Easter is fast approaching and the shops are filled with chocolate eggs and bunnies.
We will be decorating our eggs at the Aros Park, near Tobermory in Mull and everybody is welcome to the egg hunt on Sunday the 4th of April at the Aros Park. Click here to Join us in the ABC!
Hard to say where this practice comes from but the Persian culture...
has a long tradition of egg decorating to celebrate their Norouz, or New Year. Families decorate eggs and place them in a bowl symbolizing fertility as part of the Haft Sīn or Seven S's. It is suggested that this tradition gave way to the modern celebrations of Easter as well as the decorating egg practice.
The Persian celebrate Norouz in the Spring equinox, which is generally around Easter for us. For many ancient cultures the egg represented rebirth, new beginning which fits well with the concept of Easter. That makes perfect sense, although the chocolate and the bunny seem at odds. Even though today's Easter celebration maybe a mixture of other celebrations they have a common theme, new life after some kind of death. Starting with the principle of many pagan celebrations, spring after winter, we can see the symbol of the rabbit or the hare as fertility and rebirth. It's also good to note that the first recorded edible easter bunnies in Germany were not made of chocolate but pastry and sugar, we may see an evolution from samanu, one of the seven S's in the Persian Haft Sin, a sweet pudding made from wheat germ symbolizing affluence, and we could even follow the evolution as German settlers arrive to America, where else could the chocolate been added!
Other traditions which may have influence are the Purim, Passover, and as we know it the observance of Lent when eating eggs is forbidden and in general there is (or was) also period of fasting. We could guess that people may have done things to preserve the eggs, pickle them in different ways or boil them hard, or bury them! |
