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Chinese Spring Festival

The festival begins on the eve of the Chinese New Year with an explosion of firecrackers to chase away evil spirits. New Years Day is in January or February and does not fall on the same day every year due to the irregularity of the lunar month. During the week before New Year's Day there is a thorough spring—cleaning of the home. Traditionalists make visits to pagodas on New Year's Eve with offerings and prayers of thanksgiving. The Day itself is a holiday for the Chinese community who celebrate by going to the beach. Neither scissors nor knives are used on the Day and the colour red, symbolic of happiness, is favoured. Food is displayed in an honoured place in the home in the hope of abundance in the coming year. Cakes made of rice flour and honey, called wax cakes because of their texture, are shared with relatives and friends.

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  • Moon Festival - Mid Autumn Festival

    Chinese families all across the Mauritius celebrates The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival. This holiday celebrates the date that parallels the autumn and spring Equinoxes of the solar calendar, when the moon is supposedly at its fullest and roundest.

  • Population and Religion

    Population and Religion

    At 31 December 1997, the population was estimated to be 1,120,530. It is divided into several ethnic groups, namely the Indo-Mauritians, creoles (that is persons having European, Madagascar and African origin) and Chinese Mauritians. Most of the festivities without fixed dates have been brought by the Indians but mostly by the tamilians. But there are also Chinese and Christian rites. The musical instruments that can be seen in Mauritius are the Ravane, a kind of big tambourine to give the rhythm for the tam-tam of the sega.

    FESTIVITIES

  • Culture & Language of Mauritius

    The feasts in Mauritius are as various as the origin of the Mauritians and their religions.

    Visitors of the island shouldn't be afraid to attend the feasts.

  • Sankranti

    Sankranti - Festivals In Mauritius
    The first of the year's religious festivals. It is celebrated in the beginning of the Tamil month Thai in January/February, and is also known as Thai Pongal. It is an occasion of thanksgiving for the harvest where food is offered to the gods, which is represented by the ceremonial boiling of pongal (mixture of rice, sugar, milk and dhal) and the decoration of cows which are then fed the pongal. It is customary to wear new clothes at this time.

  • Shabe-Baraat

    Muslim celebration. Mid-Sha'ban is the 15th day of the Muslim month of Sha'ban. Laylatul Bara'ah is the night preceding the 15th day of Shaban. The month of Sha’ban is the eighth month of the Islamic lunar calendar. The fifteenth night of this month is known as Laylatul Bara’ah or Laylatun Nisfe min Sha’ban in the Arab world. In India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Afghanistan, etc., it is known as Shab-e-barat.

  • Divali

    Hindus celebrate the victory of Rama over the evil deity Ravana and Krishna’s destruction of the demon Narakasuran - the victory of good over evil - during Diwali, which falls in October or November. To mark this joyous event, clay oil lamps and paper lanterns with candles in them are placed in front of every Hindu and Tamil home on this Festival of Lights, to show Rama (the seventh incarnation of Vishnu) the way home from his period of exile.

  • Holi

    The festival of colours, is known for the squirting of coloured water and the spraying of coloured powder on one another and on everyone else the revellers come across. The festival symbolises the victory of divine power over demonic strength. On the night before Holi, bonfires are built to symbolise the destruction of the evil demon Holika. This festival is held in February or March and is a noisy and cheerful festival.

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