T01 E01: MARACATU | Esse Som é Massa

♪ Venha cá, meu povo ♪ ♪ Chegue perto para ver ♪ ♪ Venha cá, meu povo ♪ ♪ Chegue perto para ver ♪ ♪ O baque de Bate Forte ♪ ♪ faz a terra estremecer ♪ ♪ O baque de Bate Forte ♪ ♪ faz a terra estremecer ♪ [Jamesson] The greatest visibility of Recife's carnival, in relation to tourism and all, is a matter of diversity of our culture. It's diversity. It's one of the most diverse cultures in Brazil.

You'll see the greatest amount of cultural manifestations in the same place, on the street. Free for people to see. And we see that this is being restricted to carnival parties.

It's like going back to the period of colonization. . .

. . .

When the people of the sugarcane plantations was freed to participate in the three days of festivity and then go back to their senzalas (slave dwelling). [Mateus] Welcome to "Sounds Good: An Upbeat History of Pernambuco". No, this is not a documentary about music in this state.

I am Mateus Melo (pleased to meet you), and I am a historian. The historian's craft consists of analyzing and interpreting historically speeches, documents, images and sounds, giving them meaning in time. Of course this whole speech comes from my narrative and perspective.

The limits we'll find in each of these analyses are based on the eyes of the ones who write, direct and edit this material. To open Sounds Good, we chose a cultural expression that gets mixed up with the history of a good part of the Pernambuco population. Maracatu.

EPISODE 1: MARACATU According to the Brazilian National Census of 2010, over 60% of the population of Pernambuco identifies as black or parda (brown / mestizo). And the history of maracatu is merged with the history of Black people in these lands. Maracatu is an example of a society marked by the denial of humanity to these people and at the same time, by the fight and achievement of acceptance and legitimacy.

Despite that, if you've ever walked the streets of old Recife on a weekend, you've probably listened to maracatu. If you grew up in different neighborhoods on the outskirts of Pernambuco, you've probably heard a maracatu passing by your house. If you've been to the biggest carnival street party of the world, from Recife and Olinda, there is no doubt about it.

You've listened to maracatu. But what is maracatu? THIS IS MY NATION [Mestre Chacon] Maracatu is a degrading term that is not part of our language.

It was created by the system, by the people of power. They used to name our manifestation and everything we did as maracatu. It's synonym of mess, confusion, disorder.

Something big and very negative. [Ivaldo] Maracatu appears in the newspapers as a gathering of poor people. And it's gradually migrating to carnival.

Maracatu was some kind of leisure for the people. A way for people to have fun. And that in a hierarchical society like in the 19th century, people probably had issues with instruments being played.

This gathering must have been seen as something dangerous, problematic. [Mateus] The documents we will analyze now are newspaper articles that illustrate what Ivaldo and Mestre Chacon stated. In the first article, published in the newspaper "Diário de Pernambuco" on a Tuesday, February 5, 1850, we find a police report about "a maracatu that Black people often do" In a second article, published in the newspaper "Jornal de Recife" on a Thursday, October 21, 1880, it's said that "Not long ago, there was a complaint in the press against a hellish maracatu.

There was such noise and drumming that it was impossible for the peaceful inhabitants of this place to close their eyes and have peace. " Yes, the complaints about these drummings and enjoyments appeared on the police news. The criminalization of these people gave legitimacy to the violence used to control them.

This hierarchical society of the 19th century that Ivaldo is talking about, or the system that Master Chacon talks about, is the product of a much more complex process of domination than the simple right of ownership over people. Enslaving Black African peoples and their descendants was just the tip of the iceberg of an entire oppressive system created by white Europeans to put human populations in hierarchical order. According to the Black scholar Sueli Carneiro, the denial of humanity to these people first goes through the disqualification of their practices and knowledge.

And these drumming and tricks were the way these people used to have fun and to socialize. Disqualifying these practices, calling it hellish noise, for example, and socially imposing this black world as hostile are ways of justifying the violence and control imposed on these people. [Isabel Guillen] The dancing, the singing and all is spread throughout the history of Brazil.

There are countless drummings of several kinds in all regions of Brazil. "I'm going to Bahia to play, I'm going to loiter Carnival" In Recife there are also drummings that they called maracatu, like in these articles that we find. These little articles.

