It's a celebration among the Armila community to return newborn turtles to the ocean.
There has been a long-standing coexistence between Armila residents and the beach's natural environment.
It is believed that Mu, the ocean, is their grandma, and the turtles are the Guna people who transformed into turtles. By passing on the knowledge of old tales to their children, the local authorities realized they were neglecting the connection between the natural world and old tales. During a festival that coincided with the arrival of leatherback turtles, which inspire history and art, they strengthened their oral traditions, artisanal practices, ritual experiences, dance, and music associated with the natural world.
In general, the element is celebrated for its abundance or presence from coast to coast, regardless of whether it was natural or constructed from scratch. However, festival programming and scheduling are mostly focused on boosting parallel economic activities (dances, music, food and drink consumption, crafts market, and performances) as a whole. In order to balance its commoditization, festivals can be promoted as models for content and safeguarding practices, while developing different approaches where traditions are taught and where sustainable development objectives, in a broad sense, are nurtured and promoted alongside the Convention for Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Community members prepare in advance, plan, and look forward to young people carrying on the tradition happily, not out of obligation. They took decisions to maintain their traditions through community dialogue, and the same is proposed for other festivals, in which each practice is examined from an ancestral and current perspective; a consideration of threats to their ICH; a recognition of cultural diversity, and guaranteeing everyone's participation: children, men, women, the elderly, and visitors. When family members leave Armila to go to school or migrate, they return home for the festival. They prepare traditional meals for their own consumption or to sell to visitors during this time, attend the chicha fuerte ritual, or take part in turtle tours after the festival.
In order to achieve the convention's principles and objectives, traditional knowledge must be learned and transmitted, cosmovision must be enhanced, inclusiveness should be promoted, where no one is excluded and everyone has a place, and the environment must be safeguarded as part of its essence and subsistence. Science and technology are viewed by them as tools, not as threats, so that their kids may study and migrate if needed without forgetting who they are or where they came from.