On this day in the late seventeenth century, and every 8 September since, Konkani Catholics in the Konkan and later in Canara have carried the first sheaves of new paddy to church. Monti Fest, they call it — Monti from the hill, for Our Lady of the Mount — and it falls on the feast of the Nativity of Mary, so the calendar gives them a birthday and the fields give them a harvest, and the day simply holds both.

The nine days before belong largely to the children, who bring flowers to the crib each evening. Then the sheaves are blessed, and the grains are carried home and cooked into that day's rice, so that the blessing is not an abstraction but lunch. The meal is vegetarian, all of it, and the whole extended household eats the same food off the same table — no separate plate for anyone. It usually ends with vorn, a sweet of coconut milk and jaggery, and pieces of sugarcane passed around.

I have read a good deal of learned argument about which century, precisely, the custom began, and the committees are not finished yet. The paddy, meanwhile, ripens on schedule.