These singers are privileged people in the little communities of the sertão. They also have very high opinions of themselves and of their “memories,” the word used to describe “poetic talent.”
“There’s no man like the King,
No woman like the Queen,
No Saint like God Almighty,
And no memory like mine…”
one of them sings.
Before the advent of the radio and television, which now compete with them but so far have not entirely silenced them, these singers were the real newspapers of the backlands; even today they continue to produce detailed and dramatic verse-accounts of the more sensational news. A few days after President Getúlio Vargas’s suicide, a “Brazilian Writer” (as he signed himself) of Recife produced a ballad-pamphlet called “Getúlio in Heaven,” that still sells in the weekly outdoor markets all over Brazil. The recent renunciation of President Quadros has already been put into verses, and the flight of Gagarin, and the biggest and latest aeroplane disaster. Usually the “writers” (who can’t write; someone else takes down the verses for them) sing and declaim their compositions and then sell them in pamphlet form to the by-standers. The covers of some of these pamphlets are themselves works of art; although the text is badly printed, on poor paper, full of misprints and misspellings, the outside sheet is ornamented with crude but impressive wood-cuts.
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Christmas (sometimes called “The Birth”) and New Year’s, or the Good-Year, are celebrated all over Brazil with festas that vary according to local traditions and the racial group predominating in the region. In the north and northeast, with ancient traditions of the “pastoral,” the favorite celebration is the Bumba-meu-boi (“Beat my ox”). A little group of men (as in the classical theatre, women never take part in these performances) act out a story whose hero is the ox, who dances, sings, grows sick, dies, and then comes to life again to general rejoicing and more songs and dances. The bull, with his two dancers inside, is followed by other characters: Matthew, the cowboy, the horse, the donkey, the priest (who comes to give the last rites to the dying ox), the doctor (with an enormous clyster syringe, like a character in Molière), the clown, and the chorus of […]. The music and action are interspersed with songs, and there is always a great deal of ad-libbing in the dialogues, whose wit and appositeness can make the reputation of a Matthew or a clown.
In the coastal regions, where Portuguese influence is stronger, they dance “Fandango” or “Cheganças” (“arrivals”): in a ship built on the site of the festa, they present the dramatic story of the ship Catarineta, based on an old Portuguese tale in verse that dates from the time of the discovery of Brazil. And where Negroes predominate, the play is a “Congo,” also a dramatized tale: at the court of a king of the Congo, rivals betray the kingdom to the white invaders. The crown prince discovers the plot and is killed; then follows a battle, sometimes ending in tragedy and sometimes with the victory of King Congo. All the characters are richly dressed, with velvet capes, satin breeches, and golden crowns. The ambassador of the whites is always an imposing Negro dressed like an English Admiral, with a plumed hat — like Lord Nelson.
But everywhere, from the north to the south of Brazil, in the interior and in the cities, the play of the Shepherds appears, the group of shepherds in search of the Christ Child, singing and dancing in his honor. All these primitive plays are traditional, the words handed down from generation to generation, the dialogues, even the clown’s jokes, as well as the songs.
However, all these folk festivals, and there are many others, including a variety of “rodeo” in the northeast, pale beside the great Brazilian passion, the Carnival.
Carnival reached Brazil by way of the old Portuguese Entrudo, a rude form of Carnival on Shrove Tuesday, in which masks figured, and “perfume lemons” (balls of colored wax filled with perfumed water) were thrown, but most of the rough fun consisted in throwing basins of cold water and paper sacks of flour.
In Brazil, in the cities (and Carnival is essentially an urban celebration), the Entrudo was gradually transformed into a mass-masquerade, an enormous public ball with general dancing in the streets and organized parades of dancers as well. (Not including the hundreds of private balls being given at the same time.) The paraders belong to special groups, the “ranchos” (meaning “districts,” of the town) and the “Samba Schools,” each group wearing its special costume, elaborate and often costly. The festivities go on for the three nights, all night long, preceding Ash Wednesday; and everything else comes to a complete stop: stores, banks, all work. The sambas of the year are constantly in the air; the streets are filled with slowly-moving samba-ing crowds, the air filled with confetti and streamers and the odor of the “perfume shooters”—flasks of compressed scented ether, that shoot a fine spray and not only perfume the air but give the person who gets hit a momentary thrill of icy coldness. Women samba with babies solemnly rising and falling rhythmically in their arms. It is a happy, good-humored crowd, one of the greatest shows in the world. It was, that is, because it is sad to say, but true, that Carnival, in the big cities, is rapidly being spoiled — by radio, mostly, and also by commercialism and a false idea of what appeals to the “tourist.” Hollywood movies have had their bad effects, too — a few years ago the favorite Carnival costume was taken from a film that had recently been very popular, and hundreds, or thousands, of Davids and Bathshebas samba-ed in inappropriate and ludicrous getups.
But radio and loudspeakers have done the most damage. Perhaps something can be done to save Carnival. Its essence has always been in its spontaneity and the fact that all the songs, music, and dances came directly from the people themselves. When commercial song-writers start composing songs for it, and when these songs are broadcast long before the day, the freshness has gone. Also, when a crowd of thousands sambaing along, singing their own favorite in unison, is confronted with the same samba or another one blaring over their heads at every corner from loudspeakers, in a different tempo & even interrupted by advertising — they give up singing and dancing, and shuffle along like sheep. Photographers have also been allowed to interfere with the street dancers, interrupting the prize-winning performances to get “good shots.” In Rio during the past two Carnivals the crowds finally whistled and booed some particularly obnoxious photographers out of the streets.
But in Recife, for example, the festival still has an authentic folk-lore flavor. The ordinary man goes out to play, or “to break,” as he calls having fun; if he can afford it, he dresses as a “Prince,” a rooster, Indian, devil, or skeleton (very popular). If he hasn’t any money, he improvises a costume, for example, a “woods beast”—simply a cape covered with leaves, like feathers, supposed to look like the primitive Indians. Or he shaves a strip of hair down the crown of his head, paints it red, and arranges it to look as if he has a tommy-hawk sticking in his skull. Or shaves all his head and paints it blue or green. With a parasol he sets out to dance the “frevo,” wild and acrobatic, danced half-crouching. If all else fails, he can go in rags and paint, simply as a “dirty one.”
Besides the radio and Hollywood, much of the fun has been spoiled by the government forbidding political caricatures, or making sport of the Church — some of the cleverest costumes used to be inspired by these old reliable objects of satire.