by Every New Year’s Eve, more than two million revelers (double the number that normally fill Times Square) dress in white and pack Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro to watch a 15-minute midnight fireworks show. duration.
The one-night hedonistic release is one of the world’s largest New Year’s celebrations and leaves Copacabana’s famous 2.4 miles of sand covered in trash.
But it started as something much more spiritual.
In the 1950s, followers of an Afro-Brazilian religion, Umbanda, began congregating in Copacabana on New Year’s Eve to make offerings to their sea goddess, Iemanjá, and ask her for good luck for the following year.
It quickly became one of the most sacred times of the year for followers of a group of Afro-Brazilian religions who have roots in slavery, worship a variety of deities and have long faced prejudice in Brazil.
Then, in 1987, a hotel along the Copacabana strip started a fireworks show on December 31st. It was a great success that began to attract a large number of people.
“Obviously, this was fantastic for the hotel industry, for tourism,” he said. Ivanir Dos Santosprofessor of comparative history at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
A new New Year tradition was born and revelers adopted some old Umbanda traditions, such as throwing flowers into the sea, jumping seven waves and, especially, wearing white, a symbol of peace in the religion.
But the big party, Dos Santos said, “also pushed the faithful off the beach.”
Not completely.
Dos Santos stood on Copacabana beach, dressed in white, with the chants of the Umbanda faithful behind him. However, this was December 29, the date on which devotees of Afro-Brazilian religions now descend on Copacabana Beach to make their annual offerings to Iemanjá (pronounced ee-mahn-JA).
Along with bikini-clad bathers and sellers of beer and grilled cheese, hundreds of worshipers tried to establish contact with one of their most important gods. Iemenjá, who is often depicted with loose hair and a billowing blue and white dress, is believed by devotees to be the queen of the sea and a goddess of motherhood and fertility.
With temperatures exceeding 90 degrees, many gathered under a tent for traditional dancing and singing around an altar of small wooden boats, laden with flowers and fruit, that would soon be sent out to sea. Outside, they dug shallow altars in the sand, leaving candles, flowers, fruit and liquor.
“This is a tradition that is passed down from generation to generation. From grandmother to mother and son,” said Bruna Ribeiro de Souza, a 39-year-old school teacher, sitting on the sand with her mother and her young son. They lit three candles and poured a glass of sparkling wine for Iemenjá. Nearby stood his foot-long wooden boat, ready to set sail.
Souza’s mother, Marilda, 69, said her own mother took her to Copacabana to make offerings to Iemanjá in the 1950s. It was a way, she said, to reconnect with her family’s African roots.
Afro-Brazilian religions were largely created by slaves and their descendants. Between approximately 1540 and 1850, Brazil imported more slaves than any other nation, or nearly half of the 10.7 million slaves brought to the Americas. according to historians.
One of the most popular religions, Candomblé, is a direct extension of the Yoruba beliefs of Africa, which also inspired Santeria in Cuba. Residents of Rio created Umbanda in the 20th century, mixing Yoruba worship of various deities with Catholicism and aspects of the occult.
About 2 percent of Brazilians, or more than four million people, identify as followers of Afro-Brazilian religions, according to a survey conducted in 2019. (About half identified as Catholic and 31 percent evangelical.) That was an increase from the 0.3 percent that said followed Afro-Brazilian religions in the 2010 Brazilian census, the latest official figures.
Religions have given many black Brazilians a cultural identity and connections to their ancestors. But followers have also faced persecution. Extremists in the evangelical church have called religions evil, attacked their followers, and destroyed their places of worship.
Still, as the sun set over Copacabana Beach on Friday, groups of beachgoers cheered on the faithful as they marched into the waves with bouquets of white flowers, bottles of sparkling wine and their wooden boats. (Environmental concerns led devotees to abandon Styrofoam boats and no longer carry things like perfume bottles.)
Alexander Pereira Vitoriano, cook and worshiper of Umbanda, was carrying one of the largest boats and was the first to enter the waves. When he released the boat, a wave capsized it, a sign to the followers that Iemenjá had accepted the offering.
“She comes to take everything bad to the bottom of the sacred sea, all the evil, the disease, the envy,” he said on the shore, panting and soaked. “It’s a clean start to the new year.”
Nearby, Amanda Santos emptied a bottle of sparkling wine into the waves and cried. “It’s just gratitude,” she said. “Last year I was here and asked for a house, and this year I got my first house.”
After a few minutes, the waves turned into a row of flowers that had been thrown into the sea and then spit out. As the sky darkened and the crowd cleared, Adriana Carvalho, 53, stood with a white dove in her hands. She had bought the bird the day before to give it as an offering. She asked Iemanjá for peace, health and clear paths for her family.
He released the dove and it fluttered towards the sky. She then descended quickly again and landed on the back of a woman leaning over an altar in the sand. The woman, Sara Henriques, 19, was making her first offering.
The dove landed “at the moment when we were asking for a good 2024, with health, prosperity and peace,” he said. “So for me, it was a confirmation that my wish had been granted.”
