“Hail Mary!”

David Blacker posted a photo:

This was the chant, the quivalent of “heave ho!” as fishermen drag their boat up a steep Negombo beach, in western Sri Lanka. The area is predominantly Sinhalese Roman Catholic, and the chant seemed to be the local alternative to the more commonly heard “hodi helei helei yaa!” in other Sinhalese areas of the island. February 2025.