Various African images

Numerous west African tribes worship Yemanja, the goddess of water.
She is often depicted in dolphin form, dressed in blue.

The African Yemanja worship was exported to Brazil with the slave trade.
On February 15th, worshippers go to the shore to light candles, wear blue clothes
and fall into the water, where they have ecstatic communion with Yemanja.

A worshipper of Yemanja.

~~~*~~~

Built on a peninsula, surrounded by sea,
land of fishermen, seascapes of sailboats,
Bahia has a queen: Yemanja, mistress of the waters,
powerful Candomble orisha, siren of the five names:
Janaina,
Ynaê,
Iyá,
Queen of Aioká.

She reigns over this watery empire,
the sea, the lakes and rivers,
commands the winds, unties the tempests.
Mother and wife of fishermen, their greatest love,
their impossible desire.

"It is sweet to die in the sea,
in the green waves of the sea,"
sing the masters of the sailboats, thinking of Janaina
of the long, perfumed tresses and shipwreck eyes.

She came from Africa to the Bay of All Saints
in the wake of the slave ships,
in the groans of the blacks.
She made her home here for eternity.


--Jorge Amado, Bahia de Todos os Santos
Translated by Sabrina Gledhill

.

ARCHIVES


MAIN