How to Start the New Year? Keep the Sea Goddess Happy.

World How to Start the New Year? Keep the Sea Goddess Happy. By Julia Carroll – January 1, 2024 Every New Year’s Eve, more than two million party-goers don attires in white to crowd Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for a majestic 15-minute firework show at midnight. That’s double the crowd that typically throng Times Square.

This grand celebration, one of the world’s largest New Year’s galas, has its aftermath marked by garbage littering the famous 2. 4-mile stretch of sand at Copacabana. However, the festivities began as a far more sacred tradition.

Starting in the 1950s, adherents of an Afro-Brazilian spiritual belief called Umbanda would gather at Copacabana every New Year’s Eve to honor their sea goddess, Iemanjá, and pray for blessings for the upcoming year. This gathering rapidly transformed into one of the most sacred events for a number of Afro-Brazilian spiritual communities that trace their roots back to slavery and worship a pantheon of gods while battling prejudice in Brazil. In 1987, a turn of events saw a local hotel in Copacabana initiate a December 31 fireworks display, which became an instant crowd-pleaser and started drawing larger audiences.

“This was certainly beneficial for the hospitality sector and tourism,” commented Ivanir Dos Santos, a professor of comparative history at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. An innovative New Year’s custom emerged, and party-goers began to adopt some longstanding Umbanda rites such as casting flowers into the sea, leaping over seven waves, and most notably, wearing white, a symbol of peace in the faith. However, Mr.

Dos Santos pointed out, the massive celebration “also inevitably displaced the worshippers from the beach. ” Not entirely, though. Mr.

Dos Santos himself was present at Copacabana Beach on December 29, dressed in white, with the chants of Umbanda devotees echoing behind him. This annual gathering is when believers in Afro-Brazilian religions visit Copacabana Beach to render their annual offerings to Iemanjá (pronounced ee-mahn-JA). Amid sunbathers and vendors hawking beer and grilled cheese, hundreds of devotees attempted to connect with one of their most revered deities.

They envision Iemanjá, typically portrayed with loose hair and a billowing blue and white gown, as the sea’s queen and the goddess of motherhood and fertility. Amid sweltering temperatures above 90 degrees, many congregated under a shelter for customary dances and songs around an altar graced by small wooden ships laden with fruits and flowers, ready to be set afloat into the sea. Elsewhere, they crafted modest altars in the sand, leaving behind candles, flowers, fruits, and liquor.

Bruna Ribeiro de Souza, a schoolteacher, sitting with her mother and young son in the sand characterized the ritual as a “tradition passed down from one generation to the next. From grandmother to mother to son. ” They had ignited three candles and poured a glass of sparkling wine in honor of Iemanjá.

Nearby lay their foot-long wooden ship, prepped for its journey. Marilda, Ms Souza’s mother, recalled how her own mother had brought her to Copacabana in the 1950s to present offerings to Iemanjá. She explained it served to rekindle connections with her African roots.

Afro-Brazilian religions were founded predominantly by slaves and their next generations. Between 1540 and 1850, Brazil imported more slaves than any other nation, nearly half of the approximately 10. 7 million slaves that arrived in the Americas, as per historical records.

Candomblé, one of the most widely practiced religions, is a direct offshoot of African Yoruba beliefs, inspiring Santería in Cuba. Umbanda, blending Yoruba deity worship with Catholicism and aspects of occultism, was birthed in Rio during the 20th century. As per a survey conducted in 2019, nearly 2 percent of Brazilians, or over four million individuals, identify as followers of Afro-Brazilian religions.

(Around half identified as Catholic and 31 percent as Evangelical. ) This signified an increase from the 0. 3 percent who claimed to follow Afro-Brazilian religions according to Brazil’s 2010 census, the most recent official statistics.

These religions have given many Black Brazilians a cultural identity and ties to their forbearers. But they have also been subjected to persecution. Fundamentalists in the Evangelical church have labeled these religions evil, assaulted their followers, and destroyed their worship places.

Nevertheless, as the sun was setting over Copacabana Beach on a recent Friday, crowds of beach-going folk cheered on the worshippers as they marched into the surf, clutching bouquets of white blossoms, sparkling wine bottles, and their wooden boats. (To preserve the environment, believers no longer utilize Styrofoam boats or load bottles of perfume as offerings. ) Alexander Pereira Vitoriano, a chef and worshipper of Umbanda, was the first to venture into the waves with one of the largest boats.

As he released the vessel, a wave overturned it, indicating to the followers that Iemanjá had received their offering. “She [Iemanjá] comes to descend everything evil into the depths of the holy sea — all the malice, sickness, envy,” Vitoriano declared on the shoreline, gasping and drenched. “It signifies a fresh beginning to the new year.

” Not far from him, Amanda Santos was pouring a bottle of sparkling wine into the waves, tears streaming down her face. “It’s just gratitude,” Santos explained. “Last year, I made a wish here for a home, and this year, I got my first house.

” After a while, the shoreline became adorned with a line of flowers that were cast into the sea only to be tossed back out. As darkness fell and the crowd began to disperse, Adriana Carvalho, 53, held a white dove. She had bought the bird a day prior to release it as a tribute, asking Iemanjá for peace, health, and guidance for her family.

She released the dove, and it darted skywards, only to swiftly descend again, perching on the back of a woman hunched over an altar in the sand. The woman, 19-year-old Sara Henriques, was making her first-ever offering. The dove landed “just when we were seeking blessings for a fruitful 2024, filled with health, prosperity, and peace,” Henriques explained.

“Therefore, to me, it confirmed that my wish had been granted. ” Keep the Sea Goddess Happy to Start the New Year Right TAGS Goddess Happy sea start year Facebook Twitter Pinterest WhatsApp Linkedin ReddIt Email Telegram Previous article Chief Justice Roberts Sees Promise and Danger of A. I.

in the Courts Julia Carroll.