Mesir Macunu Festival

A cure for a sultan’s mother

The story told in Manisa is that Hafsa Sultan, mother of Süleyman the Magnificent, fell ill in the city with a disease nobody could name. Merkez Efendi, chief physician of the medrese at the Sultan Mosque, prepared a paste for her from forty-one plants and spices, and she recovered. She asked that the paste be given to the people every year in the week of Nevruz. The festival has continued in the city for about four hundred years.

Making the mesir

Every year the paste, mesir macunu, is prepared by a master and his apprentices from forty-one spices and herbs, following the traditional method. A team of at least fourteen women wraps it in small, brightly coloured papers — work that calls for cleanliness, skill, experience and patience. The paste is blessed with prayers for healing, and throughout the preparation and the festival an orchestra in traditional dress plays historic Ottoman music.

Catching a piece

The climax is the scattering. The wrapped paste is thrown from the minaret and domes of the Sultan Mosque to the crowd below, and thousands of people from all over Türkiye compete to catch the packets before they reach the ground. Many believe that whoever catches one will see their wishes — for marriage, work or children — come true within a year.

Around it the city holds a traditional mesir procession, a cooking competition, concerts, theatre, folk dancing and entertainment for children. Manisa’s governorate describes the festival as a gesture of hospitality, and sends mesir to guests from abroad and to neighbouring provinces. It was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List in 2012.