Palm Festival

Taking place on the 3rd of Vamendour every year, the festival is fairly small within Samalat within communities in close proximity of Date or palm plantations. As a festival of love, the men of the city are encouraged to watch their potential brides dance, and pick one for themselves to try to obtain throughout the rest of the year.

History

As have most traditions origins been lost to time, so has the Palm Festivals original inception. The legends around the festival usually tell stories from a religious point of view. One of the gods of fertility and love, dancing on her own in a field of dates, unaware of her next suitor watching from afar. After dancing the night away, she collapsed from exhaustion into his arms. She slept for a full day and a full night. After she awoke the following morning, the suitor gracefully asked for her hand in marriage.

Smaller communities use the Palm Festival as a way to bring attention to the women of the family, usually as a way to extend the family line, and sometimes make friends with other households along the way. Though the tradition is not held to an exact standard of attendance, it is rare for single members of the community to avoid the festival overall.

Execution

On the day of the festival, men of every household are expected to cater to their wives every whim. They cook, they clean, and take the day off of work for most professions within the city. Wives get to enjoy this comfort, but they instead spend the day teaching and helping their daughters, mostly the single women of the city, how to sew.

The sewing starts at the first peek of dawn on the day of the festival, with women creating simple dresses. Some may fit intricate designs along the hem of the dress, including flowers, animals, and their family crest or symbol, yet these are outside the norm.

At the peak of the day, every woman looking for a suitor puts on the dress they were making ,and walks out of town to the festival grounds. Usually this takes place in a palm or date field which gave rise to the name of the festival. The festival grounds is sacred, as no man is allowed to enter the fields until the dawn of the following morning.

Once the women decide that there are enough women congregated, usually a few hours before sunset, they begin to dance. The dancing is usually accompanied by music, with female musicians, and female caterers bringing enjoyment to the dancing mass of women within the town. This dancing is usually overseen by the suitors of a town, watching from the border of the fields, as they look for a new wife.

The festival proceeds until all the women dancing are exhausted, or until dawn the next morning, where the women are allowed to sleep for the rest of the day in their culture. In some cases, one of the single men will escort the women home after the festival, more than likely while being watched from afar by a worried, exhausted father.

Men

Even though men are not the prime targets of this holiday, they still find themselves busy and accepting of the culture surrounding it. Only men take to the streets, and many a son will stay at home to ensure the protection of their sisters chastity and virtue. Patriarchs of the family will commonly find single men, and recite love poems to them, in the hopes that they too can find joy within the world like they have.