Image Source: StockCake
With just a few days away, the year 2024 gradually ends. With many countries looking forward to ushering in the year 2025 with pomp and pageantry, fixated on the belief in a year filled with great expectations, many countries take measures to observe certain rituals and traditions to kickstart the new year and ensure a seamless transition into new chapters and beginnings.
For African and Caribbean countries, traditions, cultures, and customs go far beyond fireworks and concerts. Ringing in the new year is a celebration that is accompanied by so much music, dance, and joy as families relieve the ups and downs of the previous year through family gatherings while also partaking in traditional feasts within the family circle or among the community.
Communities especially in Africa also engage in carnival-like parties or events that feature several masquerade appearances that are viewed as ancestral spirits warding off the previous year with all its troubles and ushering in the new year with good tidings.
In Trinidad and Tobago, while the streets are lit up with decorations and colorful lights, music fills the area as traditional dances create a festive spectacle as the celebrations bid farewell to the old year while welcoming the new one. This special occasion brings families and friends together, and as the air is filled with Soca and Parang music, everyone enjoys a feast of sorrel, black cake, and ginger beer while counting down to when the clock strikes twelve and the loud cheer of happy new year fills the air.
Trinidad and Tobago style black cake, a cake made with rum and preserved fruits.
Guettarda, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
In Jamaica, the watch night service prepares Jamaicans spiritually through reflection, prayers, and worship as they proceed into the new year. Other activities like the New Year’s Eve Ball where music and dance along with fine dining and wine drinking interplay provide a rich festive experience. Pantomime theatre productions are also part of the several traditional activities that Jamaicans engage in to strengthen communities and provide a wholesome and unforgettable experience.
Another tradition that Jamaicans hold on to is the belief that one’s good fortune could be washed away if one engages in washing dirty laundry on the first day of the new year. Effort is made to finish all laundry before the new year so that you start the year with clean clothes.
As part of activities to usher in the New Year, children and adults engage in the release of clappas, or what people would commonly refer to as firecrackers to the street, filling up the air with noisy bangs to signify the start of the new year.
In Africa, especially in some parts of South Eastern Nigeria, teenagers and adults would go scouting for items suitable enough to make loud noises and right at the stroke of midnight they would hit these items and with loud voices all across the community bidding farewell to the past year requesting that it departs with all its pain and troubles while welcoming the new year and offering a prayer of blessings for the year.
Other activities like church services, family meetings to make plans and set targets for the new year, and family feasts to deepen bonds among others would also form part of the new year activities.
No matter what part of South Africa you are in, music, dancing, and continuous feasting are synonymous with the New Year celebrations. An interesting aspect of the New Year traditions in South Africa is the act of doing away with old and unwanted items.
South Africans would gather unused items such as furniture and household goods that are old and discard them all. This act is a representation of their letting go of the past and making room for new things in the coming year.
South African Minstrel Carnival performers. Olga Ernst, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Around several parts of the country, festivities take place to welcome the new year. In Cape Town the popularly known Minstrel Carnival known as “Tweede Nuwe Jaar” (Second New Year) takes place. This colorful parade which takes place on the 2nd of January is filled with traditional songs, dances, and spectacular performances from participants called “minstrels”.
Across the Afro-Caribbean countries, preparations for the new year are in top gear with high expectations that 2025 will be the start of a new beginning. While we join in their celebration at our respective locations, we hold with bated breath that as the final curtains fall on the year 2024, we rest on hope and optimism that the new year will bring prosperity and good fortune for us all.
Happy New Year in Advance.
Okechukwu Nzeribe works with the Onitsha Chamber of Commerce, in Anambra State, Nigeria, and loves unveiling the richness of African cultures. okechukwu.onicima@gmail.com
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