Latest news with #ritual
Arab News
5 days ago
- General
- Arab News
Despite rainy weather, Catholics in a Paraguayan town dress as birds to honor their patron saint
EMBOSCADA, Paraguay: The rainy weather did not prevent Blanca Servín from dressing her 7-year-old son like a bird. They joined a procession honoring St. Francis Solanus, the patron saint of a town in Paraguay about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the capital city of Asunción. Like her child, dozens of Catholics in Emboscada wear elaborate feathered garments each July 24. Dressing up is a ritual aimed at fulfilling promises made to the Spanish friar, who was a missionary in South America during the 16th century and is believed to grant miracles. 'I couldn't have children,' Servín said. 'I underwent several treatments and when I finally got pregnant and my child was born, the doctors said he would barely live for a few days.' She then prayed to St. Francis Solanus and made a promise many parishioners make: If you do this for me, I will honor you on your feast day for seven years. 'My son is almost 7, and I have kept my promise,' Servín said. 'But we will keep coming.' Dressing in feathers Participants dressing up in feather garments are known as 'promisers.' As part of the rituals, they cover their faces, imitate birds and distort their voices when speaking. Marcos Villalba said he spent three months crafting his costume. He worked on it every other day and said his father and brothers have also been long-time promisers. Sulma Villalba — not related to Marcos — devoted six months to the task. Rather than wearing a costume herself, she patiently glued hundreds feathers to her children's and husband's clothing. Like Servín, she has already fulfilled the promise she made to St. Francis to protect her family, but she said they still honor him because it has become a tradition they enjoy. A missionary to Indigenous people According to Ireneo López, a layperson in charge of recreational activities at the Emboscada parish, St. Francis is remembered as a missionary who evangelized the Indigenous people through music. The first church in his honor was erected in the 1930s. As parishioners increased, a new building was built later. López said that participants use up to 30 hens, guinea fowls and geese to craft their costumes. 'These garments represent what people used to wear in ancient times,' he added. 'Gala suits were made with what nature provided: birds.' Jessica López, who attended the festival with her two children and a niece, said she gathered feathers for months. Before crafting the costumes a week ago, her family enjoyed a banquet with a hen they specifically picked for the occasion. She, too, asked St. Francis for good health, but said parishioners request all sorts of miracles. About 2,500 area residents join the feast every year. Processions and dances honoring St. Francis start on July 22. The night before the feast day, a local family takes home a wooden figure depicting the friar in order to decorate it for the festivities. On July 24, promisers and parishioners attend Mass at the St. Francis chapel, then lead a procession and end up dancing in front of the church. A tale of land and dispute According to historian Ana Barreto, the ancient context of the feast is as fascinating as the feast itself. It is celebrated in a territory that was disputed by two Indigenous people — the Guaraní and the Chacoan — before the Spaniards came in the 16th century. The Europeans eventually subdued the Guaraní, but the Chacoan kept defending the land even after descendants of formerly enslaved people from Africa settled there. 'The Indigenous people sought to steal young women, take weapons and other valuable objects, and set the ranches on fire,' Barreto said. Not all current participants in the St. Francis feast are aware of this, but their costumes and celebrations are a remembrance of this historic episode. According to Barreto, the Guaraní name of the event, 'Guaykurú Ñemondé,' translates as 'dressing like a barbarian.' Thus Guaraní participants are dressing as their ancestral enemies. The reason might be hidden in an ancient Guaraní rite. After battling the Chacoan, the Guaraní people kept their prisoners alive. They provided them with food and energizing drinks, and encouraged them to have sex with their women. Afterwards, they killed the prisoners and cooked them, serving them as a meal at a community banquet. 'In this way, the enemy strengthened the Guaraní,' Barreto said.
