A Report on Three Quilombos in Itapicuru-Mirim
By Leonard Abrams
HISTORY
The word “quilombo,” which has its roots in several West African languages,
including what is now Congo and Angola, translates roughly as “encampment.” During
pre-slavery times, it denoted settlements of runaway slaves in Brazil. Another term for
the same type of community is “mocambo.”2 The creation of such communities was not
unique to Brazil, but rather they occurred virtually everyplace in the New World in which
slaves were imported from Africa.3 The word is also used for settlements organized by
inhabitants of abandoned plantations who maintain traditional lifestyles.
Among the French, Dutch and British colonies the term “maroon” (“wild”) is used to
refer to runaway slaves or descendent of theirs who maintain such an identity,4 while in
Spanish-speaking areas the word “palenque”5 (“palisade”) refers to such settlements, as
they were often fortified.
Today, “quilombo” refers generally to rural communities of blacks whose way of life,
due to geographic, racially based and/or socioeconomic isolation, is distinct from Brazil’s
mass society and reflects the African antecedents of its inhabitants. Researchers have
identified over 700 communities6 as quilombos since the installation of a democratic
government there in 1988, though the true number may eventually run into the thousands.
The majority of these actually began as plantations, as many plantation owners
abandoned their land for economic reasons both before and after the abolishment of
slavery in 1888,7 due to decreasing prices for their produce, frequent bouts of political
instability,8 and the undercutting of the value of slave and later freedmen labor by
European and Japanese immigrants.
The designation of “quilombo” carries political freight in this moment in history, as
there has been and continues to be conflict over the ownership of the land where many
quilombolas live and farm today. According to the 1988 constitution, put in place with
the return of democracy to Brazil, communities so designated may receive legal title to
their lands.9 As Brazil’s transportation network improves, land formerly ignored by the
outside world has increased in value, drawing the attention of the historically ubiquitous
type of estate-holder in Brazil who uses theft as a means of acquisition.10
CURRENT CONDITIONS
The communities covered in this study are the associations, or villages, of Morros,
Santa Joana and Santa Maria dos Pretos (Santa Maria of the Blacks) of the municipality
of Itapicuru-Mirim in the state of Maranhão in northeastern Brazil. The author spent three
weeks in the communities, staying at the homes of Diomar Francisco da Conceição and
João Batista Sousa Pereira, the presidents of Santa Maria and Santa Joana, respectively.
These communities were part of a plantation of 9,000 hectares. The plantation,
established over 300 years ago, was given, or abandoned, to its African-American
inhabitants upon the abolishment of slavery in 1888. Since that time various incursions
have been made by nearby white ranchers, resulting in the loss of 4,000 hectares. During
the past several decades, such incursions have been contested and, with the use of public
demonstrations and other forms of political pressure, repulsed without bloodshed.
2
The quilombolas’ cause has been taken up by a number of left-of-center political
groups in various manifestations since the return of democracy, with varying degrees of
support by their objects. The first project of the systematic mapping of quilombos was
initiated in Maranhão in 1988 by the Negro Life Project (PVN), together with the Center
for Negro Culture (CCN) and the Society for the Defense of Human Rights in Maranhão
(SMDDH).11 These groups and others like them across Brazil continue to promote
quilombolas’ rights, and also administer some health, education and development
projects.
As it happens, while the majority of voters in Santa Maria supported Inacio da Silva
(“Lula”) of the Workers’ Party (PT) in the presidential elections of 1994 and 1998, the
voters of Santa Joana largely supported Fernando Henrique Cardoso of the Brazilian
Social Democracy Party, the winner of both contests. It may not be coincidental that
electric service stops just short of Santa Maria. Still, Diomar Francisco, president of
Santa Maria, was able to persuade the municipality to send a bulldozer to help build a
makeshift bridge across the iguapare (creek) named Ipiranga so that cars could drive to
the village for its anniversary celebration.
Morros, Santa Maria and Santa Joana, like the majority of quilombos at present, exist
in a legal limbo as they await title to their lands. Aside from the sporadic attempts at
depredation and occasional delivery of services of the kind mentioned, they are largely
ignored by the outside world. The communities, which together contain roughly 1,000
persons, have no medical facilities, plumbing or schools, apart from the elementary-level
schools run by the quilombolas themselves. All of the buildings are handmade from clay.
3
The three quilombos are governed each by a president who is elected by residents 16
years of age and older. The term is four years; it is an unpaid position.
Morros is the first village one encounters on the single-track dirt road that serves as a
main street, followed by Santa Joana, Santa Maria and other communities beyond. The
road branches from a considerably wider unpaved highway that terminates in the town of
Itapicuru-Mirim 19 km away. None of the residents owns a motor vehicle, though many
make use of bicycles and burros, while a few keep horses.
