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| By
: Ly Vanna, Picture by : Nathan Dexter. |
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Every year
in almost every village in Cambodia, a special festival
marks the end of a season of hard work.
This is the Darlien or Sdarlien Festival-the Festival
of the Harvest.
Da, more formally, or Sdar, means a Buddhist ritual
or ceremony at which merit from good deeds is offered
to the spirits of ancestors or to patrons. Lien
is the name for the rice-threshing yard. Although
it always falls around the Khmer lunar months of
Boh and Meak Thom (usually January and February
on the western calendar), the timing of the festival
depends on the season, the weather and the rice.
When the rice is ready for harvest, most of the
village goes to the fields to help bring it in.
This is a period of backbreaking work. But when
the fields are finally bare, that marks a time for
celebration. "When our villagers have finished
the harvest, we wait for that day to celebrate Darlien,"
Mr Vorn, an achaa from Poun PhnomPagoda in Dorn
Kor district, Phnom Penh, said.
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Monks are brought offerings
by the villagers to thank the village ancestors
and the Gods for another successful harvest.
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"It always
starts in the evening and finishes on the afternoon of
the next day."
First the villagers gather, either at the local pagoda
or sometimes in the village. Monks soon arrive to pray
and give thanks to the ancestors for providing the harvest.
Then the festivities begin. Everyone wears their best
clothes. Amplifiers boom out the music and the younger
generations dance, often until late at night or even through
to the morning. The elders might join in, or they might
just sit and watch and talk.
Dances are not limited to traditional fare such as roamvong
(a slower, circular dance) and roamkbarch (classical dance).
Slow songs alternate with Khmer and western pop and this
is a festival for celebrating an end to the tough slog
of harvest, so modern music and western disco is often
on the cards. |
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Everyone in the village comes
to bring offerings of the new season’s rice
to celebrate Darlien, or the festival of the harvest.
It is a time of great happiness for it signals
the end of the backbreaking work of the harvest.
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The next
morning, the villagers return, bringing food for
the monks. They begin collecting offerings from
the new harvest of rice and bringing it to the pagoda.
More than 80 per cent of Cambodians rely on farming
to survive. The economy is overwhelmingly agriculture
based, and a harvest, whether bumper or just sufficient,
is a cause for relief and joy. This year, drought
in some areas and flooding in others has brought
the national harvest down, and rice prices have
already risen.
"Somaly rice (the best quality rice) is 1200
riel per kilo this year, compared to 1100 last year,"
Chan Kheng, 49, a rice seller in Toul Kork market,
said recently.
But Darlien is not the time for people to worry
about the disappointments of the last season.
The Darlien Ceremony brings the whole village together.
"We have spent between three and nine months
on the rice crop and each grain we have is a result
of a huge physical effort and worry and stress,"
said Mrs Porn, a farmer from Phnom Krorvang district,
Pursat province.
"Each single grain that makes it to our table
is after inevitable wastage during harvest, the
work of threshing, loading and transporting, husking,
then cleaning and boiling it. We are thankful."
The next day follows the same routine, with all
sorts of food from samlor (soup) to sweets and |
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| cakes are collected
at the pagoda or wherever the festival is being held and
the villagers sit down together and eat before the festivities
recommence. |
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Altogether,
three meals will be eaten communally here before
Darlien is over.
There are slightly different takes on what Darlien
celebrates.
Although Darlien today is very much a Buddhist ceremony,
its origins precede both Brahmanism and Buddhism
and lie deeply in the ancient animist beliefs of
Cambodia.
"Darlien is a celebration giving thanks to
nature rice soil, rain, water and weather-as well
as our ancestors and elders and, of course, the
lien and the granary that will store our precious
harvest," Professor Hang Soth of the General
Department of Cultural Techniques, Ministry of Culture
and Fine Arts, explained.
"Nowadays, Darlien has become a mixture of
the three religions.
“Ancestor worship refers to animism; natural
resources fall under Brahmanism and the involvement
of monks and the pagoda is an important acknowledgment
of Cambodia's national religion, Buddhism."
But Darlien means different things to different
people. Achaa Vorn believes it is mainly to give
thanks to those who farmed before him.
"The ceremony thanks our ancestors, who have
given us everything," he said.
But Mr Chhim Khorn, who is director of a primary
school in Poun Phnom, was one of those who saw the
fun side, too.
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An elderly woman brings
her contribution, balancing it on her head.
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"It's also
a happy time, a time to relax with friends after the harvest
is finished for another year," he said.
"Villagers in Cambodia love this time. We always
say 'chab khser khleing prorleng khser kor' play with
your kites and leave the cows. It is the time we have
fun between the harvest and starting all over again, planting
the rice, in May."
The new season is not far away at all. Farmers will begin
to plant again from the day after the Royal Ploughing
Ceremony, held on April 30. |
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B8, Regency Square, InterContinental Hotel, 294 Mao Tse Toung
Boulevard,
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