Tduring its week Rio de Janeiro should have celebrated, its streets living with locals and tourists honoring the city’s carnival, a tradition dating back to the 17th century. But for the first time outside of the two world wars, the city’s flagship event is canceled. This is the only reasonable decision given how out of control the pandemic is in Brazil – yet residents and tourists still mourn the loss of the world’s most prestigious pre-Lent festival, one rooted in the sound of samba.
A century ago, samba would have become synonymous with the cultural identity of Brazil, seemed impossible. In the early 20th century, Rio’s ruling elite was shy and afraid of the rhythm, which was linked to African-Brazilian cults. Samba faced police prosecution: musicians were frequently arrested, their instruments confiscated or destroyed; meetings were suddenly closed. It might not have lasted if the intelligence and diplomacy of the entrepreneur, artist, spiritual guide and community leader known as Aunt Ciata.
By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Rio de Janeiro was a bustling capital of Latin America. Slavery was officially over and the industrialization of Brazil gained momentum. Rio has attracted Latin Europeans and African-Brazilian migrants from the northeastern state of Bahia to find better living conditions. Ciata, born Hilária Batista de Almeida, was one of them. She arrived in Rio in 1876 at the age of 22 and moved to a neighborhood known as Little Africa thanks to the predominantly African-Brazilian community, becoming one of the many so-called aunts – including Bebiana, Amélia, Perciliana and Veridiana – who community.
From Bahia, Aunt Ciata brought the culture inherited from her ancestors in Africa, and the habit of celebrating life as a form of resistance. “Her parties lasted five, sometimes seven days, uninterrupted,” said Gracy Mary Moreira, Ciata’s great-granddaughter and guardian since 2007 of Casa da Tia Ciata, a cultural institution dedicated to her memory and legacy. Ciata’s riotous rallies attracted all kinds of people, from the African-Bahian community to working-class immigrants – Jews, Arabs, Latin Europeans – and even curious white middle-class Cariocas (residents of Rio). The fuller the house, the better it is for Ciata.
This unique multicultural encounter had an authentic musical expression, today called Rio’s urban samba (or samba carioca). In his 1995 book, Tia Ciata e A Pequena África no Rio de Janeiro (Aunt Ciata and Little Africa in Rio de Janeiro), author Roberto Moura explains that, thanks to Rio’s cosmopolitan environment, black music has always been associated with Western folk music in democratic dialogue. spoke. spaces, where social and racial diverse groups met.
Ciata’s yard became a leading cultural hub where new samba composers and songs could become popular before radio in Brazil. It was an outlier. Police persecuted black musicians and practitioners of African-Brazilian religions, despite the individual freedoms promised by the 1891 constitution. Ciata has become smart at evading repression, Moreira says.
” A true samba party would inevitably need the presence of drums, which has always been negatively associated with the African-Brazilian religious cults. So Ciata would wisely place the samba musicians in the backyards, presumably the most hidden and safest part of the house. In the entrance hall, the house’s most visible and audible space, brass and percussionists will play ‘choro’ music. [considered more erudite, and hardly linked to anything close to ‘Black magic’]. When police arrived, Ciata would say that she had hosted a choro gathering and that things would normally be fine the rest of the night. ”
Samba developed in Ciata’s backyard. Here you will find future giants of the genre, including Pixinguinha, João da Baiana and Heitor dos Prazeres. The first samba hit, Pelo Telefone, recorded in 1916, was composed there. It reflects the cultural fusion that the genre has created, Moreira says. ‘It has elements of maximum [a genre inspired by the European polka and the African-Brazilian lundu] en chula [an Afro-Bahian rhythm]. ”
The authorship of Pelo Telefone is usually attributed to Donga, the musician who registered the piece in his name, but Ciata, writes Moura, helped compile it. Moreira says her great-grandmother created many other samba, which are still under investigation. What’s more, her dancing and singing ability was admirable: ‘She taught my father how to dance on every samba subgenre,’ says Moreira, whose father, Bucy Moreira, helped establish the first samba school in Rio, Deixa Falar, to establish.
Ciata’s parties gained legitimacy thanks to a chance meeting with the president. As a practitioner of the Afro-Brazilian religion of Candomblé, she is highly respected for her spiritual wisdom. When President Venceslau Brás (1914-1918) sought a cure for a long-term bone infection that no doctor could treat, an adviser recommended Ciata’s herbal treatments, Moreira said. “The so-called incurable wound healed within three days.”
The community prestige surrounding Ciata’s gatherings has been strengthened at the institutional level. Her home became known as the capital of Little Africa and received police protection from as many as six officers at a time during party days. Leading Rio musicians from more respected genres have performed at Ciatas, such as Heitor Villa-Lobos and Chiquinha Gonzaga, who, according to Moreira, put together the first Carnival single there.
She also left her mark on the celebrations. Every farm – the former name for blocos, or Carnival street parties – would pass by Ciata’s and greet her first, Moura writes. “She has set up two farms, one of which was born out of the goal of bringing peace and harmony to the community,” said Moreira, who founded Batuke de Ciata, a bloc five years ago composed mainly of female instrumentalists established.
Rio Carnival is today the most viewed and most distributed event of its kind, generating an annual revenue of approximately $ 1 billion for the city. The event even inspired other countries to establish their own Rio samba schools, from Japan to Finland. But its Afro-Brazilian origins can easily go unnoticed, especially as blocs are whitewashed and the Sambadrome parade area is temperate, and ultra-conservative evangelists, empowered by far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, suffocate and attack Afro-Brazilian history. .
It was Ciata, her farms and her community in Little Africa that created the basic instruments of the parade, such as cuíca and tamborim, and the famous choreography of contemporary samba schools: one of the most traditional wings (100 strongly costumed parade groups) of every samba school, the Baianas wing, is a direct tribute to Ciata. Ynaê Lopes dos Santos, a history professor at Fluminense Federal University and specialist in ethnic-racial relations in the Americas, has consequences beyond samba. “The memory of Aunt Ciata’s story is a pursuit of an anti-racist perspective, which really inserts the black characters into the narrative of the history of Brazil. ‘