Residents in Rourkela perform puja of Sambaleswari on Thursday. Picture by Uttam Kumar Pal

Bhubaneswar, Sept. 4: Thousands of people across western Orissa today offered the first harvest of the season to their presiding deities to mark Nuakhai spreading the message of goodwill and brotherhood.

People celebrate the festival to welcome the first crop of the season and offer the new yield to gods and goddesses. After offering it to their presiding deities, people eat the offerings called nua (new).

The festival is usually celebrated in Sambalpur, Bolangir, Bargarh, Boudh, Deogarh, Jharsuguda, Kalahandi, Nuapara, Kandhamal, Rayagada, Subarnapur and Sundergarh districts.

In Sambalpur today, people offered prayer at Sambaleswari temple in the morning and offered her their new harvest. Similarly, in Bolangir and Subarnapur, people made offerings at the temples of Patneswari and Sureswari. As a tradition, the senior-most member of the family distributes the nabarna (rice cooked from new grain) to the rest of the members. Thereafter, people greet each other with a “Nuakhai Juhar”. It is a solemn occasion when people are asked to forget enmity, vanity and ego. People put aside their disputes and celebrate the festival on this day.

In the evening, it is habitual and obligatory to have meat, as it is believed that one who does not eat meat on the Nuakhai day, shall be born as a deer in his next birth. People may stay in far-off lands for there livelihood, but Nuakhai is an occasion for all of them try to reach home and celebrate this festival with other members of the family.

“The aim of the festival is to express man’s gratitude to nature and reverence to god for supply of food,” said veteran researcher Bibhu Prasad Mohanty.

“In other parts of the country, the festival is organised after the harvest, but here we observe it before the harvest since we like to welcome the new crop and worship the deities before the produce is used by men, animal and birds,” he said.