Each July or August the village of Makunduchi on Zanzibar welcomes the new year of an old solar calendar with a ritual battle and a burning hut whose smoke foretells the year ahead.
Photo: Yamen, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Tanzania’s entry in this atlas is Mwaka Kogwa, the New Year celebration of Makunduchi, a historic town in the south of Unguja, the main island of Zanzibar, where the people still keep an ancient solar calendar.
In Makunduchi on Zanzibar, the New Year of an ancient solar calendar is welcomed with a ritual battle, followed by the burning of a hut — and the direction its smoke takes tells the village what the coming year will bring.
July – August 2027Approximate window