Customs and traditions: the Amazigh New Year, known as "January also"
On the twelfth of January of each year, the Berbers in Morocco and Algeria, like their brothers in all countries of North Africa, from the Siwa Oasis in Egypt to the city of Tangiers in Morocco, celebrate the Amazigh and Peasant New Year that falls this year 2970 according to The Amazigh calendar, which precedes the Gregorian calendar by about ten centuries. Locally, the celebration is called “yanayar” (with emphasis on the nun), and yanuyar is an Berber word composed of two words: yan meaning one, and ayur meaning month. The first month of the Amazigh year is also called “Emmalan” and “Aqurarn” according to the different regions and dialects, and also “Port Usgas” meaning the night of the year, and it is considered the annual beginning of practicing agricultural work.
Algerians differ in the way to revive Yannayer from one region to another, which reflects the diversity and richness that characterizes Algerian culture. However, there are a set of intersections that make some rituals common to everyone, including slaughtering a rooster or a chicken and preparing a luxurious dinner from a wheat derivative, such as a plate of couscous or something similar, such as sakhokha or porridge that is cooked using seven types of vegetables. Women perform most of the rituals of celebration, as well as with the participation of children (an expression of fertility and growth), while the men are satisfied with a symbolic contribution.
And with each new year cycle, a question arises: How can the ceremonial rituals of Yannayar hold for thirty centuries without being lost and enveloped in oblivion? In other words, how were the Berbers of North Africa able, despite the repeated conquest of their lands from the Phoenician era to the French colonialism, to continue to revive Yannayer year after year without abandoning it or forgetting it?
To answer, we have to travel far to the moment of the first commencement of this celebration, or what is called in religious anthropology the "moment of formation", and we find ourselves forced to resort to myths in an attempt to explore this defining moment of birth. The holders of the ritual origin theory of the myth that first appeared in Robertson Smith's book "Religion of the Semites" believe that ancient rituals lose their meaning and goals over time, turning into mere meaningless movements. Here, the legend comes to clarify the origin and meaning of the ritual, and provides a convincing justification for those celebrations that have been passed on to generations. Consequently, myth and ritual are interrelated, and there is no survival of one of them without the other, for the myth needs rituals to ensure its eternity, and the ritual needs the myth to justify its existence and maintain its effectiveness.
The Amazigh Pharaoh
The revival of the "Yannayer" rituals is linked to a group of myths narrated by the local population, the most famous of which is the legend of the Berber leader "Shishnaq", the conqueror of the pharaohs, whose family ruled Egypt for two centuries. The stories differ greatly regarding the origin of "Shishnaq" and how he seized the country of the pyramids. Some accounts claim that he was from Bani Suis and that he repelled an attack near the city of Tlemcen in western Algeria by the Pharaohs to control the Amazigh country and defeated them by the evil of his defeat and chased them to their country and seized it and declared himself a Pharaoh of Egypt And what is adjacent to it .. This great victory was celebrated and chosen to be the beginning of the Amazigh calendar, in appreciation and reverence for this leader. On the other hand, other accounts say that "Shishnaq" descended from a Libyan Berber tribe, and was just and tolerant to the point that the Egyptians resorted to him to save them from the oppression of the Pharaoh, and installed him as their king. While a third story goes that "Shishnaq" was a military leader in the army of the Pharaoh. The chaos and turmoil that Egypt suffered from allowed him to control the country and set himself up as a Pharaoh.
Regardless of the authenticity of the historical information contained in the various accounts, the ritual celebration of "Yannayer", if we look at it from the perspective of religious anthropology, is a kind of major periodic ritual that relates to myths of formation. The ritual here is a myth, and it has transformed into a behavior aimed at restoring the initial mythological time, according to the expression of the Syrian researcher Firas Al-Sawah.
The legend of the leader "Shishnaq" is a group of historical events that occurred in the bygone time, the time of the beginnings. It tells us how the Berbers were formed and discovered their identity against the other - which is here the Pharaohs - and they triumphed over him and proved their superiority and guaranteed their distinction. This first time is restored and lived through the periodic ritual, because the sacred time is not a linear time that extends from the past to the present. Rather, it is an eternal time that man can retrieve and enter into, and the Amazighs, in their celebration of “Yannayr”, enter the first time in order to use the power of the assets to renew The present and the rebirth of the future, thus participating in some way in remaking their world and their identity.
Agouza Day
In addition to the "Shishnaq" myth, the Berbers recount the myth of the old woman who underestimated the forces of nature and deceived herself and attributed her steadfastness against the harsh winter to her strength, and did not thank the sky and insulted Yannayer, saying: "Your days have passed as if they were spring, and here you will leave for Furar (February). In which I will not be cold nor will I be obstructed by the snow. " Yannayer became very angry and asked February to loan him a day and a night in order to take revenge on the old woman who had insulted him. February answered his desire and gave him two days of his life. The old woman went out to her field with her herd, reassuring that the lights were gone, and here the latter summoned the cold, snow and strong winds, and she and her herd were perished. Based on this myth, February became the shortest month of the year! To this day, many still fear the "old age" and do not go out to graze.
This myth deals with the links that exist between man and nature, and it is one of the myths of fertility that is related to periodic rituals, and its events are repeated and the life cycle restored in it with the aim of suggesting the plant nature resurrection after the end of winter, and pushing the cycle of seasons that are indispensable for agricultural life. The ritual actions of the celebrants do not take the characteristic of worshiping the Alawite powers, but rather participating with these forces by going back ritually to their first time, in order to help them re-rebirth. Only from here can we understand the housewives ’keenness on this day to replace the old utensils with new ones, and to change the traditional stove stones, in addition to weaving new bedding, on top of which is the carpet, so that the new Amazigh year will be greeted with new clothes, mattresses and utensils, after the house is repainted, decorated and disposed of All that is old, as a process of sharing the forces of nature in a renewed rebirth.
The myth of "Shishnaq" and the legend of "the old woman", although it seems at first glance that they are separate and irrelevant, but they are two sides of one truth, because the first formation of the Amazighs is related to the periodic fertility of the earth, and the new resurrection of the seasons, without which they would not have continued in time. The land is the foster mother, and from it generates all the goods that allow the perpetuation of the existence of these peasants. That is why the land occupies a large area in the rituals that take place in "Yannayer", to praise this mother and to acknowledge her goodness and a request for fertility, prosperity and abundant yield, and an attempt to avoid her anger that comes in the form of drought, sterility and epidemics.
