The Festa de Iemanjá is a festival whose purpose is to give blessings to the orixá (saint in Yorubá, a west African language) Iemanjá. Its origins lie in the Brazilian religion Candomblé, which combines Brazilian and African religious traditions. Iemanjá represents maternity (this festival specifically honors the importance of her representation of fertility, family, and the protection of children. The festival involves offering flowers and other gifts to Iemanjá by sending them out on a body of water that flows toward the ocean. Attendees of the festival usually dress in white, which is one of the colors that is representative of Iemanjá. After the offerings are given, the celebration continues with music, dancing, and general festivities.
The Festa de Iemanjá takes place on February 2nd every year. The most popular place to attend the celebration is Salvador, which is the capital of the Brazilian state Bahia in the northeast of Brazil on the coast. This is an area that has some of the highest numbers of Candomblé followers due to its origins in the trade of enslaved peoples and Bahia’s location on the coast of Brazil. The festival in Salavador specifically occurs on the beaches of the Río Vermelho (Red River).
People begin bringing flowers and offerings the day before the festival to a shrine near the beaches of the Río Vermelho. Then, a fireworks display at sunrise on the following day signals the beginning of the festival. The offerings are blessed and then brought out to sea by fishermen in their boats. The offerings can be flowers, food (particularly white foods, including sweet rice and coconut puddings, such as manjar branco a classic Brazilian dish that is said to be connected/representative of Iemanjá), and objects like perfume, lipstick, jewelry, and mirrors. Sometimes small boats that are meant to be replicas of the larger fisherman boats are sent out as well. If any of these offerings or gifts wash up on the shore, it is assumed to have been rejected by Iemanjá, while if it floats out to the ocean, it is seen as her accepting your gift and therefore, she gives you her blessing.
The popularity of the festival in Salvador has gotten to such proportions that imitation festivals have begun to occur in other cities, such as Rio de Janeiro and Recife. In Rio de Janeiro, the Festa de Iemanjá occurs on January 1st. Everyone who attends still wears white, but the ritual that occurs can involve bringing offerings to the sea, but attendees also run into the ocean and jump over 7 waves, which is meant to represent getting closer to Iemanjá.
The celebration is now widely televised and is bringing further national recognition to the religion of Candomblé, particularly because of the tourist crowds that the festival is now attracting. Attracting similar large crowds can be seen as part of the reason why other cities are starting to hold duplicate festivals. However, it is also allowing those of Candomblé faith in those areas to express their devotion and may continue to generally make the festival more accessible and visible.
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