Tag Archives: harvest festival

Puttari Festival

Age: 23

Context:

This festival is celebrated in November to early December. People come together to prepare special foods and honor the gods for plentiful harvest, which is important for the informant’s community that is is dependent on agriculture.

Text:

Puttari is a traditional festival of harvest for Coorgs. “Puttari” means new rice and is celebrated when crops are ready to harvest. On the day of the festival, family members come together at their ancestral family home, or “aine-mane” and cut sheaths of rice to bundle up. During the festival, they pray to the gods of agricultural, transportation, and tools for good harvest.

Analysis:

Puttari is a calendrical festival that celebrates the agricultural cycle. From a functionalist perspective, the ritual expresses gratitude towards the gods and reinforces cultural values around family and dependance on land. The emphasis on returning to the “aine-mane” demonstrates how folklore is rooted in cultural meaning, places, and ancestry, and the festival acts to maintain continuity between the past and present.

中秋节 (Mid-Autumn Festival)

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/19/17
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

Informant: Hannah is an 18-year-old student, born and raised in China before moving to Los Angeles for college. Her parents now live in Japan, but they return to China to visit family during the summer.

Main Piece: “For the Mid-Autumn Festival, we all eat mooncakes and stare at the moon and think of our family. The circle, like the full circle, symbolizes wholeness. When you’re staring at the moon, you’re all thinking about the same moon, so you can send your love to each other.”

Background Information about the Performance: The informant still performs this tradition, even though she now lives in the US. She considers it important since she lives so far away from her family. She learned it from her parents and grandparents when living in China.

Context of Performance: The festival occurs in the middle of autumn on the lunar calendar, around late September to early October.

Thoughts: This festival reminds me of other harvest festivals around the world, such as Holi or Thanksgiving, in which the intent is to promote togetherness.