Coolie Christmas

English[edit]

(South Africa, dated, now offensive) Either of two festivals associated with Indians (in the sense of pre-partition, colonial India).
1. Muharram
  - 1902, Rev. Frederick B. Bridgman, “Durban — Its Fakirs and Its Christians”, in The Missionary Herald at Home and Abroad, volume 98, page 348:
    This is "Coolie Christmas," as it is popularly called here. Natal has over sixty thousand immigrants from India, and if we can believe our ears, it would seem that a good share of them have been beating tom-toms day and night for the last two weeks.
2. Diwali