Early New Year's Celebrations
The earliest recorded festivities in honor of a new year’s arrival date
back some 4,000 years to ancient Babylon. For the Babylonians, the first new moon following the vernal equinox—the
day in late March with an equal amount of sunlight and darkness—heralded the
start of a new year. They marked the occasion with a massive religious festival
called Akitu (derived from the Sumerian word for barley, which was cut in the
spring) that involved a different ritual on each of its 11 days. In addition to
the new year, Atiku celebrated the mythical victory of the Babylonian sky god
Marduk over the evil sea goddess Tiamat and served an important political
purpose: It was during this time that a new king was crowned or that the
current ruler’s divine mandate was symbolically renewed.
Throughout
antiquity, civilizations around the world developed increasingly sophisticated
calendars, typically pinning the first day of the year to an agricultural or astronomical event. In Egypt, for
instance, the year began with the annual flooding of the Nile, which coincided
with the rising of the star Sirius. The first day of the Chinese new year,
meanwhile, occurred with the second new moon after the winter solstice.
January 1 Becomes New Year's Day
The early
Roman calendar consisted of 10 months and 304 days, with each new year
beginning at the vernalequinox; according to tradition, it was created by Romulus, the founder of Rome,
in the eighth century B.C. A later king, Numa Pompilius, is credited with
adding the months of Januarius and Februarius. Over the centuries, the calendar
fell out of sync with the sun, and in 46 B.C. the emperor Julius Caesar decided
to solve the problem by consulting with the most prominent astronomers and
mathematicians of his time.
He introduced the Julian calendar, which closely resembles the more modern Gregorian
calendar that most countries around the world use today.
As part of his reform, Caesar
instituted January 1 as the first day of the year, partly to honor the month’s
namesake: Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, whose two faces allowed him to
look back into the past and forward into the future. Romans celebrated by
offering sacrifices to Janus, exchanging gifts with one another, decorating
their homes with laurel branches and attending raucous parties. In medieval
Europe, Christian leaders temporarily replaced January 1 as the first of the
year with days carrying more religious significance, such as December 25 (the
anniversary of Jesus’ birth) and March 25 (the Feast of the Annunciation); Pope
Gregory XIII reestablished January 1 as New Year’s Day in 1582.
New Year's Traditions
In many
countries, New Year’s celebrations begin on the evening of December 31—New
Year’s Eve—and continue into the early hours of January 1. Revelers often enjoy
meals and snacks thought to bestow good luck for the coming year. In Spain and
several other Spanish-speaking countries, people bolt down a dozen
grapes-symbolizing their hopes for the months ahead-right before midnight. In
many parts of the world, traditional New Year’s dishes feature legumes, which
are thought to resemble coins and herald future financial success; examples
include lentils in Italy and black-eyed peas in the southern United States. Because
pigs represent progress and prosperity in some cultures, pork appears on the
New Year’s Eve table in Cuba, Austria, Hungary, Portugal and other countries.
Ring-shaped cakes and pastries, a sign that the year has come full circle,
round out the feast in the Netherlands, Mexico, Greece and
elsewhere. In Sweden and Norway, meanwhile, rice pudding with an almond hidden
inside is served on New Year’s Eve; it is said that whoever finds the nut can
expect 12 months of good fortune.
Other customs that are common
worldwide include watching fireworks and singing songs to welcome the new year,
including the ever-popular "Auld Lang Syne" in many English-speaking
countries. The practice of making resolutions for the new year is thought to
have first caught on among the ancient Babylonians, who made promises in order
to earn the favor of the gods and start the year off on the right foot. (They
would reportedly vow to pay off debts and return borrowed farm equipment.)
In the United States, the most iconic New Year’s tradition is the dropping
of a giant ball in New York City's Times Square at the stroke of midnight. Millions of people around the world watch
the event, which has taken place almost every year since 1907. Over time, the
ball itself has ballooned from a 700-pound iron-and-wood orb to a brightly
patterned sphere 12 feet in diameter and weighing in at nearly 12,000 pounds.
Various towns and cities across America have developed their own versions of
the Times Square ritual, organizing public drops of items ranging from pickles
(Dillsburg, Pennsylvania) to possums (Tallapoosa, Georgia) at midnight on New
Year’s Eve.
ALEJANDRO FERNÁNDEZ MORALES
