When I went down to the beach at 7am this morning, armed with my camera, there was a trail of offerings to far out of sight all along the beach – chooks, flowers, fruit especially watermelon, broken up shrines, candles and some intact offerings punctuated with carnations and dahlias and other flowers, indicating I should have been there several hours earlier.  Surely I didn’t miss the whole thing?   “Feb 2” is the date for the ceremonies honoring Imanja, but perhaps it is the first tide after midnight or something -or maybe it’s all day, and so we we will wander down tonight around midnight to see if it is, or whether I have missed it yet again, sigh – I might need to become a follower to know what’s going on when!

I wasn’t even on to the beach when I came across this one – certainly in a traffic area along a path/highway – which is meant to increase the strength/value of the offering, I’m told.  Refer to my previous post on this. 

As I mentioned, some devotees even launch their offerings into the sea:

but maybe the waves were a bit robust this year – these were some of the wrecked craft along the beach this morning.  (dimensions between 1m and 1.75m) 

Imanja likes blue the colour of the sea, and pretty, shiny things.  There were two of these, 250m apart, with identical contents and arrangement.

This little shrine, standing about 30cm high, may have been launched but ran aground without tipping over.  I photographed each side, and then its location – note the dead chicken closer to the water, and the carnations strewn on the sand.

So clearly there had been a lot of activity several hours before I and others turned up.  I noticed lots of blue things along the tideline- blue tinted starfishes, real and styrofoam shape; lots of blue giftwrap  twirls and loopy decorations that in some cases were still attached to offerings or boats(wrecks).  There were little blue combs, blue candles, blue cellophane incorporated into plates of fruit, and even a soggy sponge cake with icing that had been sprayed blue with some graphic iced onto it in brown/chocolate?

I have no idea why a severed goat/kid’s head, but the pic next to it includes what looked like a pair of lacy black knickers in amongst the grain and fruit, and what looks like names on paper; The Virgin Mary in a small blue shrine was interesting, and in among the grain resting on intense blue tissue was the name and date “Jimena Vecanday, 18.06.1988”  Twenty two years is a long time since whatever happened to that person on that day.  And I was a bit underwhelmed by the group of young people who walked along collecting up mostly blue things – perhaps they were preparing their offerings for tonight but I thought it was a bit off to use something that has already been presented to Imanja, Queen of The Sea on her day.

Good beach weather means I am down there many days – the sky/sea mood is always changing and the textures on the beach vary a lot, too.   The depositional and erosional forces (wind and water) constantly work to change the texture patterns in the sand, as well as shaping the overall and micro profiles of the beach.  And there are masses of different tracks too – marks left by bicycles, motorbikes, trucks and the beach cleaner machine

The tracks left by the machinery used to clean the beach - now did someone perversely place a bag of rubbish right where the machine swerved a bit, or did the driver swerve to avoid a bag of trash left on the beach ;-p

 plus footprints of people, dogs, and a variety of birds.  I’m a creature of habit and so park at the same spot each time to enter the beach.  The other day this little texture caught my eye for the first time -the diggings of a little creature that is very busy just now, ie perhaps at a particular time in its life cycle, as I’ve not noticed it before.  There were lots of them along damper part of the beach, appearing after the water had receded but clearly they’d be covered again with the incoming tide.  When I got home I had to search my files to find this photo :

– on the cover of a catalogue of a wonderful exhibition we saw in Paris a couple of years ago.  The sand ridge reminded me of this ridge of leather stitches over strips of leather laid along a crack on the surface of a gourd.  I posted previously, “A Totally Memorable Exhibition” oct 21st, 2007 on the impact this exhibition had on me, principally the concept that people mend something only if it is important to them, but that mending therefore confers a higher level of value to the object.  The catalogue is full of well-used objects that have been damaged and interestingly repaired – hence the title of the show – Objets Blesses.

A most impressive row of offerings at the tideline this morning

My finger holds back paper it rests on, seemingly a picture of someone's home which I feel sure is a focal point of the supplication

further up the beach and apart from the others, but showing a similar hand. Love the symmetry on the left.

