Yuhanna Tünü
Yuhanna Tünü (Iradi, "St. John's Night") is the bonfire night of the Iradis, held on the night of 23–24 June, the eve of the Nativity of John the Baptist and the shortest night of the year.[1]
Customs
Each household brings a bundle of wood (dork) to the bonfires, which are lit on riverbanks, such as the embankment of the Talas River in Talas, the Chu at Nurzhan and the Naryn flats at Iyık Janyl, and on ridges, where chains of fires can be seen across the valleys of the Autonomous Tribal Regions. At midnight people jump the fire, seven times for luck, three times for a wish and nine for love, and then wash their faces in the river or at a spring, whose water is held to be blessed that night; some go into the water. Notes with troubles or wishes, and old things, are burnt.[1]
Herbs gathered on the eve (vaysh), among them wild thyme, mint, St. John's wort, wild rose and a sprig of juniper, are left in a bowl of water under the stars, and the family washes in this vaysh suu at dawn. Herbalists (tabyp) hold that herbs picked that night are the strongest. Girls float small boats of juniper with candles on the river; the owner of the boat that goes farthest is said to marry first.[1]
Church and state
Priests bless the fires after the evening vigil, and the Syro-Iradi Catholic Church tolerates the other customs. Fire bans in the drought years of 2021 and 2023 were ignored on the ridges. In Nurzhan, Russian-speaking residents keep Ivan Kupala on the same night, with wreaths floated on the river, and the two celebrations meet on the Chu embankment. Ethnographers see the bonfire as a Sogdian summer fire taken over by the Church, like the spring bonfire of the Tat (see Nau Met).[2]
References
- ^ Department of Ethnography, Talas State University (2009). Healers of the High Valleys. Talas: Talas State University Press.
- ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2018). 'Roads, Refuge and Reputation: Honour Customs of the Iradi Clans.' Vol. 11, pp. 5–29.