Observed by Newar people Begins Marga Sukla Purnima | Type Newari Ends 4 days later | |
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Official name Yomari Punhi, English translation: Full Moon of Tasty Bread Celebrations Worshiping Annapurna, eating Yomari | ||
Yomari Punhi is a Newari festival marking the end of the rice harvest. It takes place in November/December during the full moon day of Thinlā (थिंला), the second month in the lunar Nepal Era calendar.
Festival
Yomari Punhi, meaning the full moon of yomari, is one of the most popular Newar festivals and is observed every year during the full moon of December. A yomari is a confection of rice flour (from the new harvest) dough shaped like fish and filled with brown cane sugar and sesame seeds, which is then steamed. This delicacy is the chief item on the menu during the post-harvest celebration of Yomari Punhi.
On this full moon day, people of the Kathmandu Valley offer worship to Annapurna, the goddess of grains, for the rice harvest. Groups of kids go around neighborhood to beg yomari cakes from housewives in the evening. Sacred masked dances are performed in the villages of Hari Siddhi and Thecho at the southern end of the Valley to mark the festival.In a yomari people keep chaku a chocolate-like food or khuwa a ricotta-cheese-like dairy product.