I celebrated it with my Host Family, so I don't know what it will be like next year here up river, but it was pretty cool even in a relatively developed part of the country. The day started with sitting down with my extended host family around one of the spirit houses in the village. Every man was supposed to bring a beer and some kind of almond liqueur and the women brought/made tons of food.
Several of the villagers were in very traditional dress - wrapped in kosus (a swath of fabric about a meter wide and several meters long worn like a skirt by men and women) and white head dresses - and they began to beat a mixture of plants into a froth in an oversized mortar and pestle. They have huge ones here! And they use them for a lot of things - making oil, rice, and apparently holiday celebration aids! While they were beating the plants, another woman came around to throw a small amount of powder on everyone's head and shoulders.
This was all the beginning of a cleansing ritual that centered on the river - which really is the center piece of life here. At a certain time, the various family groups and the various holy sites moved to the main landing on the river, in front of the village ancestral totems. They had pulled a boat up onto the top of the bank - one of the heavy, hand made canoes you see everywhere on the river - and began to put the crushed leaves each group had made into it.
After the herbal mix, they children and certain adults carried river water to the boat and began to fill it. At the same time, the top woman in the village (my host mom's mom who is the mom of a Basia and the wife of one as well, and the oldest woman in the village) began to lead a chanting song for most of the women and certain men. The men began to add to the mix in the boat with beer and other liquors and several beers were sprayed like champagne across the crowd.
At this point, my host mom had told me it was ok to join as long as I was comfortable in traditional dress - to partake in the ceremony you had to dress like a true Saramaccan. Men and women in kosu skirts only (so both topless) and children naked. I wore something under my kosu and the Peace Corps women staying there with me kept on their sports bras and that was fine, but still it was very interesting to dress that way and stand amongst the crowd.
Once the boat was full, we began to wash in the mixture. You went up to the side of the boat, where one of the men stood and he would poor a calabash full of the mixture over your head three times while you scrubbed yourself with it. Washing in river water is the norm here, but keep in mind this was soup at this point - soapy with beer and full of leaves of herbs. You came out of that coated in green and then walked to a small gate they had constructed out of sticks.
At the top of the gate they had made a basket that served to strain another liquid mixture - this one based heavily in sugar cane - that they poured over your head as you walked through. Finally, you were coated again with white powdery liquid once you passed the gate.
From there, the crowd dispersed to eat the food and drink the beers and almond booze and I did likewise. I believe the most traditional people did not wash off the mixture at all that day. My host mom explained that it was a special wash that made you extra clean, to wash away all bad things from the year past. As dusk falls, you symbolically wash in smoke and the smoke carries away the bad things brought to the service by the cleaning and leaves them far out in the jungle where they cannot find their way back.
We did not make it to the smoke ceremony because I was helping my host mom cook and we lost track of time, but it was still an amazing day. I did end up washing off after a few hours because it was quite itchy at that point, but I did my host family proud and it was a really cool feeling to be included in the ceremony. Unfortunately, I could not take pictures and it's hard to make words capture it - but hopefully this gives you an idea.
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