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Crab Festival begins in Corn Island

ViaNica.com | Aug 26, 2009

Róger Solórzano Canales

The 2009 Crab Festival, an annual event with which the community of Corn Island celebrates the abolition of slavery, began on Wednesday, August 26 and will end on Saturday 29. The celebration will include a parade, tasting of traditional local food, the election of the queen of the festival, among others.

The festivities started, at 10:00 am, in South West Beach. However, the majority of activities will take place at South End, in Big Corn Island. On Thursday 27, a traditional parade began at 8:00 am and the presentation of the queen candidates will take place today, August 28, during the evening.

According to the organizers, the last day of the celebrations (August 29) will include a commemorative trip to Little Corn Island in order to deliver the message of the end of slavery. The trip will be for free.

Charles Hodgson, coordinator of the festival and member of the mayorship of Corn Island, informed that they pretend to do different activities in order to rescue the traditions of the island. One of them will be a horse race and another will be presenting the candidates to queen dressed as slaves.

This year, Corn Island celebrates the 168 anniversary of the abolition of slavery, which took place on August 27, 1841. That decree was made by Queen Victoria of England and King Robert Charles Frederick of La Mosquitia (extinct indigenous reign which was allied with the British crown).

Crab was one of the main elements of the inhabitants´s kitchen. The day they celebrated their freedom they did it with a great quantity of food and soup made of crab, which originated the name of the festival.