The quilombos studied here conduct for the most part a subsistence economy, in the
sense that they produce largely for their own consumption and consume most of what
they produce. Farming is the major occupation. The major draw upon leisure time is the
planning and enactment of social events, which include religious ceremonies,
commemorative events, dance parties and soccer matches. The word used for a social
gathering, “brincadeira,” employed equally for prayer meetings and dance parties, is also
commonly translated as “game” or “joke.”
A trip into town can be had by truck every few days for one real. A bicycle ride into
town during the dry season is a fair bit more strenuous than traversing the length of
Manhattan; during the rainy season the roads are often impassable, increasing the
isolation of the quilombolas. This is partially offset by the use of small canoes on the
Ipiranga, which wends its way through numerous communities until it reaches the sizable
Rio Itapicuru hard by the town. The Ipiranga is only navigable during the rainy season.
Itapicuru-Mirim, a modest community of 5,000-7,000 in which bicycles far
outnumber automobiles, is some 100 km from the state capital of Sao Luis, a seaport of
700,000.
4
A small community of blacks resides in Itapicuru-Mirim, most of whom have
relatives in nearby quilombos. Diomar Francisco, president of Santa Maria, keeps a home
in the town, one reason being that his children may attend the public school. A few other
relatively prosperous quilombolas do the same, or else have their children stay with
relatives in town so that they may be educated in modern fashion.
While most young adults here are literate, many just a few years older are not.
Reading material, apart from the Bible, is not a common sight. A half-dozen or fewer
families have televisions, which receive a poor signal. Dance parties aided by small
sound systems are thrown frequently. Forro and roots-reggae music are de rigeur for
these. Apart from drums, there is little evidence of art or craft-making, aside from the
most utilitarian, such as weaving of plant fibers and toolmaking. Cultural expression
occurs mainly through festivals and ceremonies.
In 1999, electrical power service was extended to Morros and Santa Joana but not
Santa Maria, which is about the size of the first two together. Each dwelling along the
main street of the first two villages is connected to the power grid and has a meter. Most
of these are lighted by one or two naked bulbs. Some families own bottled gas-powered
stoves; all own at least some manufactured cooking and dining utensils, and sleep in
commercially made hammocks or beds. Kerosene lamps are used by those who lack
electricity. Most people use manufactured toiletries; all wear store-bought clothing.
Santa Joana has a water tower with multiple spigots, supplied by an electric pump,
while Santa Maria has a similar water tower supplied by a diesel pump, both of which
were erected during the past few years by the municipality. Most inhabitants, however,
find it more convenient to draw their water from the Ipiranga, or from wells or springs
5
nearer their houses. The water-hauling is done by women, who balance plastic buckets or
ceramic vases on their heads.
Despite the lack of most modern devices, there is little sign of suffering or discord.
Parents are rarely seen disciplining their children, who nonetheless do not appear
disruptive. Food is not scarce and theft, with the possible exception of bicycles, is rare.
Inebriation is not a rare occurrence, however, and at least two residents appeared to
regularly treat the community with drunken harangues. Both of these men appeared to be
marginal members of the community: one was considered mentally unbalanced, while the
other was the itinerant carpenter. They were largely ignored when in this state.
While the festivals observed appeared entirely peaceful, some residents talked about
trouble erupting during public events in which alcohol was freely consumed, which is to
say most of them. Municipal authorities may be called to help police such events.12
There does appear to be a slightly higher incidence of undersized individuals compared
with typical communities in the Northern Hemisphere, which may have to do with the
relatively small proportion of protein in the typical diet. Modern medical treatment,
which is available only in the town, is augmented with herbs and animal parts and
extracts, as well as healing via Macumba ceremonies.
CURRENT PRACTICES
Food Production
Mandioca
Mandioca (also known as manioc, cassava and yucca) is a staple food in this
community, as it is in much of Brazil as well as in tropical lands all over the world.
6
Mandioca is native to South America, and the quilombolas’ method of cultivating and
processing it is essentially the same as that of many Native American groups, with some
improvements from the modern world.
The cultivation of mandioca starts with the slash-and-burn method of field clearing
typical in much of the tropical world. This community supports an individual who pays
five reals for the right to harvest the charcoal in a typical field of one hectare or more.
The charcoal is sold as a cooking fuel.
Pieces of mandioca root are planted several feet apart; they grow to become
individual plants, eventually producing mandioca tubers. The earth, which, as is most
often the case in the tropics, is poor and contains little topsoil, readily supports the
mandioca plant, which explains the prevalence of mandioca as a tropical staple. The
tubers are abundant and easily pulled from the soil by hand.
The mandioca tubers are then peeled, soaked in water to soften them, and shredded,
the latter task done with the use of what appears to be the only machine used by these
quilombolas in food preparation. This shredding device consists of a wooden hub fitted
with steel teeth, which is spun by a rope belt connected to a wooden wheel several yards
away. The wheel is cranked by hand.
