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Kerja Tahun, or Merdang Merdem, is a week-long annual festival held by the Karo people of North Sumatra to celebrate the rice-planting. 'Kerja' in this sense is a Karo word meaning 'party', and not the Indonesian 'kerja', which means work.
Rice-planting has historically held great importance for the Karo people, rice being the staple food of the region, as well as an important source of income and indicator of wealth, in the size of one's rice barn. The Karo traditionally planted rice once per year, using dry rice (in Indonesian 'ladang') cultivation. Rice cultivation has an important role in the traditional Karo religion (known as pemena).
In order to ensure the success of the rice-planting, the Merdang Merdem festival is conducted, paying homage to Beru Dayang, a female spirit also associated with childbirth, a process with which the rice planting is analogised by the Karo.
The kerja tahun festival does not have a fixed date in the Karoland, but varies by village. Despite the decline in traditional beliefs, as well as the decline in the number of people growing rice (due to modernisation and the switch to other crops), the kerja tahun festival is still widely held, but now as an activity with greater significance in terms of kinship and cultural bonds than as a religious practice.
The festival lasts six days, with a seventh day of rest: