What color is your underwear?
One of the most interesting things that I’ve experienced since moving to Brazil--probably one of most interesting things about experiencing a new culture--is celebrating new holidays and learning to celebrate familiar holidays in new ways. New Years falls into the latter category for me, and Brazilians know how to ring in a new year. (While I have yet to celebrate New Year’s Eve in Brazil because I always come back to the U.S. to be with my family, Marjorie introduces me to her family’s traditions.)
Everyone in Brazil wears white on New Year’s Eve. This is not an exaggeration. During December, almost all the mannequins in storefront windows wear white, too. White is the color of peace, and everyone wearing this color symbolizes this collective wish for the new year.
Many people also try to get to a beach for the turn of the year. Although Brazil is a catholic country, many of its traditions are rooted in the African Umbanda religion, which worships several orixás, one of whom is Iemanjá, known frequently as the Queen of the Sea. At midnight on the last night of December, it is tradition to hop over seven waves, facing the sea (turning your back on the sea can bring back luck to your finances). This invokes the powers of Iemanjá to purify us and give us strength to overcome obstacles we will face in the new year. With each hop, you can also (some would say you should) make a wish for the new year. It is also tradition to scatter flowers in the ocean, offerings to Iemanjá.*
Apart from the white garments (which should be new, not reused), Brazilians also have superstitions about the underwear you use on New Year’s Eve. Basically, you wear a color that represents something you want for the new year: white (peace), red (passion), pink (love), yellow (money), blue (clarity, both rational and spiritual), purple (intensity), green (luck), orange (fertility and comfort), gold (wealth). Yes, you can wear colorful underwear to wish for more than one thing.
As with many other cultures, food also plays a big role in the meals that families cook, or even food that is served in restaurants or at events around New Year’s Eve. Grapes are incorporated into meals for good luck and prosperity (eat 12 at midnight); lentils for wealth and prosperity; pomegranate for luck and prosperity (keep 7 seeds in your wallet); rice for fertility and wealth (do you see a pattern?). While fish is not necessarily traditional, many people are already at the beach jumping waves and any sort of fowl (chicken, turkey, pheasant) is believed to bring bad luck and leave you stuck in the past.
Champagne and wine are made from grapes, so they are also “good luck” beverages for New Years’ festivities. For the superstitious, the coloring of wine also makes a difference, white wine being for peace and red wine for love.
This year, it will be my first réveillon with Marjorie (we’ve always been in different cities or different countries!), and our first New Year’s Eve as a married couple. We have new underwear on (colorful), and white wine and champagne ready to be opened and shared with family. Many people celebrate the New Year as a moment to let go of the past, turn a new leaf, have a new start. For us, it’s less about letting go and more about holding on. We hold on to love, and hope, and kindness. We hold onto loved ones, too, and the positive energy we try to surround ourselves with and spread. So many important things happened to me, to us, in 2017, and I want to hold onto them and to the possibilities they bring.
So however (or whenever) you celebrate, I’m wishing you the most wonderful New Year!
*I can’t help but dwell a bit more on this fact that the Brazilian New Year traditions are so closely tied to Umbanda, rather than Catholicism, and draw out some complexities. The majority of Brazil’s population is black (roughly 54%), but this is not a majority reflected in the distribution of wealth and power; it is a majority that is exponentialized in homicide, poverty, and incarceration rates. This past year saw various efforts to further stigmatize and persecute religions with African roots, but whitewashing these same traditions in the name of holiday celebrations and superstitions makes them socially acceptable. This hypocrisy is a complicated aspect of Brazil.