"There's maracatu in such a place. " It's drumming. Maracatu, in this moment, is synonym of drumming.

It's some kind of percussion instrument. Some kind of circle dance and singing that is happening in that place. It doesn't necessarily have a king and a queen.

That parade as we see it. So in everyday life, you can see the drumming. Therefore, a leisure activity that is criminalized.

Criminalized on a daily basis. [Mestre Chacon] Maracatu was an outlet so that people, even with repression, even with all the prohibition of worshipping, dancing and singing, through maracatu, our ancestors could dance, sing and play. [Isabel] And at the same time that there's this criminalization practice of black culture, there's also an attempt to civilize carnival.

[Ivaldo] And this "civilizing" was opposed to the "savage" represented by Africa. So they build an argument. And this argument is ruled by an idea of colonialism representation.

Colonialism puts the African continent as the uncivilized. And there's the arrival of the cars. The idea of a Recife that is modernizing.

And the idea of modernity is imitating, at that time, France. It's imitating France, imitating Germany. So, in France and Germany, a group of people drumming doesn't fit in.

[Isabel] That's when these drummings, along with kings and queens and the coronation of Kings of Kongo, take part in carnival. And inside carnival, the police can't say "Maracatu is prohibited. Maracatu can't take place in carnival.

" So maracatu becomes, in the 19th century, a carnival association, a carnival demonstration. Why? Because it's the chance these people have, most likely, to find legitimacy to maintain their cultural practices.

[Mestre Chacon] We have some elements inside maracatu that goes to the streets, which is the court. It's some elements that we added so we can "brighten" and so we can mislead all the attention of the system at the time. We had to take our people to the streets.

We had our drumming circles, our drummers, our Ogãs. And a court, the King of Kongo. That court, that Portuguese symbology.

European symbology. The shape of the drums is of European origin. [Ivaldo] These drums with rope, looking very pretty, are found in museums in Germany of Prussian armies, French armies.

U. S. troops also had drums like those.

English troops did too. [Mestre Chacon] In that mix, only the atabaques from Africa are the representativity of our ritual yard. And then the people, the sons and daughters, with their religious clothing, mixed with the court, were called maracatu.

[Mateus] But hold on. Maracatu had a court, a king, brightness, drums. .

. What are these symbols and what is their purpose? Adopting these artifacts, this stance and all this European universe seems to be the key for Black people to negotiate their right to exist and their culture to be considered culture, not violence.

It's like they need to use a series of elements in order to achieve the minimum, to defend themselves and to be able to keep living life. If in order to play and express yourself without being criminalized, without appearing in the newspapers as someone naturalized as a criminal, they have to use these clothes and interpret this play from a white world, that traded more than 12. 5 million people to the American continent, then so be it.

The appropriation of symbols, such as king and queen, was part of a black strategy to reimagine Western cultural elements and to negotiate the needed legitimacy to parade. ♪ Eu ando e você não anda ♪ ♪ Eu vejo e você não vê ♪ ♪ Sou almirante do forte ♪ ♪ E é macumba pra valer! ♪ [Isabel] In the late 1920s until most of the 1930s, there's a religious persecution, that we call today religions of African origin.

But these religions are incredibly diverse. They are incredibly diverse in their practice. They're not a single religion, consolidated like the ones we see today.

There are two types of maracatu. The maracatus that indeed existed and paraded in carnival. They "asked permission" to parade in carnival.

Which are, for example, Dona Santa, Elefante, Estrela Brilhante. And the maracatus that never existed, that had fake names. Generally, the name of terreiros (ritual yards / sacred spaces) of spiritual fathers (pais de santo).

And we know that because we know who were the main pais de santo from that period, we recognize who is asking for permission, which are these pais de santo. [Jamesson] We know that when maracatu is being composed, Black people appropriated it. And Black people from favela, in its majority, when seeing something related to black culture, and I'm talking about our case here, they approach.

They identify with it and want to participate. Of course this takes a long time, but this is how it is. So, in any way, Black people from terreiro will be present.

But, sure, religion starts being part of it because it's something that refers to Black people. That is part of a history and a tradition that was put there. But if you think about the history of maracatu from the beginning, since we have knowledge about how maracatu emerged, the religion from terreiro is not present there.

