Mattu Pongal is the third day of the Pongal festival, when Tamil farming families honour their cattle — bathing them, painting their horns and feeding them the first pongal. It falls the day after Thai Pongal, in mid-January.
When: Second day of the Tamil month of Thai — the day after Thai Pongal (mid-January)
Where: Tamil Nadu, especially farming villages; observed by Tamil families everywhere
Deity: Cattle themselves are venerated; tradition links the day to Nandi, Shiva's bull
Observance: Cattle bathed and decorated, horns painted, garlanded, fed sweet pongal; jallikattu held in some districts
Mattu Pongal turns the harvest thanksgiving of the previous day toward the animals who made the harvest possible. In a traditional Tamil farm economy the bullock pulled the plough and the cart, and the cow gave milk, dung for fuel and manure for the field; one day of the year is set aside to honour that debt. Tradition tells a story about Nandi, Shiva's bull: sent to earth to instruct people to take an oil bath daily and eat once a month, he muddled the message and told them to eat daily and bathe in oil once a month. For this, the story goes, Shiva sent him to live on earth and help humans plough the fields they would now need to feed themselves — which is why the bull labours beside the farmer, and why he is thanked on this day. The same date is kept as Kanuma by Telugu families in Andhra Pradesh.
How Mattu Pongal is observed
In the morning, cattle are washed, their horns are scraped, oiled and painted in bright colours, and their foreheads smeared with turmeric and kumkum. Garlands of flowers, tinkling bells, beads and sometimes brass caps for the horns complete the decoration. The animals are fed before the family eats — sweet pongal, bananas, jaggery and fresh grass — and an aarati is performed to ward off the evil eye. In many villages the decorated herds are paraded through the streets. Some districts of Tamil Nadu, notably around Madurai (Alanganallur, Palamedu and Avaniyapuram), hold jallikattu, the ancient bull-embracing sport in which young men try to cling to the hump of a running bull. Jallikattu has been genuinely controversial: the Supreme Court of India banned it in 2014 on animal-welfare grounds, and after major public protests in 2017 Tamil Nadu enacted a law permitting it under regulation, a position the court upheld in 2023.
Keeping Mattu Pongal in Ottawa and Canada
Few Tamil families in Canada keep cattle, so Mattu Pongal in the diaspora becomes a day of remembrance and teaching rather than of ritual bathing and garlanding. Many households mark it simply: an image or small figure of a cow or of Nandi is decorated at the home altar, sweet pongal made the previous day is offered, and children are told the Nandi story and shown photographs or video calls of grandparents' villages, where the real celebrations unfold. Some families make a donation to a goshala (cow shelter) in India on this day, which is a fitting modern continuation of the festival's spirit of gratitude to animals. The date is fixed by the solar calendar — the day after Thai Pongal — and this site's calendar shows it each year. Watching the Madurai jallikattu coverage online has itself become a diaspora ritual for many Tamil households.
Each link opens our computed festival calendar with exact dates and timings for your city.
Questions
Is jallikattu part of Mattu Pongal everywhere?
No. Jallikattu is held only in certain districts, mainly around Madurai, and only under state regulation. For most Tamil families Mattu Pongal is a gentle domestic day of bathing, decorating and feeding cattle — the sport is a regional tradition layered on the same date, not the festival's core.
Why are cattle fed before the family eats?
Feeding the animals first expresses the day's whole meaning: the household's food came through their labour, so on this one day the order of precedence is reversed and the cattle eat the festival food — sweet pongal, fruit and fresh grass — before any person does.