traditional festivals

This illustrated reference work covers a wide range of festivals that have sacred origins or continue to be a part of a folk tradition, a world religion, or a major civilization.
From Candlemas to Holy Week, from the Sabbath to Yom Kippur, to the New Fire Ceremony of the Aztecs, to the many variations of Christmas and New Year, the world resounds with sacred festivals that date back to the earliest times. What do these observances reveal about their cultures of origin?
Traditional Festivals: A Multicultural Encyclopedia travels around the world and across the centuries to uncover an often unexpected richness of meaning in some of the major sacred festivals of the world's religions, the hallowed calendars of ancient civilizations, and the seasonal celebrations of tribal cultures.
From Akitu to Yom Kippur, its nearly 140 entries look at the content and context of these festivals from a number of perspectives (including those relating to theology, anthropology, folklore, and social theory), tracing their historical development and variations across cultures. Readers will get a vivid sense of what each festival means to the people celebrating it; how each captures its culture's beliefs, hopes and fears, founding myths, and redemptive visions; and how each expresses the universal need of humans to connect their lives to something spiritual and eternal.
Title Features
• Nearly 140 A–Z entries, from the Asakusa Shrine Festival (Japan) to the Water Splashing Festival (China), on the content and context of each festival, tracing its historical development and geographic variations
• Over 40 illustrations of festival rituals such as photos of floats from the Nice Carnival, the Hollyhock Festival, and the Day of Assembly
• Tables of dates for the major feasts in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam from 2000 through 2050
• Calendar graph showing at a glance the relative places of all the festivals discussed in the seasonal cycle of a single year
Highlights
• Covers all manners of traditional festivals, from the major feasts of world religions through the sacred calendars of ancient civilizations to the seasonal celebrations of tribal cultures
• Emphasis on putting each festival in its living cultural context, including folklore and history
• Richly illustrated to demonstrate the compelling iconography of the festivals
• Theological and anthropological approaches used to convey the broader cultural dynamics and spiritual principles involved in each festival
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In their capacity as performative cultural assets located in destinations, festivals offer visitors potentially convivial and memorable experiences. Though previous studies have examined the psychologies of festival attendees, few have considered the perspective of festival stakeholders towards the co-creation of cultural value. The present study examines the case of a traditional festival that epitomises intangible cultural heritage – the Feast of Na Tcha in Macau. The researchers examine how organisers, performers, government officials, local shop owners and tourists play roles in co-creating value for the festival. The paper examines an overlooked dimension – contributions from multiple stakeholders to the multifaceted concept of value in cultural festival settings. The findings present a value co-creation paradigm that may inform prospective creative enhancements to the festival experience.

La primera notícia és de finals del segle XIX, amb un gegant que vestia com un califa musulmà; posteriorment, la ciutat n'ha tingut dues parelles més: els primers, del 1916 i, els actuals, del 1949 Al llarg del segle XIX molts pobles i ciu-tats dels Països Catalans descobreixen en els gegants una expressió d'identitat local, com la ciutat de Banyoles. Precisament la primera notícia històrica es remunta al 17 d'octubre del 1880, en què en el llibre d'actes municipal consta la nega-tiva a pagar a Antoni Bartra l'import de les sabates per fer ballar els gegants: «[...] se acuerda no satisfacer a Don Antonio Bartra el importe de los zapatos que lleva en cuenta y que no se hicieron, ni se usaron, para pa-sear los gigantes». Tradicionalment aquests primers gegants banyolins sortien per a la processó religiosa dels Corpus i la de Sant Martirià. El 12 de juny del 1887, en la crònica de la revista El Bañolense, se citava de forma breu: «Se nos ocurre una pregunta: ¿qué se ha hecho de los gigan-tes?». Molt probablement a causa del seu mal estat, el mes d'octubre l'Ajun-tament acordava pagar la vestimenta i la restauració dels gegants a través de l'impost sobre els carruatges. La restauració li fou encarregada a un jove pintor, en Manuel Pigem i Ras (Banyoles, 1862-1946). El repintat dels gegants no fou del gust de tothom, ja que en la crònica d'El Bañolense del dia 3 de juny del 1888 es fa més que evident el sarcasme respecte a la figura del gegant: «No nos habíamos fijado la otra vez que sa-lieron los gigantes en la mala facha que tiene el macho. Le han pintado los ojos de tal modo que parece va buscando alfileres por el suelo. Cree-mos que la cosa sería fácilmente remediable».

There are traditions of long-standing relationships between the Ijebu and Bini peoples in prehistoric times, but these traditions are vague and lacking in detail. The Ijebu are a sub-group of the Yoruba tribe of South-western Nigeria, occupying parts of Ogun and Lagos States. The Bini, a section of the Edo tribe, occupy a part of Edo State. This paper will contribute towards bringing clarity to the state of knowledge on the subject of Bini-Ijebu relations by providing details derived from the comparison of Igue Ewere (a festival of the Bini) and Obinrin Ojowu (a festival of the Ijebu) which appear to be strongly connected.