Kwanzaa

An African American holiday designed to celebrate family, community and culture. It begins on 26 December and run until 1 January. The origin of the name Kwanzaa can be traced to the phrase "matunda ya kwanza" which means "first fruits" in Swahili, a language widely spoken in African.

Kwanzaa has five fundamental principles of celebrations: ingathering; reverence; commemoration; recommitment; and celebration.

Kwanzaa, then, is:

• a time of ingathering of the people to reaffirm the bonds between them;

• a time of special reverence for the creator and creation in thanks and respect for the blessings, bountifulness and beauty of creation;

• a time for commemoration of the past in pursuit of its lessons and in honor of its models of human excellence, our ancestors;

• a time of recommitment to our highest cultural ideals in our ongoing effort to always bring forth the best of African cultural thought and practice; and

•  

a time for celebration of the Good, the good of life and of existence itself, the good of family, community and culture, the good of the awesome and the ordinary, in a word the good of the divine, natural and social. Kwanzaa or Kwanza, secular seven-day festival in celebration of the African heritage of African Americans, beginning on Dec. 26. Developed by Maulana Karenga and first observed in 1966, Kwanzaa is based in part on traditional African harvest festivals but particularly emphasizes the role of the family and community in African-American culture. Each day is dedicated to a particular principle (unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith), and on each day one of the candles on a seven-branched candelabrum is lighted. The celebration also includes the giving of gifts and a karamu, or African feast.

The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia is licensed from Columbia University Press. Copyright © 1995 by Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

 

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