Harvest Festivals of the World

Harvest festivals take place during the main harvest season of a region. Globally, harvest festivals are celebrated at different times of the year, depending on the region, climate and crops.

In some regions of the world, a harvest festival has become entirely secularized, transforming it into a more general celebration. Harvest celebrations are primarily centered on family activities and are seen as a time for communities to come together.

Here are a few notable harvest celebrations around the world:?

• India celebrates several harvest festivals, including Makar Sankranti, Thai Pongal, Uttarayana, Lohri, and Magh Bihu or Bhogali Bihu in the middle of January. Pongal festival commemorates the rice harvest season.? The celebration, which is dedicated to the Hindu sun god Surya, symbolizes the end of winter and the beginning of the sun's journey northwards. Festive celebrations include decorating cows and their horns, ritual bathing, and processions. The festival’s most significant practice is the preparation of the traditional “Pongal” dish. It utilizes freshly harvested rice and is prepared by boiling it in milk and raw cane sugar (jaggery). Holi is celebrated in February-March, Vaisakhi in April, and Onam in August-September.

• Sukkot is a Jewish harvest festival that takes place in the fall/autumn (September-October). Jews thank God for the harvest for eight days after the New Year's High Holy Days.

• Thanksgiving, United States - Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday of October in Canada and in the United States on the fourth Thursday of November. It originated from the harvest feast of 1621 between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag people in Plymouth, Massachusetts. It exists today as a secular holiday in which we thank God for our good fortune, friends, family, and health.

• Lammas, United Kingdom - The harvest festival of Lammas, which is not to be confused with the Harvest Festival of September, takes place in the first week of August when tenant farmers deliver their first harvest of the year to landlords.

• Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the most widely observed harvest festivals. The festival takes place between mid-September and early October. On this day, which takes place in the middle of the Autumn harvest season, the Chinese believe the moon is at its brightest and fullest. It is the second most important occasion, and the iconic Chinese moon cake was developed to celebrate it.

• Rice Harvest, Bali, Indonesia - The end of the annual harvest season in Bali (of which rice is a staple) and the start of the appropriately called Rice Harvest Festival falls in the month of May. During this period, communities are festooned with brightly colored flags, and shrines to Dewi Sri, the Hindu goddess of rice and fertility, are erected in the rice paddies.

• Olivagando, Magione, Italy - A two-day festival commemorates the olive harvest in Magione in November. Native olive oil is produced from the olives harvested. A priest blesses the oil during a special mass.

Around the world, the harvest of the main cereal crop - typically wheat, corn, or rice - has always been a time for celebration. The harvest festival can always be seen somewhere around the world, no matter what season it is.