Traditional Kwanzaa is an African-American and Pan-African holiday which celebrates family, community, and culture. Kwanzaa is a week-long celebration honoring African heritage and culture, marked by participants lighting a kinara. Kwanzaa was created by Ron Karenga and was first celebrated in 1966. Kwanzaa is considered one of the primary holidays within the United States Christmas and holiday season.

The name Kwanzaa is derived from the phrase “matunda ya kwanaa” which means “first fruits” in Swahili, a Pan-African language which is most widely spoken African language. It’s origins are in the first harvest celebrations of Africa from which it takes its name. The first fruits celebrations are recorded in African history as far back as ancient Egypt and Nubia and appear in ancient and modern times in other classical African civilizations such as Ashantiland and Yorubaland. Kwanzaa builds on the five fundamental activities of Continental Africa “first fruit” celebrations: ingathering; reverence; commemoration; recommitment; and celebration.

What’s Different about KuchuQwanzaa?

Like traditional Kwanzaa, KuchuQwanzaa is observed from December 26th to January 1st each year, and features activities such as candle-lighting and pouring of libations, and culminating in a feast and gift giving. As is customary with Kwanzaa, celebrants of KuchuQwanzaa decorate their households with objects of art and colorful African cloth. Just as the original Kwanzaa, KuchuQwanzaa is:

• a time of ingather of the people to reaffirm the bonds between them;

• a time of special reverence for the creator and creation in thanks and respect for the blessings, bountifulness and beauty of creation; a time for commemoration of the past in pursuit of its lessons and in honor of its models of human excellence, our ancestors;

• a time of recommitment to our highest cultural ideals in our ongoing effort to always bring forth the best of African cultural thought and practice;

• and a time for celebration of the good, the good of life and of existence itself, the good of family, community and culture, the good of the awesome and the ordinary, in a word the good of the divine, natural and social.

While KuchuQwanzaa is a derivative of Kwanzaa, there are some notable expansions and modifications.  For more information about Kwanzaa, visit http://www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org/symbols.shtml