Heated culmination to holy festival
The Hindu festival in celebration of the Mother Goddess, also known as Mariepean, saw dozens of people walk over a bed of smouldering coals.
After abstaining from eating meat and drinking alcohol for 10 days, starting off with the raising of a symbolic yellow and white flag on April 29, the festival reached its heated zenith on May 8.
The final ceremonies were held at the Sai Temple in Caledon Street, Actonville, and a field in Tulbach Street.
“We burn one tonne (metric) of wood and people from all over the area come for the fire walking ceremony,” said Roy Naidoo, the head priest at the home-based temple.
“We make offerings of fruit and milk to the Mother Goddess, to thank her and ask for protection during the fire walk.”
The wood was lit early that morning and the “fire walk” itself commenced only several hours after the start of the ceremony, in which devotees prayed to the Mother Goddess and took part in a procession.
The procession led the group to a field about 2km away, where several of the participants entered into a trance state and some had their bodies pierced.
Several of the devotees had symbolic hooks hung from their upper bodies and skewers piercing their tongues or cheeks.
Pink powdered paint and yellow turmeric decorated the faces and arms of the people.
The coals were spread out in the fire pit just before the religious procession returned to its ceremonial starting point.
The pit had smaller pits on either end of it, one filled with turmeric water, meant to cleanse the feet of participants before they walked over the coals.
The small pit at the end of the “fire pit” is filled with 20 litres of milk, as part of the ceremony to cleanse the devotees of their sins.
The festival runs every year and culminates with the “fire walking” ceremony in the second week of May.
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