After the tubers are shredded, the mass is stuffed into a “tapiti,” a long, tube-shaped
basket of woven plant fibers similar to the children’s toy that many in the Northern world
know as “Chinese finger cuffs,” which narrow when pulled. This basket, woven into
loops on either end, is set perpendicular on a rack and stretched with the weight of a
person, then tied in its stretched-out position for perhaps an hour. The effect is that excess
water is wrung out of the mass.
7
The mass is then expelled from the tube and crumbled through a coarse sieve, after
which it is then raked with a hoe-shaped tool in a large iron pan of several feet across that
makes up the roof of a clay oven. (Traditional Native Americans use a handmade ceramic
pan.) Wood and plant fibers are burnt inside the oven. After about 3/4 of an hour of this
toasting process, the resulting coarse “flour” (“farinha” in Portuguese) is laid out on a
plastic sheet to cool. The final product is packed in large commercially purchased sacks.
Farinha is primarily used by the quilombolas, as it is by a great many Brazilians, to
thicken and add calories to most dishes, which usually consist of meat, poultry or fish in a
sauce, served over rice. It is also used by the quilombolas to make a kind of cake, and can
also be fermented into liquor, which is sold but not produced in this community.
Equally importantly, farinha is the leading cash crop of the community. There are two
or more farinha factories, known as “fornos” (ovens) in each village. The farinha is taken
to market in the town of Itapicuru-Mirim several times per year in lots of two metric tons
or more via a hired truck. Most of this work is performed during the dry season. The
quilombolas receive the equivalent of six U.S. cents per pound, which even in this
location is not very much money for the effort involved.
Rice
Perhaps the most important food crop in the community is rice: a typical dish here
consists of what a Northerner would consider a very large pile of rice, topped by a
modest amount of meat, poultry or fish in a sauce.
Rice is well suited to this climate and terrain, as many fields here are flooded during
the six-month rainy season and require no additional irrigation. Aside from the slash-and-
8
burn method, the rice fields are cleared with the help of commercial herbicides. Diomar
Francisco’s field of approximately five hectares yielded 1,350 kilos of rice.
The rice is dried in outdoor bins during the dry season and stored in its unthreshed
state in indoor bins or in sacks. It is polished by pounding in mortars. This last process is
possibly the most common and arduous task in food preparation, performed largely by
women. The speed and productivity of the pounders of rice (as well as those of babassou
nuts and of the breakers of babassou cocos) are points of pride and contention.
Babassou
In the babassou palm, with its fruit, the babassou nut cluster or “coco,” is one of the
few commodities in which this community is rather uniquely wealthy. Thousands of the
palms grow here, providing a bounty of nuts, palm fronds for roofs and weaving material,
and the edible heart of the palm.
The babassou nut, though fibrous throughout, yields a nutritious, high-quality oil,
somewhat similar to but finer than that of the coconut, and the fibrous matter surrounding
the nut sections can be processed into a cocoa-like powder. The nut can be eaten raw but
is more easily consumed when first dry-roasted in a pan.
The babassou is underexploited as a food and a cash product because of the nature of
the coco. The coco, which resembles a large brown goose egg, is extraordinarily hard and
tough. Extracting the nuts, which are shaped somewhat like a section of orange and of
which there are typically three to six, entails striking the coco with a dense wooden stick
or mallet against an upended axe head. The work is arduous; a day’s work of cocobreaking yields approximately eight kilos of nuts, which can be sold for 30 centavos per
kilo, or US$1.00 for the day, to a local purchaser. The fact that a fair number of
9
quilombolas resort to this work is indicative of the scant opportunities for their
participation in the mainstream economy. With that, certain individuals noted with some
pride that coco-breaking afforded them the wherewithal to purchase needed commodities.
Machines exist that have been adapted to aid in the extraction and processing of
babassou nuts; these devices are in use in some Native American communities, extractive
reserves and on certain other quilombos. But this community, far removed not physically
but socioeconomically from the mainstream society, has not been able to acquire such
basic technology.
Villagers complained that the price of babassou nuts had fallen over the years such
that they could no longer buy needed goods such as clothes with the money earned from
extracting them. This may reflect the use of extracting machinery in other communities,
as well as the availability of cheaper commercially processed vegetable oils.
Babassou oil is prized for the flavor it adds to foods, and so there is a market for it in
the community and in neighboring villages. Women produce the oil by roasting the nuts,
crushing them in a mortar, squeezing the mass in water to extract a milk, boiling the
milky mixture and skimming the oil from the top. The residue is eaten as well, either over
farinha or by itself, sweetened with cane sugar.
Homemade babassou oil can be sold for 3 reals (US$1.20) per liter in the villages. A
family business in the town, which purchases the nuts from gatherers and produces
babassou oil with the aid of an electrically powered nut grinder, sells the oil for 2 reals
per liter. This is roughly equivalent, considering the premium paid for distributing
products to outlying districts. The residue from the commercial operation is sold as
animal feed.
