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Iran Prepares to Celebrate Yalda Night
If you are travelling to Iran during autumn and you are looking for a national ceremony to participate, you may have heard about Yalda and even have been invited to celebrate it with a Persian family. Among many celebrations hold in ancient Persia, Yalda had a special place. It is still one of the most important traditions celebrated all over the country each year.
What is Yalda?
Yalda (winter solstice) or as people call it Shab-e Cheleh, is being held almost at 21 of December,. The night has been added to Iran’s List of National Treasures in 2008. The ritual is also being celebrated by people in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Turkamanistan and Tajikistan.
If you ask people about Yalda, most of them would probably name Yalda as the longest night of the year. Though this answer is correct, the reason behind celebrating this ancient tradition is not the night itself but its being the last sign of prevalence of darkness over light.
The History Behind Yalda
Mehr or Mithra , the goddess in ancient Persia representing goodness and justice, was always associated with light, day and sun and in eternal conflict with darkness and night. Knowing that Yalda is the longest night of a year (in fact sometimes just one minute longer that the previous nights), people would stay awake all the night in public places, make fire and pray for light and sun conquest darkness. They managed to stay awake all the night to prevent bad luck. This tradition later changed to families gathering together for one night and celebrating their being together.
The word “Yalda” is a Syriac word meaning birth. The night is also called Zayeshmehr, i.e. the birth of Mehr or sun. Unlike the old tradition, mostly performed outdoors in public places in the form of praying and talking to keep them awake all night to see the sun rises the next day, Yalda is a family gathering in current Iran.
Yalda’s Rituals
People gather in the house of an elderly, having fun and eating the emblems of this night including pomegranate and watermelon with their red color as a symbol of sun and also nuts, pastry and other fruits as symbols of felicity, health, abundance and welfare. Besides eating which is one of the important parts of Iranian ceremonies, there are other traditions performed at the night like fortune telling and giving gifts.
Each person make a wish, randomly choose a poem from ancient Persian poet, Hafez, read it aloud and interpret it based on his or her own life. People also would send gifts to newly married girls.
These are the overall customs of yalda night all over Iran, however each ethnic group has its own tradition as well. For example in Hamedan, people would presage with needle. It is a special kind of fortune telling in which a young girl would needle a cloth while an old woman recite poems she have known before. Meanwhile, people wish and interpret the poems which they find related to their wish.
In East Azerbaijan, people believe by eating watermelon, they will not feel the coldness of winter and it keeps them safe from winter diseases. In Khorasan, they would perform a ceremony named “Kaf Zani”. In this ceremony, they would use roots of a special tree named “Chobak” to make a kind of culinary foam and serve it with sugar syrup, pistachio and walnut.
Whenever you are in Iran in Yalda, find a kind family to host you and spend the night with them as there are no public festival you can find showing you the beauty and warmness of family gatherings in Iran.
