Tabari New Year · Fardineh Ma Shu

Culture of origin: Mazandarani · Ancient festival

Holiday sources: Iran · Mazandarani

The Tabari year of Mazandaran begins with the month of Fardineh ma, whose first day is fixed on 2 Mordad. The calendar has twelve months of 30 days and five extra days, the pitak. Mazandaranis call the day Tabari Nowruz or Mazruni Nowruz; around Chashm, north of Semnan, it was the herders' new year, when shepherds' yearly contracts ended and they rested and feasted for the last five days of the year. In the mountain villages the morning of the first day of every Tabari month was once kept as Marma ('mother-month'): a lucky person, often a child, had to be the first to enter the house, and nothing was lent or traded that day. Today it survives mostly at the turn of the solar year, when the first to enter carries a tray with a bowl of water, a green branch and a Quran, and the branch stays over the door until Sizdah Bedar.