What is Ashenda/አሸንዳ?
Ashenda (አሸንዳ) is an annual festival celebrated in August in Tigray. The holiday started as a cultural one, but evolved to a religious one celebrated by girls of all religious backgrounds. The Ashenda holiday is named after the long, thin 'Ashenda' grass which girls tie to hang down from their waists in a fashionable pattern. The Ashenda grass has come to symbolize the cultural festival, as dancing girls move their waists causing the leaves to shake in an eye-catching manner.
Ashenda marks the end of two-week-long fasting known as Filseta (Ge’ez: ፆመ-ፍልሰታ) when adherents of the Tigray Orthodox Church gather to honor the Virgin Mary, but the holiday has grown way beyond that now. It has become a cultural event. It is typically celebrated between 16 and 26 August every year. Recently the festival has grown in popularity and is being adopted in other parts of Ethiopia. Its length varies from three days to one month depending on the locale, being celebrated over a longer duration in rural areas and a shorter one in urban areas..
How is Ashenda/አሸንዳ Celebrated?
Every year Tigryan young girls and women eagerly await the great day that dawns Ashenda, the colorful festival. Young girls, young ladies especially teenager girls take to the streets with a hand drum singing and dancing with friends and peers for a week. Ashenda girls wear a special and colorful, cultural dress with unique fancy hairstyles and jewels on the neck, as well as ornaments on the hands, ears, and feet.
Ashenda girls hunt for men, they circle around them, and request them to pay anything they can in such beautiful cultural songs and dances and they won’t let you leave without paying. If you do, there are such songs dedicated for those who don’t pay, a kind of culturally accepted insulting songs. There is no specific amount as to how much money you can pay, you are welcome to give any amount you can.
Ashenda girls continue this celebration by gathering in a central place where they divide themselves into smaller groups before going house to house to sing, dance and entertain the people of their community. As a customary, people give them gifts in form of money, food and drinks. This goes on the entire day and throughout the festival period. To close the celebrations the women and girls convene in a central area to drum, dance, sing and socialize.