10
Most quilombolas here more often buy commercially produced soybean oil at one of
the two general stores in Santa Maria for 2 reals per liter, though babassou oil is
universally acknowledged to be superior.
Two other products result from the process. Babassou-husk charcoal is a preferred
cooking fuel, and plump white grubs are found in some cocos. Known as “gongo” (an
African-derived word), they are used as fishing bait and also fried in their own fat, which
is used as a skin balm. Fried gongo are also eaten. They are delicious.
Husbandry
The quilombolas raise chickens, pigs and cattle, most commonly the first and rather
little of the last. Due to a lack of refrigeration, cattle are typically sold wholesale in the
town, and when a pig is slaughtered most its components are immediately sold off.
During the author’s stay, an entire cow was purchased for the use in large part for the
anniversary celebration of Santa Maria, though private individuals had spoken for much
of the animal before it was slaughtered.
One woman in Santa Maria, a recipient of a “micro-loan” from a regional bank, owns
a small chicken farm. The operation, which consists of buying chicks and corn and
selling pullets, appeared successful in spite of her lack of literacy.
The typically small pig farms similarly consist of the raising of juvenile pigs into
young adults with the use of commercial feed, augmented by farinha, the residue of the
babassou oilmaking process and household scraps.
The relatively few number of quilombolas who raise cattle keep small herds of a
dozen or fewer head. More status accrued to these farmers than those who raised lesser
animals. Milk, at least during the dry season, was not in any great supply from these
11
cattle and only satisfied the needs of those households. Quilombolas more commonly
bought commercially processed powdered milk to add to their coffee.
Hunting
The quilombolas also made use of game, which includes deer, wild pig, a variety of
birds, armadillos and other rodents, as well as snakes and turtles. Hunting is a favored
pastime, though many hunters came up emptyhanded for their efforts and the woods
seemed strangely devoid of the noise of birds and the rustle of even the smallest animals,
such as one takes for granted in the temperate North. Much of this could be explained by
the fact that small animals in the temperate North are unused to being hunted, though it
may also indicate the relative lack of wildlife in many tropical forests in the dry season.
Animals appear to be treated rather casually in these communities; pets such as are
kept are generally not fawned over but largely serve a purpose, either as watchdogs or, in
the case of birds, as sources of amusement for the owners. An armadillo purchased by the
author was casually executed with hammer-blows to the head, while in another case a
child, petting a quail about to be prepared for dinner, just as casually wrung its neck a
moment later. These acts were done with neither cruelty nor ceremony, though it is not
uncommon for a child to amuse herself with a terrified captive wild bird.
Housing
All types of shelter in the quilombos are built in essentially the same manner: A
rectangular frame of wooden poles is lashed together and the spines of palm fronds are
then lashed, inside and out, to the frames in intervals of approximately a hand span. Clods
of earth are piled into the space thus made, and the space between them is filled in and
12
smoothed over with mud. This work is done by hand, though the walls of some houses
are smoothed over with a straight-edged piece of wood or other material and thus made to
resemble a plaster wall. A few of these finished walls are painted. Some less ambitious
structures have walls of palm fronds.
A typical house is roughly 15 feet wide and perhaps 50 feet long and contain several
interior walls to create a living room, one or more bedrooms and a kitchen. Doors and
window frames are usually made of sawn wood bought in town, though many houses had
doors of woven palm fronds and windows with bars made of palm frond spines. Glass
windows are rare.
The roof is made by lashing overlapping fronds of the babassou palm. Sometimes
synthetic, industrially made cord is used for lashing, though bark strips are more
common. Floors are made of packed earth. A roof can last up to ten years, a house up to
20.
This type of wattle-and-daub building technique, with palm-spine ribs delineating
mud walls, can be seen in many regions of West Africa today, though conical houses are
more typical there.13
Some quilombolas’ kitchens contain clay stoves powered by charcoal, while many
people do all their cooking in a pot over three stones. A few households own modern
stoves powered by bottled gas. Cooking and eating utensils are of the kind typically seen
in discount houseware stores all over the world: aluminum, stainless steel and plastic,
mostly imports from Asia. While a number of houses contain one or more typical beds,
most quilombolas sleep in store-bought cotton hammocks.
13
Craft
Carpentry
The central houshold implement is the mortar and pestle. It is used daily to polish
rice. Rice grains, on or off the stalk, are placed in the mortar and pounded with a heavy
wooden pestle several feet in length for ten to fifteen minutes until the husk and most of
the outer grain is removed, resulting in a blonde, nearly white grain. The chaff is shaken
out in a shallow basket.
The mortar and pestle are also used to mill corn and wheat, to mash babassou nuts
and to crush coffee beans and salt.
