The Festival of Rebirth

The Festival of Rebirth is a major religious event in the Dunmari calendar, the most significant feast day of the goddess Jeevali. It is celebrated on the first full moon after the vernal equinox, marking the beginning of summer. It is the remembrance and thanks of Jeevali’s resurrection during the Founding of Dunmar. As one of the most important festivals in the Dunmari religious calendar, it is typically always associated with large communal fairs and celebrations around temples, and the coming together of dispersed communities, especially in the more nomadic Eastern Dunmar.

The Miracle of Jeevali’s Resurrection

The central tale of the Festival of Rebirth is the story of Jeevali’s Resurrection, strongly associated with the Founding of Dunmar. It is typically told as follows:

The Miracle of Jeevali's Resurrection ↗

It is told among the Dunmari, that when their ancestors first came to the land now called Dunmar, it was dry and dead, a barren landscape cursed by an ancient plague, in which no crops could grow. The people suffered, and died, from drought and hunger and fear.

Jeevali, it is said, who had sheltered her people on the long journey, wept in sorrow and despair, wept for her people who were starving in the land that should sustain them. She cried tears that poured from the heavens, falling as soft rains, cleansing the land and purifying the soil. Rivers sprung up where her tears fell, and the land was blessed.

As she cried, the power of her tears grew and grew, washing away the curse upon the land. But she put so much of her power and spirit into her tears that she began to fade away. As the rains faded, so did Jeevali. She diminished, and was gone, falling silent to even the most fervent prayers of her miracle workers.

For a year, the people, led by Bhishma, prayed, singing her name every day, calling to her, begging her to return. Though she was quiet, still, her people prospered. The harvests that year were bountiful, the lambs and calves and foals healthy and numerous. Until the hot summer passed, and the rains came again to fall gently on the land, the people prayed and chanted her name.

Then, in a miracle, the rains came again and as new life began to grow from the fertile soil, Jeevali also grew from the ground, the power of the belief of her people restoring her.

Typical Celebration

The festival of rebirth is traditionally celebrated over the course of two days, with the celebration focused around a traditional shrine to Jeevali. Jeevali watches over and protects sources of water, and all around Dunmar there are shrines – sometimes small and simple, sometimes substantial, elaborate statuaries – that are placed near wells, fountains, oases, streams, and rivers. The Festival of Rebirth is, in many ways, about renewing and celebrating these shrines.

The celebration begins the evening before the feast day, when the blessed of Jeevali (usually priests or priestesses in larger communities) gather the old shrine or shrines, and form a procession, with the community following, to a public gathering place, invariably outside. Here, the story of Jeevali is told. As the people chant the tale of the death of Jeevali, the shrine is set alight, and burned to symbolize Jeevali’s passing and sacrifice. This is usually a solemn ceremony, and begins a fast that lasts until Jeevali’s rebirth, the next day; many priests keep vigil through the night, reflecting and echoing the prayers of Bhishma in the year of Dunmar’s founding.

Through the night, or in the pre-dawn light and early morning the next day, the people of the community gather the materials for the new shrine. Gathering at the site of the old shrine, the community offers their contributions to the new shrine of Jeevali, and by some trick of the light or by the magic of the gods all these individual offerings begin to fuse together, symbolizing Jeevali’s rebirth.

This is followed by a joyous parade that carries the new shrine through the community, ending with a feast that often lasts far into the night.

In Karawa

Here is how the festival happened in Karawa, in DR 1748:

Before the feast day, there are several days of fairs and games and markets, that are particularly notable as they draw a wide, diverse crowd from across the desert lands.

On the evening before, Suma, the priestess of Jeevali, and a number of litter bearers carry a tall sculpture shaped like a tree, and seemingly made of vines, and dried flowers, and bits of wood and seeds all pulled together into a trunk, with a design that spirals up to a crown of branches and leaves at the top. They carry the sculpture to the desert, where Suma tells the story of Jeevali’s death.

As the story reaches Jeevali’s death, the tree-shrine is set alight, marking the death of Jeevali and the end of the religious cycle of the year. As the shrine catches on fire, as it bursts into flames, it doesn’t just burn normally, but pieces of it drift off almost like fireworks floating in all directions, but mostly west. And as these embers drift to the west, a sigh goes through the crowd as Suma says that Jeevali is with us, Jeevali is going west and we will follow her. Many people stay awake through the night, in prayer or reflection.

The next morning, people gather their contributions to the new shrine, and by some trick of the light or by the magic of the gods all these individual offerings begin to fuse together. But the procession that marks the festival is a solemn affair, with none of the usual costumes and flair and joyous dancing, and ends in tragedy.