Another Sunday digging through my music collection, finding themes and mixing. This time surfacing a lot of devotion to Yemanja. Yemanja is one of the deities or Orishas of the Yoruban spiritual belief system that has a variety of manifestations in the Americas arising partly out of attempts by slaves to disguise banned traditional African practices. The Orishas, which represent different forces in nature, were presented as catholic saints within Candomblé in Bahia, Brazil and Santeria in Cuba. Yemanja or Iemanja or Yemayah (among many variants of her name) is the ocean, the essence of motherhood, and a fierce protector of children.
Beyond the practice of traditional rituals, myths and legends have grown up around Yemanja in particular. In Bahia, Brazil they tell stories of fishermen captured by her entrancing beauty never to return to shore. All in all it’s the stuff that makes for great musical raw material sometimes drawing on the traditional music of the rituals and sometimes not, as you’ll hear in the variety of styles old and new that I’ve attempted bind together with some soundscapery here.
Visit Mixcloud for the full track list.
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