The Guardian
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
What Kept You? by Raaza Jamshed review – an extraordinary debut full of ritual and poetry
What Kept You opens in death: fires are raging through the Sydney hills, where Jahan lives with her husband, Ali. The revelation that she is grieving her nani's death follows shortly afterwards and, a beat later, we learn she has recently suffered a miscarriage. In the early pages of her extraordinary debut, Raaza Jamshed warns the reader this is not a story of clean endings and tidy miracles. This is a novel full of ritual and poetry. A type of witchcraft, and of healing. 'Perhaps, that's what I'm trying to do here – to build a staircase out of words, to climb towards you to the sky or descend into the grave and lie down beside you,' Jahan writes of her nani. This is a novel that sits comfortably in the grey areas between the literal and the figurative; between overcoming grief and being overcome by it. It exists between two worlds – not unlike Jahan herself, who grew up in Pakistan, raised by her nani, before fleeing, as a young adult, to Sydney. In Pakistan, Jahan's nani kept a watchful eye on her, mapping out the shadowy motivations of the world around them through story and superstition. But as an adolescent, Jahan begins to rebel against the stories she has been told, wanting, as all young people do, to find her own narrative, and her defiance brings her closer to danger. Her recollections start to form a second narrative: we begin to learn the reason she couldn't stay in Pakistan, and the night she did something that has haunted her in the years since. Jahan tries to find herself between the stories of her mother, who believed in the predictable arcs of conventional romance, and those of her nani, who spoke of dark things hiding in the shadows. She struggles to identify with either. This disconnect is amplified by her life in Australia, a country where she both belongs and doesn't, where she has found a friend and a husband who accept her but never seem to fully understand her. There's a sense that everyone in this story holds themselves at arm's-length from each other, preventing true intimacies, although their relationships are underpinned by genuine care and concern. Sign up for our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning In first-person narration, Jahan addresses her nani throughout. Early on, a facilitator at a grief circle tells her to write for 14 days to a person with whom she has unfinished business: 'You write and write and write. And when you're done, you don't back-read the letter. You burn it.' And even though this seems to fly in the face of her nani's belief in the power of stories spoken aloud and shared, the idea takes root in Jahan. There is a sense across the novel's 15 chapters that we are reading her response to the writing assignment, as she processes the unfinished business she had hoped to leave in Pakistan; the business that keeps her from returning to visit her nani, even upon her death. Alternating between her recollection of the past and the immediate crisis in the present, these chapters are in part a confession and in part Jahan's attempt to gain control over her own story. Jamshed peppers her text with Urdu and Arabic phrases. She leans into the slippage of words, delighting in the poetry and double meanings found in translation. For example, Shamshad (nani's name) 'implicates itself in the English 'shame' in the first half but swiftly escapes it in the Urdu 'happiness' of the second'. The pleasure for the reader is twofold: Jamshed's expression is a joy to read, treading carefully between poetry and prose; and thematically, the careful unpacking of words and meaning adds complexity, indirectly critiquing the loss of identity and language that occurs through the flattening process of western colonisation. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion Towards the end of the novel, as the fires close in around her and Jahan nears the climax of her recollection of the past, she picks through the half lies and truths that she has told herself over the years. Finally, she lands on this: 'All I wanted to be was a girl who was not afraid.' Has she succeeded? In some ways, she has outrun the fears that kept her in place throughout her adolescence, but there is a sense that these have been replaced by something just as dark and unforgiving. What Kept You? is tightly crafted and rich in poetic metaphor, but the real satisfaction for a reader lies in its complex portrayal of grief and growing up. By rejecting either of the fixed narratives that Jahan's matriarchs have prescribed her, Jamshed imagines a space in which grief and hope might coexist. Ultimately, her question is not how to outwit fate, but how to make peace with uncertainty. What Kept You by Raaza Jamshed is out now through Giramondo ($32.95)
The Guardian
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
What Kept You? by Raaza Jamshed review – an extraordinary debut full of ritual and poetry
