Yomari punhi

‘Yomari Punhi’ is festival celebrated among the Newari community of Nepal, marking the end of the rice harvest. It is celebrated in November/December during the full moon day of ‘thinla’, the second month in the lunar ‘Nepal Sambat’ calendar. Here ‘yomari’ refers to a steamed goodie made up of rice flour with molasses and sesame seed stuffing while ‘punhi’ refers to full moon.
On this full moon day, people of Newar community offer worship to Annapurna, the goddess of grains, for the rice harvest. Groups of kids go around neighborhood to beg yomari cakes from housewives in the evening. Sacred masked dances are performed in the villages of Hari Siddhi and Thecho at the southern end of the Kathmandu Valley to mark the festival. In a yomari people keep ‘chaku’ a chocolate-like food or ‘khuwa’ a ricotta-cheese-like dairy product. It is very tasty.