After hewing the rough shape of the mortar with an axe, the carpenter places hot coals
and coco husks to burn the area where the bowl is to be made, then removes the burnt
portion with a chisel, as in the process of making a dugout canoe.
Softer woods, worked more quickly, are made into mortars more cheaply than the
harder woods, the hardest of which can last a lifetime as opposed to a few years. The
itinerant carpenter in residence, of Portuguese extraction, charged from ten to 20 reals for
a mortar and $R2.50 for a pestle. A mortar can take one or two days to make, a pestle
about an hour.
The carpenter and his wife had taken up residence in an unused house at the
beginning of the dry season and expected to stay as long as his products were in demand.
He said he also made canoes, stools, tables and cupboards, but there was little call for
them here. Plastic chairs are more common than wooden ones, presumably due to the cost
of the latter.
14
Drum-making
One of the two kinds of drums seen in the community, which are used ceremonially,
are made locally by a quilombola who also farms. A portion of hollow tree trunk several
feet long is sawn from a fallen tree and finished inside and out with a steel chisel. A raw,
dried animal skin, typically of deer or wild pig, is stretched over one end of the drum and
held in place by wooden pegs placed into holes around the drum’s rim. The skin is later
tightened by holding the drum close to a fire.
Several of these conga-type drums are used together in Macumba ceremonies in
relatively complex multirhythmic arrangements, as opposed to the lighter drums with
steel bodies that are used in processions and not made in the villages.
Ceremonies, Festivals and Religious Practice
Macumba
The great majority of quilombolas consider themselves Catholics of some devotion;
however, that does not impede their practicing the brand of West Africa-derived worship
they refer to as Macumba, which contains elements from from the Yoruba and Kongo
cultures and is popular among many blacks as well as other racially defined residents of
the municipality of Itapicuru-Mirim. Forms of worship that syncretize Catholic, West
African and Native American practices, including Umbanda and Candomble, are
common across Brazil. It should be noted that while some Brazilians find the word
Macumba offensive, it is the chosen appellation of the inhabitants of this area.
Protestant ministers also preach itinerantly in the quilombos, though their progress is
often hindered by their hostility to many aspects of Macumba, the polytheistic and
15
propitiatory among them. The Protestants’ preoccupation with the figure of Satan finds
an outlet in the figure of Exu (Eshu)-Alegba, the Yoruban deity that embodies human
potentiality and mischief, among other things. João-Batista, who aside from being
president of Santa Joana is also the leading Macumba practicioner and referred to as the
“pãe de santo” (father of the saint) of the community,14 told of a North American minister
who visited to preach “that Exu was the owner of the dark side of Umbanda. But we
thought otherwise.”
The Catholic church, with its similarities in practices, such as votive offerings, the
tripartite deity and the numerous lesser figures of saints, angels and human
intermediaries, has often proved more sympathetic to these African-derived practices.15
Still, before emancipation – and even after16 – Macumba ceremonies were often
outlawed.17
The Macumba of the quilombos is part of a broad-based practice that is found in
much of the Northeast of Brazil. In the town of Itapicuru-Mirim are several Macumba
temples, one of which dwarfs any structure in the quilombos. João Batista and his brother
Martin Pereira de Sousa, who lives in town, maintain a small temple in the back of the
brother’s residence. The Macumba as practiced here involves ritual drumming, singing
and dancing in specially made garments, and specific rituals. Catholic icons and pictures
of saints are always present; specifically African and/or Negroid imagery and icons are
not. However, the central aspect of the ceremony, the calling down of spirits into the
individual, are clearly Africa-derived. When the spirits are drawn to inhabit the body of
the worshipper, they can be entreated to help in various ways.18
16
The Feast of Santa Filomena
One major festival the writer was able to observe was the Feast (Festa) of Santa
Filomena. In this all-day-and-night affair, a very long tree trunk, trimmed and scraped to
resemble a ship’s mast, was taken from the forest and carried by the men through the
village of Santa Maria to the accompaniment of drums and singing and much of the
population. The procession stopped at each house and entered with the base of the mast to
exchange blessings for food and drink, after which the mast, topped by a white flag, upon
which was drawn a blue dove, was planted in the village square to much prayer, song and
drink. The prayers and celebrations continued until dawn. The festival was attributed to
Africa by the participants.19 A similar festival can be found in Cape Verde, a formerly
Portuguese-held island off West Africa that was used as a slaving station as well as for
plantations.20
A significant part of the festival concerns praising the forest, which has a basis in
indigenous as well as African ceremonies. In a society so dependent on the forest for its
sustenance, these elements are likely reinforced as well as augmented by contemporary
experience. Occurring during the dry season, a time when the year’s harvest has largely
been completed, the festival is also an offering of thanks, propitiation and fertility. This
last is demonstrated by the entrance of the mast through the doorway of most dwellings
along the route, at which time the base of the mast was doused with cachaça.
