Twenty Two South: Umbanda New Year

When I was growing up in Brazil, we used to watch the New Year’s eve fireworks from our sailing boat in Guanabara Bay. We’d leave the sailing club in Niterói around nine at night and motor for twenty minutes until we arrived at Icaraí beach, around the headland. Then we’d anchor offshore with the other boats and wait for the next couple of hours, as we sat on deck in anticipation of midnight, watching all the activity on the beach (apart from one year when it rained so heavily that we spent most of our time sheltering in the wet and crowded cabin!). My favourite part, as we waited, was seeing the African Bahiana women, dressed in their traditional white dresses and headscarves, walking down to the water’s edge and pushing out candle-lit floats, in the shape of a fishing boat, to sea. Most boats would last only a few minutes before being turned over by the waves and sinking offshore. Others were luckier, got past the waves and were blown further into the bay. Always, my wish was that one would come close enough so that I could rescue it from the sea, but it never happened, and I don’t think my parents agreed with my suggestion of going after them in our boat!

This year, twenty-six years later, I’ve been seeing stranded boats and remnants of offerings (flowers, food, drink, cigars) on the local beaches, starting a few days before the end of the year.

Here are some photos:

Flower offering on a boat, washed onto the beach

Boat drifting out to sea at night

Food and drink offering

Candle-lit offering

The offerings are rituals belonging to Umbanda, a Brazilian religion which mixes African animism, Portuguese Catholicism and indigenous shamanism. It began to develop on the sugar-cane plantations and in runaway settlements during the period of slavery. African religions were persecuted, but still carried on being practiced in secrecy, developing into Candomblé, which includes chanting, possession by the spirits and the reverence of various gods (Orixás). Umbanda itself, with its greater integration of Catholic elements, such as the reverence of Jesus, God, saints and traditional rituals, was accepted to a greater degree, despite it still having to hide clearly African elements in secret meetings, or using a statue of Jesus to really represent an African Orixá!

This year, I decided to head back to Icaraí to celebrate the New Year. When I arrived at the end of the headland, I saw the yachts anchored offshore and a beach packed full of families sitting on the sand, kids running around and jumping in the sea, a large crowd dancing to a Samba singer on stage and a couple of white tents lit up by candles. It all looked familiar and I was glad it was all the same.

I headed to the first tent, hearing the Umbanda singing and drumming from the back of the beach. Under white tarpaulins, lit up by candles on the sand between miniatures of Jesus, Mary and slaves, real men and women were dressed in white- men pounding drums, women singing in formation and dancing in the sand. I found it amazing to watch. There was tons of energy and I recognized some of the songs and beats which now form part of Samba.

Umbanda drummers in the first gathering:

Further on, there was another gathering, where young women dressed in white were re-enacting something akin to Mary and the scene of newly-born Jesus in a barn, while a line of women sang enthusiastically and young men pounded on African barrel-drums:

While watching, I began chatting to one of the party, which came by coach from the town of Três Rios, on the border with Minas Gerais, old coffee country. They come to Icaraí every year to celebrate the New Year and pay tribute to the spirit of the sea. At the back, a couple of miniature boats were lit up by candles and children slept in an army-style tent, where it was going to stay until they left tomorrow afternoon.

Later on, a possessed Candomblé figure gyrated in the sand:

An elderly woman dancing, holding a coconut shell full of cachaça, while drummers pound (and the possessed figure again makes a brief appearance!):

Then the fireworks started, first in Icaraí and almost simultaneously on the opposite side of the bay in Flamengo, below Corcovado. A few seconds later, the sky lit up above Copacabana and the tops of the highest fireworks could be seen in the gap between the Sugar Loaf and Morro do Morcego. Minutes later, the fireworks of Penha began, for the first time in many years, after the November police invasion, drug smuggler eviction and pacification of the Complexo do Alemao favela.

The skyline of Rio, Corcovado and fireworks on Flamengo (to the sound of people and fireworks in Icaraí!):