The beginning of February in Bahia marks the festival of Iemanjá, the Yoruban goddess of the sea, mother of fish, a deity of fertility, motherhood and water, the great patron saint of fishermen.
In the Yoruba mortuary ideology, dying in the waters means returning to the origin, comfort and shelter of the Mother’s sacred body. During the harsh centuries of modern slavery, the image of the mother, to which the Nagô imagined returning after death, was that of Mother Africa, the birthplace of Yoruba.
/Salvador, Brazil, February 2020/