The celebration includes a sort of competition of poetry, as the men gather around the
erected mast and take turns singing lyrics both old and new that pertain to their lives in a
witty manner. Each time a participant finishes his verse, he takes a drink of cachaça from
a basin that has been filled for the purpose.
17
While this is happening, the women, and a few men as well, gather in the church,
which shares the village center with the school, to drum and sing prayers and
acclamations in front of a candle-lit altar containing images and icons of Catholic saints.
The Anniversary of Santa Maria dos Pretos
The 300th anniversary celebration of Santa Maria dos Pretos took place on August
9th of 2001, though it is unclear whether the plantation was in fact exactly 300 years old
or whether the age given was approximate. The focus of the celebration was a dance
party, aided by a large, generator-powered sound system, professional DJ/master of
ceremonies and a cash bar proffering iced-down beer and soft drinks. A stockade of large
palm-frond spines was erected around the village square, a packed-earth clearing
containing a school and a church, and an admission of 2 reals was charged. Preceding the
dance party was a "futebol" (soccer) game pitting a neighboring quilombo against a
nearby caboclo (rural Portuguese/ indigenous-derived) village. Perhaps 300 persons
attended the event, which drew from the town as well as nearby villages.
Despite the secularity of the event, the church was as busy as the schoolhouse, which
served as a discotheque. Inside, parishioners sang and chanted prayers in front of a
candle-lit altar. In the square, children examined the wares of a half-dozen portable
stands selling candy and cigarettes. Plates of food were also sold, though a team of
women had been employed all day in cooking a free dinner for the entire resident
community, which was served in shifts early in the evening from the schoolhouse. It is
noteworthy that public gatherings of any size include a meal freely given to all in
attendance.
18
Also noteworthy is the fact that, while the village had raised 1,500 reals for the event, it
appeared to be common wisdom in the quilombos that the purchase of farming or
processing machinery, such as an 800-real babassou nut-crushing machine, was beyond
the community’s means.
OBSERVATIONS
The absence of financial means and human misery are firmly paired in the First
World mind, to such an extent that even among those most open to other social systems,
to suggest otherwise can constitute a taboo. The people discussed in this study are, in
terms of monetary income, remarkably poor. Yet this society of quilombos appears to be
quite functional, in some ways more so than certain subsets of people in the First World
who are materially far richer.
Once again, some in the First World willing to embrace this thesis would attribute it
to the absence of the ills of modern-day life, which implies that what is needed is simply
to subtract an existing element that one has chosen to keep. This may be due to the
condition that it is more palatable than to admit that another society may possess
something lacking in one’s own, for then one must admit that all is not within one’s own
power.
The simple fact of living in a remote rural setting without financial means does not
constitute a recipe for a good life: a workable system must be employed. The
quilombolas, rather than identify themselves as part of a lower tier of a larger society,
have drawn upon their African heritage, with the admixture of Western and indigenous
19
elements and have succeeded, with little more than what the local environment provides,
in providing for their psychic and material needs.
It appears that, specifically, it is the organization and enactment of African-based
ceremonies and festivals, which involve substantially the entire society, that binds the
community into a cohesive whole, and fosters the commonality that gives it its purpose.
Additionally, elements that focus on a more contemporary sense of black pride, based as
it were on the North American model, contribute in a smaller way to such a sense of
unity.
20
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books
Africa and Africans
Paul Bohannan, Philip Curtin. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1988.
Anthropological Filmmaking
Ed. Jack Rollwagen. Reading, PA: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1988
Flash of the Spirit: African & Afro-American Art & Philosophy
Robert Farris Thompson. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1983
Maroon Arts: Cultural Vitality In The African Diaspora
Sally Price and Richard Price.--Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1999
Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas
Ed. Richard Price. 1st ed. Garden City, NY: Anchor-Doubleday, 1973. 2nd ed.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1979.
“Maroons In The Province Of Maranhão, Brazil”
Matthias Röhrig Assunção. Essex, England: University Of Essex, 1999
in João José Reis and Flávio Gomes (ed.), Liberdade por um fio. História dos quilombos
no Brasil (São Paulo, Companhia das Letras, 1996), pp. 433-466
Articles
[Note: Internet links have been included where possible as a convenience to the reader,
though not all online articles are complete and some are not available in English.]
