Every New Year’s Eve, more than two million revelers — double the number who normally fill Times Square — dress in white and prepare at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro to watch a 15-minute midnight fireworks display.
The hedonistic one-night out is one of the world’s largest New Year’s Eve celebrations and leaves Copacabana’s famous 2.4 miles of sand strewn with rubbish.
But it started as something much more spiritual.
In the 1950s, followers of an Afro-Brazilian religion, Umbanda, began gathering in Copacabana on New Year’s Eve to make offerings to their sea goddess, Iemanjá, and ask for good luck in the year ahead.
It quickly became one of the holiest times of the year for followers of a group of Afro-Brazilian religions who have roots in slavery, worship a range of deities and have long faced prejudice in Brazil.
Then, in 1987, a hotel along the Copacabana Strip began a fireworks display on December 31st. It was a huge success that began to attract large numbers.
“Obviously, this has been great 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 ancient Umbanda traditions, including throwing flowers into the sea, jumping seven waves and, above all, dressing in white, a symbol of peace in the religion.
But the huge celebration, Dos Santos said, “also then pushed the faithful off the beach.”
Not entirely.
Mr. Dos Santos stood on Copacabana Beach, dressed in white, with the chants of the Umbanda faithful behind him. Yet this was December 29, the date when devotees of Afro-Brazilian religions descended on Copacabana Beach to make their annual offerings to Iemanjá (pronounced ee-mahn-JA).
In addition to bikini-clad beachgoers and street vendors selling beer and grilled cheese, hundreds of worshipers sought to connect with one of their most important gods. Devotees believe that Iemenjá, often depicted with flowing hair and a billowing blue and white dress, is the queen of the sea and a goddess of motherhood and fertility.
With temperatures soaring above 90 degrees, many gathered under a tent for traditional dancing and singing around an altar of small wooden ships, loaded with flowers and fruit, that would soon be sent to sea. Outside they dug shallow altars into the sand, leaving candles, flowers, fruit and liquor.
“This is a tradition passed down from generation to generation. Of grandmother, mother, son,” said Bruna Ribeiro de Souza, 39, a school teacher, sitting on the sand with her mother and her young son. They had lit three candles and poured a glass of sparkling wine for Iemenjá. Nearby was their foot-long wooden boat, ready for the journey.
Ms. Souza’s mother, Marilda, 69, said her mother took her to Copacabana to make offerings in 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. From about 1540 to 1850, Brazil imported more slaves than any other nation, or nearly half of the estimated 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 Santería in Cuba. Residents of Rio created Umbanda in the 20th century, mixing Yoruba worship of various deities with the Catholicism and aspects of occultism.
According to the survey, about 2% of Brazilians, or more than four million people, identify as followers of Afro-Brazilian religions. a survey conducted in 2019. (About half identify as Catholic and 31% evangelical.) That’s an increase from the 0.3% it said they followed Afro-Brazilian religions in the 2010 Brazilian census, the latest official data.
Religions have given many black Brazilians a cultural identity and ties to their ancestors. But followers also suffered persecution. Extremists in the evangelical church have called religions evil, attacked their followers, and they destroyed their places of worship.
However, as the sun set on Copacabana Beach on Friday, groups of beachgoers cheered on worshipers as they marched into the waves with bouquets of white flowers, bottles of sparkling wine and their wooden boats. (Environmental concerns have led devotees to abandon Styrofoam boats and no longer carry things like perfume bottles.)
Alexander Pereira Vitoriano, cook and worshiper of Umbanda, carried one of the largest boats and dived first into the waves. As he let go of the boat, a wave overturned it, a sign to the followers that Iemenjá had taken the offering.
“She comes to bring all the evil into the depths 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 surf became a row of flowers that were thrown into the sea and then spat back 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 release it as an offering. She asked Iemanjá for peace, health and free roads for her family.
He let go of the dove and it flew into the sky. Then she quickly came down again, landing on the back of a woman bent over an altar in the sand. The woman, Sara Henriques, 19, was making her first offer.
The dove landed “at a time when we were calling for a good 2024, with health, prosperity and peace,” he said. “So, for me, it was a confirmation that my wish had been granted.”
