The story behind the day
Enkutatash is the Ethiopian New Year, the first day of Mäskäräm, the opening month of the Ethiopian calendar. It usually falls on 11 September, at the turn from the rainy season to bright weather. Children and families keep it with bouquets of flowers, singing and dancing. Its Amharic name is glossed as "gift of jewels". Rastafari observe it too.[1–6]
Origins
The Ethiopian calendar has twelve months of thirty days each and a short thirteenth month of five days, six in a leap year, and its first month, Mäskäräm, begins in September. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church says its calendar came from Egypt. Some Ethiopian scholars hold that it was copied from the Coptic Church of Alexandria, but the church itself holds that it was not an import and evolved to its present form. Because the year turns in September, the new year comes when the main rains give way to the bright and sunny months.[2, 7–8]
What it marks
Enkutatash is the beginning of the Ethiopian year. In the church calendar 1 Mäskäräm is also the feast of St John the Baptist. The Orthodox Sunday School department describes the day as a religious holiday and also a time of new beginnings and renewed life, and the Ethiopian embassy in Brussels speaks of new hopes and dreams. The name is explained in Amharic as "gift of jewels".[3, 9–11]
How it is kept
Children in new clothes go from house to house with bouquets of flowers and painted pictures, and girls in traditional dress sing and give bouquets of daisies to each household. The countryside is gold with daisies at this time, and the Ethiopian embassy in Brussels calls the flower a symbol of new hopes and dreams. Villagers sing and dance. After dark on New Year's Eve, an Ethiopian embassy's cultural page reports, people kindle fires outside their homes. Special services are held in Ethiopian Orthodox churches, and the embassy names the fourteenth-century Kostete Yohannes church at Gaynt, in the Gondar region, as the site of the main religious celebration.[5–6, 11–13]
Across traditions
Rastafari also keep the day. The Rastafari calendar kept in the community of Shashemene lists the New Year on 11 September, and a Smithsonian exhibit page counts Ethiopian New Year among the dates marked by Nyabinghi gatherings, though it gives 17 September. The Shashemene calendar also includes Ethiopian Christmas on 7 January, a date for which Nyabinghi gatherings are held.[4, 14]
Sources
Each statement above was checked against published sources; the verdict says whether it stood as written, was corrected or was hedged.
- Verifiedeotcmk.org; blogs.loc.gov, Ethiopian christmas and calendar; ethiopianembassy.be.
- Verifiedethiopianembassy.be; Ethiopian New Year: Kidus Yohannes, Mahibere Kidusan.
- Correctedeotcmk.org; Embassy of Ethiopia, Culture.
- CorrectedWRSP, Giulia Bonacci; Smithsonian Education, Dread History.
- Verifiedeotcmk.org; Embassy of Ethiopia, Culture.
- Correctedeotcmk.org; Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life, Ethiopians, Encyclopedia.com.
- Verifiedblogs.loc.gov, Ethiopian christmas and calendar; EOTC calendar.
- VerifiedEOTC calendar; blogs.loc.gov, Ethiopian christmas and calendar.
- VerifiedEmbassy of Ethiopia, Culture; eotcmk.org, Ethiopian new year kidus yohannes.
- Correctedeotcmk.org; Embassy of Ethiopia, Brussels.
- VerifiedEmbassy of Ethiopia, Brussels; UNESCO ich, Meskel.
- CorrectedEmbassy of Ethiopia, Culture; eotcmk.org.
- Correctedeotcmk.org, Ethiopian new year kidus yohannes; Embassy of Ethiopia, Culture.
- VerifiedWRSP, Bonacci; Barry Chevannes, Rastafarianism, Encyclopedia.com.