A phyemar, or five-grain bucket, is a must. On New Year's Eve, the family gets together and eats a kind of bread called dguthug, made of nine ingredients, including dried meat, butter bits, and the fruit of Manilkara zapota. Inside the dguthug is a bit of wool or charcoal or some peas, pepper, or other objects. If one finds wool in his dguthug, he is said to be kindhearted. If he comes upon a piece of charcoal, he is blackhearted.
Peas signify cunningness, and pepper bespeaks rudeness and unreasonableness.
There are bursts of laughter as the objects are spat out at the New Year's Eve dinner table. When the dinner is over, the family members drive away ghosts by sweeping all the corners of the house, rubbing their bodies with zanba, and then running outside to cast aside the zanba tainted with bad luck and disasters at distant road crossings or in the wilderness. As night falls, bonfires are lit everywhere, both in the countryside and the cities. The adults hurry back home for fear of being chased by ghosts, and the youngsters shout and jump for joy around the bonfire. As New Year's Day dawns, the housewives go to fetch the first bucket of clean well or spring water and then wake the other family members to get up and water the animals.