To most of the world, Rio’s carnaval is this:
Or maybe this:
But the travel-agency view of the fest is a serious mischaracterization (or at least simplification), on several fronts
One, it is a competition, and a deadly serious one (on par with the national futbol championship)
Disputed every year since 1932
There are literally six divisions, with promotion and relegation, the whole nine yards
In Rio, most folks have soccer team AND a samba school they root for
On Ash Wednesday, the whole city gathers to watch live as an announcer reads out the scores that will determine the winner, one-by-one, for 2 hours
Cheering or heckling every single score (“And now, the scores in drum section from the second judge, Matheus de Freitas…Mocidade Independente de Padre Miguel…(dramatic pause)…Nine point eight” “BOOOOOOOO!!!!”
Two, the samba schools are extremely influential institutions in their communities (most commonly in the favelas, hillside shantytowns)
They don’t just throw a parade/party in February; events and preparations stretch almost over the whole year
Three, the parade itself is certainly “folia” (revelry), but it isn’t a free-for-all
To the contrary, it has a carefully crafted plot/theme (“enredo”) that is laid out in a synopsis, described in the themed samba (“samba-enredo”), itself chosen in a months-long competition at each school in the run-up to carnaval, and brought to life at the parade through music, dances, costumes, floats, that must tell the story from beginning to end
Carnaval enredos, like the samba schools themselves, have been key players in unmasking and rewriting Brazil’s official history of itself, particularly around colonialism, slavery, and the erasure of black and indigenous history, culture, and resistance
(To be clear, they’ve also served as footsoliders of nationalism and even upholding the military dictatorship, but that’s for another dose)
Arguably the most important of the counter-narratives have come from the Salgueiro samba school (from the Salgueiro hillside favela on the city’s north side), beginning in the late 1950s — in 1957 their enredo was about the slave ship — and really taking off in 1960
That year, Salgueiro’s enredo was about Zumbi and the Palmares quilombo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmares_(quilombo)
While that history was not unknown to specialists or historians, Salgueiro’s samba and parade (as well as the numerous enredos covering it afterward) helped cement it squarely in the nation’s popular consciousness
Salgueiro’s enredos in the early 60s (at a time when they were also transforming the parade’s aesthetics via carnavalescos from Rio’s School of Fine Arts) covered Chica da Silva and Chico Rei, two previously-neglected legends of Brazlian slave society
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chica_da_Silva
http://www.historianviews.com/?p=200
These figures and histories were absent from textbooks but are now common knowledge, thanks in no small part to carnaval parades
Okay guys, it’s time for some game theory
Just kidding
But seriously, if it’s taken me this long just to get here, this could turn out the longest, most tedious dose of all
If Polonius was right, my wit may be truly soul-less
In 2003 (my second carnaval in Rio), the Unidos da Tijuca samba school presented an enredo that also highlighted a little-known history
About the “Agudas”
(The samba for that parade was also spectacular, an intriguing minor melody with lots of movement unusual in the genre)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy3L4kx4SK8
(No, this isn’t the daily dose)
The samba, as it must, lays out the school’s theme
Centered around blackness, slavery, freedom, and the criss-crossing of the Atlantic in a very unfamiliar story
It alludes to the capture and enslavement of predominantly Fon and Yoruba people in West Africa
But delves into the 19th century return (across the ocean of the orixa Yemenja) of both freed slaves and slave traders from Brazil to the kingdom of Dahomey in present-day Benin
If you’re not an African history major, I’m guessing you don’t know this; I certainly didn’t
The “Agudas” are presented in the samba as the representatives of Brazil in Africa
Bringing back to Benin the traditions of Brazil: culinary, musical, religious, indigenous amerindian knowledge.
The acaraje and vatapa, the syncretism of candomble with catholicism andd the saints, the architecture of colonial brazil
The figure of the First “Chacha” looms large
The samba–and the parade–celebrate him and the Agudas as a victorious manifestation of blackness and cultural interchange
Tijuca’s synopsis gives special place to a large event that happened in 1996 in Benin
An “enthronement” ceremony honoring the legacy of the Brazilians in the country, their contributions to the culture, that contained a ritual procession to the tomb of Francisco Félix de Sousa, the First Chacha
He was an advisor the king of Dahomey
And attained such status there that he is considered the founding patriarch of the “brasilien” community of West Africa
He’s the father of the city of Ouidah, on Benin’s coast, where a large statue of him stands in front of the museum honoring him, in the plaza named after him
Here’s the thing
Tijuca’s enredo was itself an official narrative that erased a whole other side to the story of the Agudas, and the relationship between Brazil, Benin, slavery, and power
But it’s now midnight, and I haven’t gotten to the part of the dose (the Benin side) that contains the actual music
So I think I’m gonna pause this and pick it up tomorrow
