In the region around Negombo where the population is over 90% Catholic, every weekend you have a Mangala in the different town Churches. Once again, none of these festivals coincide with any major Catholic festivity, it's as if these weekends were exclusively reserved for their own neighborhood festivals. However, Duwa is one of the major festivals that brings virtually everyone from the neighboring towns together. All the people care about their own Mangalas, but they all know and want to go to Duwa. I'm not sure the reason for this, but it definitely has to do with fishing. St. Mary's Church in Duwa is actually facing the ocean, which is a rarity in a country that tends to ignore it altogether. A huge, 15-feet-tall statue of the Virgin Mary stands with a boat in her hand facing the sea. The Church and the Virgin not only face the water but the location of Duwa as a town is right outside the Negombo harbor, so basically every boat that goes out to sea has to sail past St. Mary's Church. This church has been here since the 1880s, at the height of splendor for the local Catholic Church, when Catholic identity was a symbol of privilege, connections and access to the best education in the country. Little of this prestige is left since independence, but glimpses of this past strive to subsist in days like today. Before the 1880s there were two Churches in Duwa, but since this building was constructed the Duwa Mangala has been unified and celebrated every July in this very spot.
There were a couple of early morning masses, the main one, but not the first, was at 7.30am and lasted for almost 2 hours. It's interesting how religious time in Sri Lanka (particularly Christian religious time) has not been 'normalized' and adapted to productive work schedules and remains unconstrained by labor and other matters. Spiritual work retains that place outside everyday life and ceremonies and pujas can last a totally unregulated time.
But it is also true that in another respect, the Mangala is more inclusive of activities that are outside religion and extends to the commercial and social. In the case of Duwa the fashion scene is clearly happening in a way that probably does not take place at any other event throughout the year. Hopefully I'll be able to get a sense of what it is like during the Christmas and New Year season, but Easter and other major holidays like Sinhalese/Tamil New Year in April, at least in Duwa, have certainly not had the festive, fashionable dimension that the Mangala had.
After mass is over the people take the Statue of the Virgin out of the Church and go on parade around town lead by the Girls Marching Band, Boys Marching Band and Sunday School Teachers, then all the women, and after the Virgin Mary, all the men. After this mini-pilgrimage they go on to the fish market and to the Negombo Harbor, where the statue boards a boat with navy officers and priests and off they go to sea followed by hundreds of fishing trawlers and small boats. Virtually the entire fishing community of Negombo congregates and participates in this.
Today this has become regulated and organized by the police and the Navy. A few years ago this was much more spontaneous and thus, dangerous. So many people would get on the boat with the statue of the Virgin Mary that it became increasingly risky until one time some five years ago a girl fell off the boat and drowned. You can see how dangerous it becomes as you leave the protection of the harbor and start to sail deeper sea waters. Last week's Mangala was said to be one of the pilgrimages with calmer sea, but being in the middle of the monsoon season it's not difficult to picture how it could easily become hairy.
After sailing about a mile into sea and passing in front of St. Mary's Church, everyone returns to the harbor where the priests give a last blessing to all the fishermen. The grand finale then is marked by the ever present firecrackers, as in every Lankan celebration, and the sharing of food and drinks on every boat that then extends to sharing across boats with hundreds of flying pieces of bread and juice containers.
There was still one more activity left: the safe return of the Virgin to the Church and the another final blessing that took maybe another hour. By then the whole Mangala had been going on for maybe five hours but the people seemed happy to go on and on. I guess you can get a sense of it in the photos, but it was quite impressive to see how excited and happy everyone was. There appeared to be an honest enjoyment on the part of the whole community and an obvious pride in carrying on this tradition. Unlike so many other religious festivities, and especially Catholic ones I should say, the feeling was not of a pious community, but rather a genuine desire to participate.
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