Thousands of tourists and revellers are anticipated to descend on Festa San Pedro 2022 on the Portuguese Settlement in Ujong Pasir, Melaka for the primary time in two years.
The long-running pageant, which occurs from June 29 to July 2, commemorates the Feast Day of St Peter, the patron saint of the fishermen.
It additionally highlights the normal significance of fishing commerce and tradition to this coastal neighborhood, often called the Kristang individuals. There are about 1,500 individuals dwelling within the Portuguese Settlement.
Fishing was as soon as an necessary supply of earnings for this as soon as impoverished Kristang neighborhood, which resettled from different components of Melaka and made the Portuguese Settlement their dwelling in 1933. The settlement, constructed on 11ha of seafront land at first, was based by Jesuit missionaries in Melaka – Rev Father AM Corado and Rev Father JP Francois.
When a neighborhood comes collectively
Every 12 months, the neighborhood within the Portuguese Settlement will come collectively for the primary day of Fiesta San Pedro on June 29 to have a good time the fishermen within the village, attend church and observe the blessing of the boats, which might be adorned for the event. The previous two years have been quiet affairs for the neighborhood due to the pandemic.
The lighted statue of St Peter might be paraded across the Portuguese Settlement by the neighborhood’s fishermen on June 29. Photo: The Star/Filepic
“To have the masses from abroad and around the country coming to visit Festa San Pedro again is a big boost for everybody in this small community. It will be a joy to see the settlement coming alive. It will also be a time for reflection and celebration. We will be planning a warm welcome and activities for people to experience the Kristang community and culture,” says Marina Danker, a neighborhood chief and Festa San Pedro committee head.
“It’s been a difficult past two years, people are still recovering but the pandemic has also shown us how to be resilient. This year’s Festa San Pedro isn’t going to be rolled out on a grand scale, but we have put together an event that reflects the community spirit here. There will be a party and a stage for the weekend festivities, but we want to offer the masses more.
“Instead of big and bright flashy lights, we will have smaller and more personable events to get the community closer to the public. Candles will be lit throughout the settlement to mark proceedings, people can learn about the traditional games, and also pick up our folk songs. This is a chance for us to reconnect and share our heritage, especially with the new generation.
The 1511 O Maliao Maliao Dance Troupe is set to play at the Festa San Pedro 2022, with a set showcasing the vibrant music and dance of the Portuguese community of Melaka. Photo: Pusaka
“To decorate the festival, we will be using attap leaves. It’s a reminder that we used to have a big mangrove area to collect the attap. Despite things being compact in scale, you will also see a lot of the old Kristang traditions making a return this year,” she provides, referring to the attap leaves used as roofs for homes within the Portuguese Settlement within the early days and likewise the normal Kristang delicacies, music and people video games within the pageant programme.
The opening day of Festa San Pedro 2022 tomorrow will see greater than 30 fishing boats taking centre stage. For the cultural programming, the pageant might be open to the general public from 10am onwards, with a meals market, conventional actions, Kristang music (a creole of Portuguese and Bahasa Malaysia) and dance exhibits deliberate.
“There will be a variety of boats on show, the ones with the big sails, which will have St Peter, biblical scenes and fishing motifs, right to the smaller boats with buntings and folk artwork. Each boat is the pride and joy of the fishermen, and these people who go out to sea to make a living are at the heart of this festival,” says Danker.
As a neighborhood occasion, the opening day festivities will culminate (6pm-8pm) with a night mass that may happen on the Chapel of Immaculate Conception within the Portuguese Settlement earlier than the blessing of the fishermen’s boats, with the priest additionally anticipated to head out to the close by waters to bless the larger boats that can’t come to shore.
On the literary entrance, Kristang heritage advocate Joseph Sta Maria will launch his e book ‘The Malacca Portuguese: Saving Our Culture & Traditions’ on the pageant on June 30. Photo: Joseph Sta Maria
“There will also be a procession on June 29 – after the mass – with the fishermen parading through the settlement with St Peter’s statue. It will be an important gathering to bless and unite the Kristang community,” says Danker.
Looking into cultural identification
In the previous two a long time, land reclamation and shoreline tasks by the Melaka state authorities and property builders have more and more threatened the livelihood of the fishermen neighborhood within the Portuguese Settlement.
The Festa San Pedro is likely to be seen as a celebratory occasion, however there are topical points corresponding to erosion of cultural identification and the normal methods of lifetime of an ethnic minority that want to be introduced right into a wider dialog.
In 2010, Unesco, which lists languages in peril, additionally categorised Kristang as “severely endangered” and reported solely about 2,000 individuals communicate it.
On June 30, Joseph Sta Maria, a Kristang tradition and heritage advocate, will launch his e book The Malacca Portuguese: Saving Our Culture & Traditions at 5pm (on the pageant venue). It is a publication to coincide with this 12 months’s back-to-roots pageant.
“This is a story of my community and my traditions or in my native tongue, Nos sa Jenti Nos sa Tradisang. The fear of losing one’s identity is real. If we fail to recognise this, we will fail in our duties as members of our community,” says Sta Maria.
“Ignoring this reality will result in the community’s eventual disintegration and disappearance or being assimilated into other communal groups. A community can only claim to be one if it upholds a culture, traditions and a language which it can proudly call its own,” he provides.
On July 1 and a couple of, the day-long programmes will culminate with reside cultural performances (from 8pm), with custom dance teams from the Portuguese Settlement, together with 1511 O Malio Malio, Dommarina and Troupe De Sta Maria.
“There is not any Festa San Pedro if there isn’t any dancing. The stage has been quiet for over two years. Despite the challenges, it is time to put the (pandemic) disappointment away and to look ahead to higher days. Come expertise Festa San Pedro and our small neighborhood. Take step one, we’ll aid you discover your (dance) rhythm. To really feel the gang’s love once more within the Portuguese Settlement, that is the power and motivation we want,” concludes Gerard de Costa, the chief of the 1511 O Malio Malio dance troupe, who’s trying forward to a memorable and significant pageant.