“Afro-Latin America”
Elsa Chanduvi and others. SIRS Researcher, Winter 1997 pp.1-10
from Latinamerica Press, 1997, Lima, Peru
21
http://faculty.ed.umuc.edu/~jmatthew/articles/afrolatin.html
“Creativity and Resistance: Maroon Cultures in the Americas”
Kenneth Bilby and Diana Baird N'Diaye
Originally published in the 1992 Festival of American Folklife catalogue; reprinted from
the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage of the Smithsonian Institution.
http://www.si.edu/maroon/educational_guide/10.htm
“Former Slave Havens in Brazil Gaining Rights”
Larry Rohter. The New York Times, January 23, 2001
http://www.mre.gov.br/acs/interclip/jornais/janeiro01/nytimes23a.html
“For Some Brazilian Slave Descendants, Home at Last”
Stephen Buckley. The Washington Post, January 28, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wpdyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A54182-2001Jan27
“The Negro Life Project”
Koinona Ecumenical and Service Society Web site, October 2001
http://www.koinonia.org.br/projetos/tn/4/historia.htm
“Origin and Description of the Quilombo in Africa”
Kabengele Munanga. RevistaUSP, University of Sao Paulo, Number 28
http://www.usp.br/revistausp/n28/kabengele.html
“The Quilombos”
Ministry of External Relations, Brazil, 1995
http://www.mre.gov.br/ndsg/textos/quilom-i.htm
“The Slave King”
Robert Nelson Anderson III. Brazzil magazine, October 1995
http://www.iei.net/~pwagner/gooddeeds/zumbi.htm
22
5
“O Afro-latim a América”
Elsa Chanduvi e outros. Investigador de SENHORES, Inverno 1997 pp.1-10 de Latinamerica Press, 1997,
Lima, Peru,
http://faculty.ed.umuc.edu/~jmatthew/articles/afrolatin.html
6
“Para Alguns Descendentes de Escravo brasileiros, Casa afinal”
Stephen Buckley. O Poste de Washington, 28 de janeiro de 2001,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A54182-2001Jan27
7
Ibid.
8
“Cor castanha Em A Província De Maranhão, Brasil”
Matthias Röhrig Assunção. Essex, Inglaterra: Universidade De Essex, 1999,
no João José Reis e Flávio Gomes (ed.), Liberdade por um fio. História dos quilombos nenhum Brasil (o
São Paulo, das de Companhia Letras, 1996), pp. 433-466
9
“Os Quilombos”
Ministério de Relações Externas, Brasil, 1995,
http://www.mre.gov.br/ndsg/textos/quilom-i.htm
10
Ibid.
11
“O Negro Vida Projeto”
Koinona Ecumenical e Sociedade de Serviço diário Web-baseado, 2001 de outubro,
http://www.koinonia.org.br/projetos/tn/4/historia.htm
12
“Só é ruim se houver pessoas lutando. Antes de as brigas estavam com punhos, e agora as pessoas atiram e
apunhalam um ao outro, e isso é pior. Quando a briga começa que eu saio do lugar. Todo o mundo corre
fora.”
—O informante não identificado
23
“Se alguém vem e quebra que coisas iam ter que pagar que e eu terei que quebrar a perna dele. Não, eu sou
sério. Se é Tiago que eu terei que quebrar a perna de Tiago e o enviar à polícia pela manhã, porque eu não
vou levar a perda. Mas eu falei com o prefeito e talvez dois policial virão. Se eles vêm que nós não temos
que preocupar sobre os encrenqueiros, a polícia pode levar ao cuidado deles.”
—O Diomar Francisco
13
Flash of the Spirit: African & Afro-American Art & Philosophy
Robert Farris Thompson. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1983, pp.198-206
14
Ibid., pp. 107-108
15
“Eu sou um católico de meu próprio modo porque eu rezo e eu chamo em Deus. Nós não somos os
protestantes porque os protestantes não gostam de Macumba e eles não gostam da igreja católica, e o
macumberos como a igreja católica porque o padre celebra a massa no quarto de Macumba.” —A Patricia
de Sousa
16
“No passado era mesmo, muito difícil. Até mesmo a polícia foi chamada. Nós iríamos para prisão. Eles
chamaram isto a coisa de um Diabo.” —A Patricia de Sousa
17
“Quando o quilombolas ainda estavam trabalhando como slaves…it foi proibido para dançar para tocar os
tambores. Os donos da plantação não os deixariam jogarem. Mas eles iriam para os bosques e fariam uma
fogueira e todos o quilombolas viriam adquirir a liberdade deles/delas ao redor.” —O João Batista
18
“Nós vestimos com estas roupas longas assim trabalhará o modo que estava trabalhando em cima de lá, e
nós dançamos assim eles virão, e nós entramos em um transe e quem falará é o que veio, assim ele fala tudo
que que ele quer e nós não estamos atentos. E quando entra longe de na pessoa que ele não sabe o que ele
disse. Isso é a origem de Macumba… .We se vestem a rigor, nós vestimos algumas decorações, um pano no
cabelo, nós vestimos um rosário [colar] e então nós dançamos, e eles chegam e nós desmaiamos e só
voltamos depois….
“Há muitas coisas o doutor pode solucionar mas há outras coisas que só a Macumba pode solucionar… .We
chamam nos santos, os deuses, o orishas, e assim a pessoa sentirá bem….
