400 METRES OF ROPE
USED IN RELIGIOUS CEREMONY
G'day folks,
Every year, in
the second week of October, millions of Roman-Catholic devotees from all over
Brazil descend on the city of Belem to attend Cirio de Nazaré, the country’s
largest religious festival, and to touch a 400-meter-long piece of
rope believed to have the power to heal the sick.
Cirio de
Nazaré has been celebrated intermittently in Brazil since 1793. The
event revolves around a small statue of Nossa Senhora de Nazaré (Our Lady
of Nazareth), an artifact supposedly sculpted in Nazareth that is believed
to have performed miracles in medieval Portugal, before being lost in Brazil.
Legend has it that a cattleman found it in a canal during the 1700’s, but every
time he took it out of the water, it would disappear, only to be found again in
the original place it was discovered. The people of Belem believed that it was
Our Lady’s wish to remain there, so they built a church there, which would
later become today’s Nazaré Basilica.
The
celebration lasts two weeks, but the climax of the event is on the first
Sunday, when the small statue is taken from the city’s Catedral da Sé to
the Nazaré Basilica, on a flower-bedecked carriage pulled by
thousands of devotees. The night before the procession about 15.000
devotees queue in front of the cathedral to secure a place near the
400-meter-long piece of rope used to pull the carriage through the
city. Men and women align on two separate lines, and by 10 a.m. on Sunday,
the human density around the rope reaches an incredible 10 people per meter.
As the statue of Nossa Senhora de Nazaré
begins its 3.5km journey to Nazaré Basilica, over 2 million people
accompany it through the streets, singing to the chants aired by the
speakers along the path, to salute the passage of the Virgin. The most devoted
of them squirm and and grope to get a hand on the rope pulling the
vehicle, and those that are successful struggle to keep their grip. It’s a
daunting task, as the procession moves at a snail’s pace, and the high humidity
and temperature (often around 40 degrees Celsius) make it hard to breathe.
Fainting is
common during the five-to-nine hours it takes for the procession to reach its
destination, but volunteers and doctors are always standing by to provide swift
medical attention and evacuate sufferers. Getting to them is not the easiest
thing in the world, as the area around the rope is so densely packed, that
those feeling sick couldn’t escape it even if they wanted to. Many of the
barefoot supplicants finish the journey on their knees, with barely enough
stamina to keep from passing out. They view the rope as a link between the
Saint and her followers, and most of them would rather collapse then let go.
But even as the procession reaches its
destination, the devotees don’t loosen their grip one bit. Instead they wait
for someone to cut the rope in small pieces, maneuvering the tight space
between their hands, so they can keep them as holy souvenirs of their
struggle and evidence of their strong faith. The tiniest thread of rope is
believed to have miraculous healing powers, and many believers go through this
whole ordeal in the hopes of curing themselves or their loved ones of serious
health conditions.
This year, the
pressure on the rope was so great that it broke halfway through the procession.
It is estimated that 8,000 people got the chance to reach it.
Clancy's comment: Wow! That's a long time to be holding a rope.
I'm ...
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