Or at least this is not so revealed. That's something more present in recent history and not in the culture of centuries ago, about what is understood as maracatu. ♪ Eu ando e você não anda ♪ ♪ Eu vejo e você não vê ♪ ♪ Sou almirante do forte ♪ ♪ É macumba pra valer ♪ ♪ Eu ando e você não anda ♪ ♪ Eu vejo e você não vê ♪ ♪ Sou almirante do forte ♪ ♪ É macumba pra valer ♪ I've never followed any religion, just macumba.

Because if we don't follow, other people will and they'll get ahead of us. There's everything in the world. There's the spiritual side, there's macandomblista.

There's everything, so I have to follow. About my part in. .

. I don't take part in this thing. I take part in maracatu, but not in this other side.

I don't take part in it, I observe. Like in Leão Coroado, I used to observe. What I saw in Leão Coroado only happened when there was drumming.

I used to observe what they were doing. But when it comes to being part of. .

. And when it happened, around carnival, he would call the drummers to sacrifice animals. Bombo mestre would be asked to put the blood on the top of the drum and to cover the drum with a white towel.

When I arrived, I asked him: "Seu Luiz, what is this for? " He said: "This is so there's no confusion. To free us on the streets.

" But taking part in killings, this and that. . .

No. [Isabel] Simultaneously, in the 1930s, there's already a national discussion about identity. There's a discussion going on since the 1920s.

And popular culture highly participates in the creation of this identity. A national identity. Not only in Pernambuco, but a national identity.

Which is when samba is turned into a symbol of national identity. And samba as black culture, as a culture that was also persecuted. [Ivaldo] When we start to define Brazil, and this is very strong from the 1930s on, there's this idea of a mixed-race Brazil.

You have to mandatorily refer to white, black and indians. In the 1930s and 1940s, these intellectuals, folklorists, musicians, journalists are having a debate during this creation process of a national identity. They're discussing about what cultural manifestations in Pernambuco that can play this role.

And maracatu is key in this matter. ♪ Carnaval tem o seu direito ♪ ♪ Quem num pode com ele, num se meta ♪ Quickly, we have those cultural manifestations which were criminalized, that process of cultural mediation, that transition process from race theory to culture, that paradigm shift, present in Gilberto Freyre's work. Miscegenation as a defining factor of the Brazilian man, of the Brazilian man's culture.

The Brazilian man is mixed-race. The Brazilian culture is mixed. It's all mixed together, so the place of Black people changes.

Right? The place of Black people becomes part of the composition of this miscegenation. In 1938, the papers show Dona Santa being arrested and disqualified.

In 1944, she is the cover of a magazine. [Mateus] This concept of racial democracy defended that miscegenation in Brazil was a product of a harmonious society among the first peoples, white, black and indigenous people. Today, this alleged peaceful and romantic origin defended by Gilberto Freyre and other intellectuals of the time, and that was supported by the common belief, is much contested.

Despite representing this paradigm of non-white people becoming part of the composition of our identity as a nation, this myth of a just society without racial intentions already exposes the perpetuation of a previous domination. But in a subtle way. Let me explain: While Europe represented progress, modernity, novelty, an archaic Africa was being created, which represents tradition, what is in the past.

Europe can only assert itself as modern because there was an Africa to call backward. In this Brazil that is being invented from the 1920s and 1930s, maracatu starts to gain acceptance in front of the State and of means that had previously criminalized these people, like the media. Because it's a signature of tradition, of endurance.

Maracatu starts turning into a folklore, into a carnival party, that represented our homely, immutable, ancient side. Dona Santa, for example, symbolizes this tradition. [Anna Beatriz] So the State would also choose what were the symbols of the culture of Pernambuco.

But in a very "folklorized" way, and Isabel Guillen explains that very well. So choosing Dona Santa as the symbol of the culture of Pernambuco, a representative of the state's maracatu, which is this ancestral, African culture present in Pernambuco, it doesn't mean that the maracatuzeiros, as a whole, had better living conditions. That they had more access to education, health, decent jobs.

That is, these weren't related. So it was a very folklorized and dehumanizing way with regard to valuing a culture. They were valuing a symbol.

Dona Santa is a symbol. [Isabel] And then you have maracatu in this place of folklorical survival. Dona Santa as the last major Black matriarch.

And so on. And it's like that until the 1970s, more or less. In the 1960s, only three maracatus used to parade.

