Seris Summer festival of art

Each year, when summer arrives, noblemen and commoners across the Seris Empire welcome the new season by gathering at the gardens of the main cities. This is a wonderful opportunity for creativity both in culinary and plastic arts.

Origins

The Seris Summer festival, known in Seris as "Smalye" is a very old one. It was celebrated widely at the seris cities long before Seria became an unified country. The primary purpose of this festival was to celebrate the arrival of Summer and the gathering of the first fruits.
In all davidovian cultures this month is related to the goddess of nature Tyr. According to the mythology of these peoples it was during this month that Abbon Shabai proposed married to the goddess and it brought her so much happiness that the first fruits began to appear.
In ancient times, unmarried women and little girls carried the first harvested fruits to the local temple of Tyr. They would also elaborate biscuits with animal or star shapes to be eaten by the whole family made with fruits like dates, oranges, strawberries, blackberries or peaches. Men on the other hand were the ones that harvested those aforementioned fruits, but for the nobility this festival was a moment to meet with other aristocrats at the gardens and composed poems related to summer or playing various games.

The modern festival

Although in some places, specially towns, the religious aspect of the festival survives, in the main cities while in the cities it has almost disappeared. Some aspects of the old festival survived, like the unmarried women and girls preparing those delicious biscuits with the first harvested fruits with animal shapes (like crabs, rabbits, turtles...) but new ones also appeared. The old games and poems composition of the aristocracy gave way to paintings and calligraphy exhibitions in the gardens of the main cities of the Empire (the most famous of these exhibitions being of course that organized at the capital, Sakouramish .
The most renowned masters of calligraphy and painting can be founded at these gardens, most of the time writing down poems made by passersby or making portraits of beautiful girls and families. They also display their works of art across these gardens and parks, not only for people to recognize their work but also for selling them to people who are willing to pay for them.
Once people have contemplated these wonderful works of art by the greatest masters, people return to their homes to have their lunch or dinner and to eat the biscuits done by their daughters or nieces. As the Summer festival is an occasion for family gatherings and family meals under the shadow of the trees in the gardens of the houses, of course, not without having done a libation of water and milk to the goddess at the family altar or in front of the statue of Tyr.

Primary Related Location

Sakouramish

Related Organizations

• Seris Empire

Related Ethnicities

• The seris