The Afro-Panamanian Celebration
In Panama we celebrate every May 30th the day of the Afro-Latino Community, honoring the slavery abolition in New Granada in 1851. As in Panama we enjoy celebrations a lot, it is consider now that the entire month of May is dedicated to this important celebration.
The Republic of New Granada was a centralist republic consisting primarily of present-day Colombia and Panama with smaller portions of today's Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru, and Brazil.
Our government in Panama, declared by law this national day thanks to the efforts of Panamanian Mr. Claral Richards Thompson who had the idea and with help from a politician friend proposed to the legislative Assembly of Panama to make it happen.
The day of the “Etnia Negra” (Black Community) was declared finally by the law # 9 of May 30th of 2000.
During May, in many parts of Panama, there are a lot of cultural and artistic activities to promote valuable additions in our culture, traditions, historic roles and black community legacies. Some of this activities are beautiful parades in Panama City, music shows, historic conferences, and in the Colon Province (east Caribbean) Afro historic plays.
I was happy to hear that the Panamanian Afro-Descendancy Association is running an Afro Festival in some provinces and they will end up in Bocas del Toro with an important conference about Afro-Descendancy and music shows.
Here in Bocas del Toro, everyone is very proud to show their traditions and roots. I enjoy seeing the colorful and beautiful dresses that represent their traditional vestments.
This week there has been a lot of celebration in the central park of Bocas, where visitors had the opportunity to see, enjoy and learn different types of traditional dances and music such as the “Cuadrilla”, “May Poll”, “Palo Mayo”, and many more.
Here is a lovely video I found to show you an example of one of the traditional dances:
Palo Mayo Dance from the Reina Matildes Flores group.
And of course you cannot miss out on the traditional food: rice and beans with coconut, the famous Rondón which is made with coconut milk, banana, fish and hot peppers, the Bragadag, which is flour tortilla with cod, and many others.
The kids always have fun with all the different activities, games and getting to wear traditional dresses:
In Panama we are a mix of races since the very beginning of our history, that is why we all support all our races’ traditions together
There was a lady with body paint for the kids, each kids got to choose what they want in their faces:
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I went into town and collected some nice pictures and footage to make this video for you so you could have an idea of what is going on here:
Dlive Video
I hope you liked the pictures and the video, we still have 1 more week to keep celebrating the Etnia Negra month of May.
Is there a similar celebration in your country?
Thanks!
Info Sources:
Picture Source:
That's a nice festival. I love the dresses. Beautiful. thanks for sharing with us the festival.
honoring the end of slavery sounds nice, all we do in America is guilt trip each other for it having happened in the first place
I believe your way to be far superior
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This is amazing for the people! thanks for sharing with us during the show
Awesome post, I always share my support
these photos are great, what an awesome festival. Thanks for sharing your culture with the world.
Looks like a fun! Love the pictures! Upvoted :)
great pics, very colorful. Such a celebration for a great accomplishment
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P.S. I loved this piece, so colorful and fun, I am glad they gave you a day to celebrate.
Beautiful article @el-cr. I wish more places would celebrate rather than fight. We should celebrate our families and where they came form, we should celebrate each other for the differences that we have. To celebrate the end of slavery rather than use it as a tool against a populous is amazing. Panama is doing it right!!
I love the pictures and the festival seems wonderful.