[Ivaldo] The older Mestre in activity at the present moment is Toinho. Toinho was Mestre of Leão Coroado when it was still directed by Luiz de França. 🎵Quando estava em Leão Coroado🎵 🎵Foi lá que eu aprendi🎵 🎵Ai que saudade🎵 🎵De Afonso e de Seu Luiz🎵 🎵Mas canta meu povo.

. . 🎵 [Mestre Toínho] The difference between now and then is that the biggest maracatu that we had had twelve drums.

Other had ten, other had six. Concerning the characters, the baianas arrived. There were six.

There were the spearmen. It was better than today. Money was short, right?

It wasn't much money. [Contra-Mestre Toínho] And there were fewer people, right? Fewer people.

20, 30 people. It's what we did. Today we make tons of people play.

Every year, three busses arrive here, not counting the cars. Three busses and small cars. "I want to travel very comfortably.

" And I say: "Look at that. " [Isabel] What happened after all? What kind of magic happened so that today there are.

. . 30 groups of maracatu?

In less than 50 years. What happened to the cultural dynamics that made these groups. .

. that were in decay, suddenly reach this place present today in contemporaneity? [Anna Beatriz] Little by little, especially at the end of the 1980s and in the 1990s, there was a boom of maracatus, right?

And there's a series of issues that can explain why this happened. [Isabel] Then there are various Black movement activists in terreiros, going to maracatus, becoming drummers, trying to direct a maracatu. So there's a cultural dynamics of the social movements that is seeking legitimacy for maracatus.

[Ivaldo] We can say that what makes maracatu successful is the competence of the men and women of maracatu in negociating spaces with the contexts in which they lived. "Who told you my drumming is the best? " Now, when I grab my whistle and start to conduct my drummers, this is my drumming.

This is it. I don't have relations with anybody. If you're saying that I'm showing off, you're wasting your time.

Do you know what to do? Go ask the people if I'm good. If you're the best.

. . If it's not me, it's you.

The people know. When I grab the whistle, I know what to do with my drummer. I don't want a fast beat.

Mine is paced. I don't want to be best, but this is my beat. That's why I'm here.

If I leave this maracatu and go to another, if they ask, I'll go. If I'm not with him, I'll go. But I'll quickly ask: "How is the beat here?

Like this? " I'll keep observing. When I'm conducting the maracatu, it'll be the beat I want.

If they deny, I won't stay. Because I learned that way. I'm not better than anyone, but I'm the best one in my maracatu.

Isn't it like that? "You're the best one. " No, I'm the best in my maracatu.

[Ivaldo] Then there's Elda. Elda adpated maracatu to the runway. She adapted it, Elda Viana from Porto Rico.

She adapted maracatu to become a spectacle. So she creates characters. She creates the Odalisques that are in the court.

Elda starts using Lamé. Lamé is a shiny fabric, isn't it? Elda starts making beautiful clothing for queens.

[Anna] These maracatus over these years, they not only resisted the situations in which were imposed to them, but they also negotiated. I think the word “negotiation” is fundamental to understand all the network between maracatuzeiros and the State the consumers, their own community and other maracatus. [Isabel] This cultural dynamics of Black men and women, of who makes carnival happen, is what will change the place of maracatu to something fated to disappear.

[Ivaldo] In the 1980s, there's a consumption of authentic things. Today we say “root”, right? So, in the 1980s, we have in Recife the production of a São João Festival in TV Jornal, that starts in the 1980s until the 1990s.

In the 1990s, there’s a production called "Pernambucanidade". There’s the TV program Pernambucanidade. So we have a discourse with an appeal to regionalism.

Then, in this context, there’s Nação Pernambuco, which becomes very successful from the 1980s to the 1990s. Nação Pernambuco goes to Europe. [Isabel] And then there are a lot of young people during this period, the 1970s, that become interested, already by the 1980s, in playing maracatu, in learning about it, in knowing a little about this culture.

Knowing what is maracatu and so on. This is combined with a renewal of new leaders of maracatuzeiros that kept on turning up. Then in the 1990s, already with Manguebeat, in the beginning of the 1990s.

. . With Manguebeat, the beat of maracatu travels the world.