What Kept You opens in death: fires are raging through the Sydney hills, where Jahan lives with her husband, Ali. The revelation that she is grieving her nani's death follows shortly afterwards and, a beat later, we learn she has recently suffered a miscarriage. In the early pages of her extraordinary debut, Raaza Jamshed warns the reader this is not a story of clean endings and tidy miracles. This is a novel full of ritual and poetry. A type of witchcraft, and of healing. 'Perhaps, that's what I'm trying to do here – to build a staircase out of words, to climb towards you to the sky or descend into the grave and lie down beside you,' Jahan writes of her nani. This is a novel that sits comfortably in the grey areas between the literal and the figurative; between overcoming grief and being overcome by it. It exists between two worlds – not unlike Jahan herself, who grew up in Pakistan, raised by her nani, before fleeing, as a young adult, to Sydney. In Pakistan, Jahan's nani kept a watchful eye on her, mapping out the shadowy motivations of the world around them through story and superstition. But as an adolescent, Jahan begins to rebel against the stories she has been told, wanting, as all young people do, to find her own narrative, and her defiance brings her closer to danger. Her recollections start to form a second narrative: we begin to learn the reason she couldn't stay in Pakistan, and the night she did something that has haunted her in the years since. Jahan tries to find herself between the stories of her mother, who believed in the predictable arcs of conventional romance, and those of her nani, who spoke of dark things hiding in the shadows. She struggles to identify with either. This disconnect is amplified by her life in Australia, a country where she both belongs and doesn't, where she has found a friend and a husband who accept her but never seem to fully understand her. There's a sense that everyone in this story holds themselves at arm's-length from each other, preventing true intimacies, although their relationships are underpinned by genuine care and concern. Sign up for our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning In first-person narration, Jahan addresses her nani throughout. Early on, a facilitator at a grief circle tells her to write for 14 days to a person with whom she has unfinished business: 'You write and write and write. And when you're done, you don't back-read the letter. You burn it.' And even though this seems to fly in the face of her nani's belief in the power of stories spoken aloud and shared, the idea takes root in Jahan. There is a sense across the novel's 15 chapters that we are reading her response to the writing assignment, as she processes the unfinished business she had hoped to leave in Pakistan; the business that keeps her from returning to visit her nani, even upon her death. Alternating between her recollection of the past and the immediate crisis in the present, these chapters are in part a confession and in part Jahan's attempt to gain control over her own story. Jamshed peppers her text with Urdu and Arabic phrases. She leans into the slippage of words, delighting in the poetry and double meanings found in translation. For example, Shamshad (nani's name) 'implicates itself in the English 'shame' in the first half but swiftly escapes it in the Urdu 'happiness' of the second'. The pleasure for the reader is twofold: Jamshed's expression is a joy to read, treading carefully between poetry and prose; and thematically, the careful unpacking of words and meaning adds complexity, indirectly critiquing the loss of identity and language that occurs through the flattening process of western colonisation. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion Towards the end of the novel, as the fires close in around her and Jahan nears the climax of her recollection of the past, she picks through the half lies and truths that she has told herself over the years. Finally, she lands on this: 'All I wanted to be was a girl who was not afraid.' Has she succeeded? In some ways, she has outrun the fears that kept her in place throughout her adolescence, but there is a sense that these have been replaced by something just as dark and unforgiving. What Kept You? is tightly crafted and rich in poetic metaphor, but the real satisfaction for a reader lies in its complex portrayal of grief and growing up. By rejecting either of the fixed narratives that Jahan's matriarchs have prescribed her, Jamshed imagines a space in which grief and hope might coexist. Ultimately, her question is not how to outwit fate, but how to make peace with uncertainty. What Kept You by Raaza Jamshed is out now through Giramondo ($32.95)
Yahoo
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Devotees dance with live cobras in fearless display of faith during Hindu festival
In an astonishing display of faith, devotees in Bihar, India, celebrated the Nag Panchami festival on July 15 by dancing with live and venomous snakes wrapped around their necks, held in their hands, and even placed in their mouths. The centuries-old ritual honours the serpent goddess Vishahari and is believed to bring divine blessings.
Times of Oman
14-07-2025
- Times of Oman
Indian woman dies in Sharjah fire; Kerala woman suffocates baby, kills self in UAE city
Sharjah: An Indian woman died after a fire broke out in her apartment in Sharjah, local media reported. The 46-year-old woman was reportedly performing a special ritual in her home in the Al Majaz area on Thursday night, when the fire erupted, leading to her death, the Gulf News reported officials as saying. The fire was started in a unit located on the eighth floor of an 11-storey residential building. Police have begun an investigation. The woman's body has been transferred to the forensic laboratory for an autopsy, the Gulf News reported. Meanwhile, a 33-year-old woman from Kerala and her toddler daughter were found dead in their apartment in Sharjah's Al Nahda neighbourhood on July 8, Khaleej Times reported. The woman who hailed from Kollam and had moved to the UAE around two years ago with her husband was living separately for the past few months due to ongoing family disputes. A Gulf News report cited a forensic report that the child died from "airway obstruction, possibly by a pillow." The report confirmed that the woman had died by suicide and she was found hanging in the apartment by emergency responders. A social worker shared with Khaleej Times, that a handwritten note in Malayalam -- believed to have been written by the deceased -- contains details suggesting emotional distress and allegations of abuse.