Well, I have never seen anything like this lineup on the beach this morning – I am so glad I had my camera as per NY resolution #2.   In the leadup to the feb. 2 night of Imanja, 

www.hranajanto.com/goddessgallery/yemaya.html

there seem to be rather more of these things appearing on the beach every day, and overall in the past decade or so there have been a lot more visible signs of this belief system around than were in the past here in Uruguay, according to one of my friends here; although she feels that in hard times people turn more to this spirt world for help, and that these offerings are requests for aid or relief, for the goddess to direct perhaps money, work or food to the family who makes this offering.  Perhaps protection is being sought, and certainly bases being covered, just in case there is anything she can do to ease a current difficulty.  Imanja is known to like blue the colour of the sea (I found a bunch of 8 blue candles tied with blue ribbon on the beach a couple of weeks back …) pearls and popcorn – there certainly was some of that spread around this morning, see top picture.  All the offerings I saw had plenty of black beans, rice , corn and polenta along with fruits and flowers. And many had either meat or chickens – basic needs in fact.  I haven’t noticed it yet but apparently occasionally you will find a bottle of strong cologne which she likes, and the there is a male counterpart too to whom often bottles of cheap hooch are included – canja spirit or something like that.  In the article in the link above, fabric is referred to and certainly many today had what loooked like a garment included in the assembly, and really you often see pieces of fabric and discarded garments on the beach …..so that’s explained.  On Feb 2nd at around midnight many people gather on the beaches here to set and launch offerings into the water, lots of candles, some even go out in boats – we’ll be wandering along the beach that night this year; we’ve always either forgotten or not been around.

It’s interesting  to see new technology  (coloured photocopies, second photo down)  combining with older belief systems from who knows how far back, and these came via Brasil where African slave beliefs were transmuted and combined with the younger christian system, and of course this co-existence or overlaying of one with the other system exists in many parts of the world, Roman Catholicism being particularly suited to such blending.  One of my local friends tells me that the park near where she lives is favoured for gatherings of these groups of which there are many, and you need to get a permit to hold such events which include chanting and drum beating.  If you live near popular spots the noise can get on one’s nerves, hence the permits- we sometimes hear them and have been known to get in the car and go find them and listen a while, but I haven’t seen anything I felt was ritualistic – it’s often just drumming for the pure joy of it all – drumming has recently been placed on the World Heritage Intangible Cultural Heritage List, which is pretty marvellous.   From V’s park down to the riverfront is not far, so stuff on the ground there is more likely to be rubbish rather than carefully designed and placed offerings, sadly. 

Imanja, the Goddess of The Sea, has many followers, and some call the system ‘witchcraft’ but but that may be too strong a word.  But whatever it is, a lot of ritual and procedures are involved in placing of offerings, and believers form or belong to groups, with the acolytes having  much to learn before they can lead a group of followers.   I’m told and that people come and go from it in the strength of their adherence to devotions, drifting away when their circumstances improve, but coming back when times are tougher, kind of thing.  And I will be trying to find out more.  So a lot of what looks like rubbish on the beach isn’t really as I’d always thought – but that doesn’t get away from how many people in this country are still way too casual about discarding their rubbish, and at times I shudder to think of what is drifting down that river channel out there below the surface ….

The fruit looked really good quality, and enough of it plus popcorn, rice and beans there for quite a family feast ...

Wished I had my camera when I found this pair of sacrificed chickens near the water's edge on the beach this morning.

OK – that’s it, I am forced to announce a second resolution – from now on the little digital camera is going with me on my walks with the dog –  there is always something of interest and although I may not post it every day, I plan to take at least one pic per day.

Today I almost took that camera.  Silly me – because now I can only post the above drawing from memory and tell you in words what I saw.  The two offered  1/3 grown chickens lay on beds of corn/rice/beans, on styrofoam trays, chicken feathers protruding from each side; and these assemblies lay on flattened supermarket bags placed on the wet sand.  They’d presumably been placed near the receding water’s edge, some time before dawn I imagine.  Must get down there earlier ….