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Accepted Paper:
The ritual offerings for mermaids in contemporary Angola (Luanda). Skeptical practice and political negotiation.
Federica Toldo
(University of Udine)
The ethnography of an abrupt marine storm will allow to grasp the agencies involved in the ritual offerings to mermaids in contemporary Luanda (Angola). This will also allow to and to consider the ambiguous role of ritual to face reactive, out of control agents within the context of Anthropocene.
Paper long abstract:
A distinctive and universal feature of rituals is the transformative effect they aim to obtain. Within the context of ecological crisis and political conflicts, the aim may be object of negotiation between different human actors, and between humans and non-humans. This is precisely the case of contemporary offering for mermaids in Luanda, the capital of Angola. Formerly, among the kimbundu-speaking fishermen of Luanda known by the ethnonym of Axiluanda, the relationship with the agents of the sea was insured by periodic food offering that the sea rewarded through the availability of fish. The stigmatization of traditional practices by the Cristian churches and the interference of socialist post-colonial central state made these offering fall into disuse in the past decades. However, small groups continue to realize these offering. These are often commanded by private or public powers for their own aim (like business inauguration). The ethnography of an abrupt marine storm will allow to grasp the net of agencies involved in these rituals. This will also allow to consider the role of ritual to face reactive, out of control agents within the context of Anthropocene.