Holidays used to burst out, like spring daisies, all over the calendar.

Alas, our months are becoming less fertile. Christmas, once a 12-day festival, has been reduced to a single date. Lincoln and Washington now have to share a birthday.

Arbor Day? St. Nicholas Day? Loyalty Day? Fuggedaboudit.

One forgotten holiday seems to be making a comeback: Pinkster.

This year, it's Sunday, June 9 — but there are celebrations all through the spring season, including Saturday in Westchester, New York, Sunday in River Edge, and June 5 to 16 in all five boroughs of New York.

The interesting thing about Pinkster is that it seems to have evolved along two separate, parallel tracks.

On one hand, it's a colonial Dutch-American festival of spring. On the other hand, it's an African-American celebration of family, hope and cultural identity.

Around here, you can sample both. Several historic sites will be observing Pinkster this month and next with dancing, decorating, feasting and historic tours.

"It's basically a spring festival, so it's the theme of rebirth and hopefulness, of looking forward to the future," says Deborah Powell, past president of the Bergen County Historical Society.

The society has been hosting an annual Pinkster event since 2001 at New Bridge Landing, the 18th-century historic site in River Edge where Washington — among other notables — slept. This year's event is Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m.

The word "Pinkster" is actually a corruption of the Dutch "Pinksteren" — or "Pentecost."

Sites with a Dutch colonial pedigree, such as New Bridge Landing, are doing Pinkster the Dutch way. There will be maypole dancing, doughnuts, raspberry punch, and a Pinkster cake decorated with the Pinkster flower: azalea.

There will be live period music: Musicians Ridley and Anne Enslow, stars of the annual "Colonial Christmas" event at New Bridge Landing, will be featured on fiddle and hammered dulcimer.

And there will be egg-dying. Yes, exactly. As in Easter.

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As a matter of fact, the whole Easter egg and bunny business — which has little to do with the Resurrection, after all — was probably filched from Pinkster. It's not the first time one holiday was enfolded into another, as 19th-century employers tried to cut down on the number of days their workers took off. Santa Claus used to come not on Christmas, but on Dec. 6: St. Nicholas Day.

So, yes — eggs.

"We're going to have egg-dying with natural herbs and organic materials," Powell says.

Another kind of Pinkster

But Dutch farmers and merchants were not the only people in this area in the 18th and 19th centuries.

There were also African-Americans, free and enslaved — many owned by the Dutch — who appropriated Pinkster and transformed it into a celebration of family, hope and covert resistance. An early Kwanzaa, you might say.

"Pinkster was a cross-cultural holiday, between the Dutch and the African-American community," says Karen Clark, a spokeswoman for Historic Hudson Valley, a consortium of historic landmarks including Philipsburg Manor living history museum in Sleepy Hollow, New York (formerly North Tarrytown).

There is a "Celebrate Pinkster at Philipsburg Manor" event Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. It will feature African drumming, dancing, cooking and storytelling.

Musicians Maxwell Kofi Donkor (drums), Muhamadou Salieu Suso (kora, a West African string instrument) and Henrique Prince (fiddle) will play; master drummer Neil Clarke will demonstrate his craft; and culinary expert Michael Twitty will be signing copies of his book "The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African-American Culinary History in the Old South."

In addition, April Armstrong will tell stories, and Judith Samuel and the Children of Dahomey will demonstrate dances.

"We really focus on the African-American tradition, since that's who lived and worked at Philipsburg," Clark says. "At Philipsburg Manor, there were 23 enslaved individuals, owned by the Philips, a Dutch family that lived there in the 18th century. This was a provisioning plantation. There was a mill here; there were tenant farmers. It was a center of commerce."

An African-American Pinkster celebration generally lasted for three days. It was a time when slave families, dispersed throughout the colonies, were allowed to reunite, reconnect and pass on their traditions. Games were played, a Pinkster king was crowned, and there would be dancing, eating, music making and a parade.

"It was a celebration of values, including the values of self-reliance, community, self-assertion," says Mary Liz Stewart, co-founder of the Underground Railroad History Project, based in Albany, New York.

Along with another group, MetroFriends, it is sponsoring a different kind of Pinkster celebration organizers call "5 Boros to Freedom." It features events at various African-American historic sites in all five New York boroughs on June 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 and 16. There are walking tours, visits to African-American burial grounds, tours of churches that were active in the underground railroad, storytelling events and more.

"This is not an effort to re-create what's done at an African-American Pinkster celebration, but to acknowledge the themes that are being celebrated on Pinkster," Stewart says.

Those themes were not lost on 18th-century observers.

It must have been evident, even to the most oblivious whites, that Pinkster, as celebrated by African-American slaves, was more than just fun and games. By 1811, New York had banned the holiday. There had been major slave uprisings there in 1712 and 1741; no one wanted another.

"The folks in charge were very much afraid of large gatherings of people of color," Stewart says.

Pinkster events for 2019

"Pinkster Fest: A Jersey Dutch Celebration of Spring," 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday, May 19, Historic New Bridge Landing, 1201 Main St., River Edge. $12, $7 students. 201-343-9492 or bergencountyhistory.org

"Celebrate Pinkster at Philipsburg Manor," 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, May 18, Philipsburg Manor, 381 North Broadway, Sleepy Hollow, N.Y. $14, $12 for seniors and students, $8 for children 3 to 17, free for kids under 3. 914-366-6900 or hudsonvalley.org

"5 Boros to Freedom: a Pinkster Celebration," 10 a.m. June 5, walking tour, starting at Manhattan City Hall, 1 Police Plaza.; 2 p.m. June 6, Schenk Park Celebration, New Lots Branch Library, 665 New Lots Ave., Brooklyn; 10 a.m. June 8, Seneca Village Walking Tour, starting at Mariners' Gate, 85th Street and Central Park West; noon June 8: Hunts Point Slave Burial Ground Walking Tour, 1290 Spofford Ave., Bronx; noon and 2 p.m. June 8, Reading of Slave Narratives, Staten Island Museum, 1000 Richmond Terrace, Staten Island; 1 p.m. June 9, walking tour, starting at 131 E. 10th St., near Second Avenue, Manhattan; 3 p.m. June 10, house tour and animated film, Lewis Latimer House, 34-41 137th Street, Queens; noon June 16: Plymouth Church tour, 57 Orange Street, Brooklyn, 518 432-4432 or undergroundrailroadhistory.org

Email: beckerman@northjersey.com; Twitter: @jimbeckerman1