♪ Há um tempo atrás se falava em bandidos ♪ ♪ Há um tempo atrás se falava em solução ♪ ♪ Há um tempo atrás se falava em progresso ♪ ♪ Há um tempo atrás que eu via televisão ♪ [Ivaldo] It’s common to say that the Mangue movement takes maracatu to its peak, to success. I’ll say that there are controversies about that. Because when you say that the cultural manifestations, in general, gain fame with the Mangue movement, I’ll say that, before the movement, there are signs that show that maybe the Mangue movement was part of a bigger context.

[Mestre Chacon] So maracatu got to carried Chico to the world. It wasn’t Chico who carried maracatu. It was maracatu that carried Chico.

[Ivaldo] Maracatu reaches its peak in 1999 and 2000 until 2010, 2011, 2012. During 11, 12 years, maracatu defines the carnival in Recife. [Jamesson] There was a time when maracatus had more visibility.

Moreover, Recife was even the land of frevo and maracatu. I think that was until 2010. Between 2000 and 2010, it had all this visibility.

So the maracatus appeared more in the events during the year. Then this was over. After 2010, it was over.

So now we're like in the 1980s and 1990s, when the associations only show up at carnival. That is related to financial support and performances for visibility as well as to this matter of bureaucracy too, which was something created to rule them out. So, about the maracatus, nowadays we have this feeling that we’re back to the 1990s.

Because you only see maracatu in Recife during carnival. Because it’s in competitions that they get ready to show its beauty, the spark, the beat in order to get judged and to reach its peak, that is winning the competition to gain more visibility. So, without carnival, maracatu virtually doesn’t exist.

Because what is its goal? So let’s think about it. There’s the community, the people that create it, but those people get ready the whole year for what?

Like samba schools, right? They get ready to be seen at carnival. That is when these oppressed people that spend the whole year working hard, or living in that situation that we already know of, have a moment as an artist.

They're seen through different eyes. And this visibility is different from their everyday lives. [Anna Beatriz] So we can’t ignore this dimension.

Because maracatu is entertainment and it's also resistance, it's negotiation. For me, more than resistance, it's negotiation. But it's also a source of income and this is valid.

A samba singer or a funk singer, they sing for personal satisfaction and professional accomplishment but they also want to make a living by that. Make a living by their art and music. And that’s valid.

So is maracatu. [Mateus] The history of maracatu is also the history of Pernambuco. This phenomenon is hard to measure and challenges who studies it because it’s complex.

It involves people, stories, fights and social places that are not mine and web of connections over the history that is lost in sight. It’s a little bit of the history of Brazil and of Black people. If there's a real and an official Brazil, like Machado de Assis said, maracatu seems to be part of a real Brazil.

It's far from the Romanticisms we sold others and ourselves, that claim we're a harmonious land and that a colonization machine that enforces brutal racism does not have consequences today. [Jamesson] And the worst part is that we are seen as mere entertainment by the elite and by the government. So much so that we are freed at carnival to entertain people, to show culture to the people.

But during the year they deny everything when we charge them. Why? Because if you put a manifestation of Black people on the streets, it will bring a historical background of social charging and social negligence.

So, when this is summarized as mere entertainment, that group is charged. Let's say they are a timing bomb, right? A series of demands is raised.

Because the face of poverty, misery, abandonment, negligence is exposed when you see a “bunch of Black people” parading on the street. So that’s really shocking, right? For a government or maybe an institution that wants to hide this process.

So we do this a lot, right? And all the participants of our maracatu are aware of that. We know why we go to carnival.

We know what we want from carnival. Everybody speaks the same language, you see? So, this is Baque Forte.

[Mateus] And what do you want from carnival? [Jamesson] We want money. Because money is what allows us to upgrade and do the things that we need.

Mestre’s house was just this little space covered by tarp. Look how it is now. It’s almost ready to give him the dignity he needs.

Not a shack with two openings covered by tarp, with a roofless bathroom. Isn’t that right, Mestre? And only money can give us that.

It gives us the dignity we need. To pay the rent of the headquarters and our bills. To end the hunger of someone who’s in need.

Of course that welfare is not our goal, but unfortunatelly it’s what we have for today, tomorrow or later. [Mateus] More than the history of Brazil, Pernambuco or wherever, maracatu is a little of the history of Dona Santa, Elda, Mestre Toinho, Mestre Chacon, Mestre Teté, Toinho, Jamesson and of several people that keep on affirming and reaffirming every day that they have value and where they have it.