one of the biblically ordained Three Pilgrimage Festivals. It occurs on the sixth day of the Hebrew month of Sivan; in the 21st century, it may fall anywhere between May 15 and June 14 on the Gregorian calendar.
A reaper is a farm implement or person that reaps crops at harvest when they are ripe. Usually the crop involved is a cereal grass. The first documented reaping machines were Gallic reapers that were used in Roman times in what would become modern-day France. The Gallic reaper involved a comb which collected the heads, with an operator knocking the grain into a box for later threshing.
Makar(a) Sankranti, also referred to as Uttarayana, Makar, or simply Sankranti, is a Hindu observance and a festival. Usually falling on the date of 14 January annually, this occasion marks the transition of the sun from the zodiac of Sagittarius (dhanu) to Capricorn (makara). Since the sun has made this transition which vaguely coincides with moving from south to north, the festival is dedicated to the solar deity, Surya, and is observed to mark a new beginning. Many native multi-day festivals are organised on this occasion all over India.
Vaisakhi, also known as Baisakhi, marks the first day of the month of Vaisakh and is traditionally celebrated annually on 13 April and sometimes 14 April. It is seen as a spring harvest celebration primarily in Punjab and Northern India. Whilst it is culturally significant as a festival of harvest, in many parts of India, Vaisakhi is also the date for the Indian Solar New Year.
Lohri is a popular winter Dogra and Punjabi folk festival celebrated primarily in Northern India. The significance and legends about the Lohri festival are many and these link the festival to the Duggar region and Punjab region. It is believed by many that the festival marks the passing of the winter solstice. Lohri marks the end of winter, and is a traditional welcome of longer days and the sun's journey to the Northern Hemisphere. It is observed the night before Maghi.
Crying The Neck is a harvest festival tradition once common in counties of Devon and Cornwall in the United Kingdom, in which a farm worker holds aloft the final handful of cut corn and a series of calls are chanted.
Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in October and November in the United States, Canada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil, Germany and the Philippines. It is also observed in the Dutch town of Leiden and the Australian territory of Norfolk Island. It began as a day of giving thanks for the blessings of the harvest and of the preceding year. Various similarly named harvest festival holidays occur throughout the world during autumn. Although Thanksgiving has historical roots in religious and cultural traditions, it has long been celebrated as a secular holiday as well.
Magh Bihu (also called Bhogali Bihu or Maghar Domahi is a harvest festival celebrated in Assam, North-East India, which marks the end of harvesting season in the month of Magh. A bonfire is lit for the ceremonial conclusion and prayer to the God of Fire. The festival is developed by the Tibeto-Burman cultures and festivals Magan of Kachari.
Guldize, Gooldize is the harvest festival of the Cornish people. Guldize is an anglicization of Cornish Gool dheys "the feast of ricks". The festival was held at the end of the wheat harvest and took the form of a vast feast usually around the time of the autumnal equinox. The ceremony of Crying The Neck took place before the feast, the neck being formed into a Corn dolly, which presided over the celebrations. Since 2008 a revived Guldize celebration has been held in Penzance and since 2010 in several other locations across Cornwall.
"Come, Ye Thankful People, Come" is an English Christian harvest festival hymn written in 1844 by Henry Alford. It is most often sung to the tune St. George's Windsor by George Job Elvey.
Dożynki is a Slavic harvest festival. In pre-Christian times the feast usually fell on the autumn equinox, in modern times it is usually celebrated on one of the Sundays following the end of the harvest season, which fall on different days in different regions of Europe.
The name horkey was applied to end of harvest customs and celebrations, especially in the Eastern Counties of England, although the word occurred elsewhere in England and also Ireland. Since it is found in dialect, there is no standard spelling and other versions include hawkie and hockey. Mentioned from the 16th century onward, the custom became less common during the course of the 19th century and was more or less extinct in the 20th. It is chiefly remembered now because of the poem dedicated to it by Robert Bloomfield in 1802.
Agera is a thanksgiving harvest festival celebrated by the Roman Catholic community of Mumbai primarily the Bombay East Indians. This festival is also celebrated in Mumbai, Thane, Raigad and Vasai.
The Harvest Festival is a celebration of the harvest and food grown on the land in the United Kingdom. It is about giving thanks for a successful crop yield over the year as winter starts to approach. The festival is also about giving thanks for all the good and positive things in people's lives, such as family and friendships. Harvest Festivals have traditionally been held in churches but also in schools and sometimes in pubs. Some estates and farms used to hold the harvest festival in a barn. In some towns and villages the harvest festivals are set so that the different churches do not have it on the same day. People bring in produce from their garden, allotment or farm, and even tinned and packaged food. Often there is a Harvest Supper at which some of the produce may be eaten. Typically surplus produce is given away to a local charity, hospital or children's home, or auctioned for charity.
References
↑ Overbury, Thomas Characters: the Franklin, London, 1613
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