Ojonyi (/oˈʤoɲi/)

The Ojonyi festival is celebrated when the blue and red stars get together to mark the start of the Hot season for the Tsomowbe people. Both stars chase each other the whole year in semi-concurrent trajectories that have only one tangent point. Half a year the red star runs its way under the blue and it is the opposite during the second half. Every other year the blue star over the red generates the Itu Ojonyi, where the pink halo around the blue star, and on the next, there is the Oj Ojonyi, where the red star is surrounded by the pink halo. The Festival marks the end of the Frost camp when all wood, waste and straw that made up the camp, plus the waste from the processing of Momzuma wool and weaving new fine and coarse fabrics were piled up in huge pyres. These were set ablaze three days before the festival and stay burning for the day for the exact day of the encounter and three next one completing the Ojoni week. The carts were kept filled, the animals rounded and ready, as soon as the first sunlight after the week festival raised in the sky, they were on move. It was their own way to thank the ancestors and the gods for surviving the winter, the bountiful wool and fabric productions that will point to a next promising year. The clans shared not only meals but also sons and daughters. Hundreds of unions were celebrated during the Ojonyi. As the stars find each other, also younglings find each other during the same occasion. Unions occur on other occasions too, but they usually occur among clan members. The connections between clans would be rarer if not for the biggest festival.