It is possible that at the beginning of 2025, and more so with the rain this Sunday, you have already heard the term cabañuelas, which is used to refer to an ancestral tradition to predict the weather.
If you do not know what cabañuelas refer to or how they work, do not worry, here we will tell you the details.
Cabañuelas are a method traditionally used by farmers, which based on the observation of atmospheric conditions in the first 12 days of January, seeks to predict the weather.
In this way, some farmers study climate changes during the first days of January to know the weather forecast for the 12 months of the year. For example, if it rains or is cold on January 10, the 10th month (which in this case corresponds to October) is predicted to occur a similar phenomenon.
Based on this type of analysis, in the past it was known in which month one could sow or carry out another type of activity.
For farmers, reading the cabañuelas is a priority because thanks to this empirical study, it is possible to predict the rainy and dry months in order to sow and obtain a good harvest.
Those who use this method must keep a log of the weather for each day in January, write down the characteristics of the sky, the temperature, the wind and then relate that day to the month that corresponds to it.
But this tradition has been lost because the climate change that the world has experienced in recent decades has modified its results.
When do the cabañuelas begin?
The counting of the cabañuelas begins on January 1 and ends on January 12, since each day represents a month of the year.
Origin
Since approximately 35,000 years before Christ, this type of predictions were made based on the Moon, which allowed man to hunt and fish according to the weather conditions.
It is believed that the cabañuelas arose in Spain as a result of the “Feast of Tabernacles,” in which the Jews remembered the 40 years that their people had to walk through the Sinai desert in search of the Promised Land, which included rituals in which the weather was predicted.
The origin of “the cabañuelas” in Mexico comes from the Aztecs, who in turn adopted this knowledge from the Mayans, since in both cases their calendar consisted of 18 months with 20 days each. The first 18 days of January served for each of the months and the remaining two days predicted other phenomena.
Source: lavozdemichoacan
