NEW YEAR'S DAY. – The feast of New Year's Day closes, among all human groups, a period of time, generally calculated on the astronomical cycle of the seasons, and opens a new one. It is the concern of the groups that celebrate it to eliminate, almost officially, through appropriate ceremonies, the past with all its evil, and to begin with auspicious rites the period that is starting. The New Year's feasts therefore have the double aspect of a casting away, an expiation of the evil committed or suffered in the period that has closed, and of good auspices for the future, whose veil they also seek to pierce with divinatory practices.
Eliminatory rites: striking every corner of the house with a stick to drive out evil spirits and then throwing the stick into a river; throwing out of the house all useless or broken objects; making noise by striking copper objects, sounding trumpets as in the Jewish New Year (rōš haš-šānāh), burning paper effigies representing the spirit of evil; in ancient Rome, driving out with blows of a stick Mamurius Veturius, representative of Old Mars, that is, the year gone by; in Babylon, during the feast of the akitu, also called sagmuk, sacrificing a ram whose head, severed from the body, is, together with the body, after being rubbed on the walls of the temple, thrown into the river; this is followed by the confession of sins by the king, stripped of the royal insignia and kneeling: after which, having put the insignia back on, he renews the sacred provision of his royal power by touching the statue of the god Marduk. Also during the akitu, this god, who was in possession of the tablets of destiny, fixed the destiny of the city for the whole year. On the day of the Jewish New Year (rōš haš-šānāh) Jewish tradition likewise believes that Yahweh judges the actions of men and fixes the destiny of individuals for the whole year.
Auspicious and divinatory rites: words of good omen, exchange of gifts (among the Romans strennae, whence "strenna"), everywhere characterize the New Year's feast, as do the lighting of the new fire, propitiatory prayers, the tasting of foods that express abundance (rice, lentils) or fertility (animals). The auspicious rites are often accompanied by divinatory practices, now surviving only in popular tradition, and directed at knowing the future especially with regard to marriage, the harvest, and death. A very widespread custom in Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and Germanic northern Europe is that of foretelling the events of the 12 months of the new year by observing those of the 12 days from Christmas to Epiphany. The use of the prognostication drawn from the observation of a period of 12 days is very ancient and is also found in Vedic India, where it was believed that the Ribhus, the divine craftsmen "givers of treasures," remained for 12 days in the house of the Sun and that during that time, as genii of the seasons, they gave the earth irrigation of water and luxuriance of vegetation (Rg Veda, IV, 35, 7). Perhaps the number 12 corresponds to the 12 days that had to be intercalated in India to bring the shorter lunar year into agreement with the solar one.
The Christian year, being based on the life of its Founder Jesus, does not coincide with the civil year but begins on the first Sunday of Advent; nevertheless the Church, adapting itself to civil usage, as it solemnly thanks God with the singing of the Te Deum for the benefits received in the year that is dying, so it invokes his help on the first day of the new year with the singing of the Veni Creator (v. ANNO, INIZIO dell'; CALENDARIO).