“As pessoas vêm aqui para solucionar problemas com uma pedra no rim, pessoas que são batidas na cabeça
com uma garrafa, nós os abençoamos, nós os ajudamos… .We pôs a mão na cabeça tirar aquela coisa ruim
deles.”
— Patricia de Sousa
19
“A procissão vai de casa para morar. Se você não tiver dinheiro, traga cachaça…. Nós vertemos isto no
mastro… .All as pessoas que levam isto estão bebendo… .We não partem até que eles nos dão algo que
beber… .We adornam isto com laranjas, bananas, abacaxis, folhagens de palma e uma garrafa de cachaça…
.We erguem para cima o mastro com cordas… .And nós estamos cantando e estamos cantando, elogiando a
floresta:
‘A árvore de banana, a banana que eu levo de lá,
A banana que eu comi era a banana eu levei de lá… '”
— Sebastian Batista
24
20
“Isto também ereção de includes…the de um mastro, uma réplica do mastro de um navio que é vestido com
filiais da oliveira selvagem ou a palma de coco… mastro de .The é colocado perto da entrada de uma igreja,
para os ritmos de tambores, cantos, e batendo palmas. Navios de modelo levaram à mão ou usado como um
symbolically de viagem de fantasia pelas ruas, parando para exigir presentes.
… .The transportam, como o mastro de presente-porte, é um símbolo complexo….. Navios são
festooned com brightly coloriu bandeiras… o molestamento de navio de .The de espectadores para
presentes representa a agressão nas Ilhas através de navios de pirata…”
—“Festividades tradicionais em Cabo Verde” por Gabriel Moacyr Rodrigues, Capa Verdean World Wide
Web Site, um projeto colaborador da Capa mundial comunidade de Verdean, na Universidade de
Massachusetts, Dartmouth,
http://www.umassd.edu/specialprograms/caboverde/cvfestas.html

“Former Slave Havens in Brazil Gaining Rights”
Larry Rohter. The New York Times, January 23, 2001
http://www.mre.gov.br/acs/interclip/jornais/janeiro01/nytimes23a.html
“Origin and Description of the Quilombo in Africa”
Kabengele Munanga. RevistaUSP, University of Sao Paulo, Number 28
http://www.usp.br/revistausp/n28/kabengele.html
“The Slave King”
Robert Nelson Anderson III. Brazzil magazine, October 1995
http://www.iei.net/~pwagner/gooddeeds/zumbi.htm
2
“Creativity and Resistance: Maroon Cultures in the Americas”
By Kenneth Bilby and Diana Baird N'Diaye
http://www.si.edu/maroon/educational_guide/10.htm
3
4
Ibid
“Afro-Latin America”
Elsa Chanduvi and others. SIRS Researcher, Winter 1997 pp.1-10
from Latinamerica Press, 1997, Lima, Peru
http://faculty.ed.umuc.edu/~jmatthew/articles/afrolatin.html
5
“For Some Brazilian Slave Descendants, Home at Last”
Stephen Buckley. The Washington Post, January 28, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A54182-2001Jan27
6
7
Ibid
“Maroons In The Province Of Maranhão, Brazil”
Matthias Röhrig Assunção. Essex, England: University Of Essex, 1999
in João José Reis and Flávio Gomes (ed.), Liberdade por um fio. História dos quilombos no Brasil (São
Paulo, Companhia das Letras, 1996), pp. 433-466
8
“The Quilombos”
Ministry of External Relations, Brazil, 1995
http://www.mre.gov.br/ndsg/textos/quilom-i.htm
9
25
10
Ibid
“The Negro Life Project”
Koinona Ecumenical and Service Society Web-based journal, October 2001
http://www.koinonia.org.br/projetos/tn/4/historia.htm
11
20
Flash of the Spirit: African & Afro-American Art & Philosopy
Robert Farris Thompson. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1983, pp.198-206
“I’m a Catholic in my own way because I pray and I call on God. We’re not Protestants because
Protestants don’t like Macumba and they don’t like the Catholic church, and the macumberos like the
Catholic church because the priest celebrates the mass in the Macumba room.” — Patricia de Sousa
20
“In the past it was very, very difficult. Even the police were called. We would go to prison. They called it
a Devil’s thing.” — Patricia de Sousa
20
“When the quilombolas were still working as slaves…it was forbidden to dance to play the drums. The
owners of the plantation wouldn’t let them play. But they would go to the woods and make a bonfire and all
the quilombolas around would come to get their freedom.” — Jean-Batista
20
“We dress with these long clothes so it will work the way it was working over there, and we dance so
they will come, and we go into a trance and whoever will speak is the one who came, so he speaks
whatever he wants and we're not aware. And when it goes away from inside the person he doesn’t know
what he said. That’s the origin of Macumba….We dress up, we put on some decorations, a cloth in the hair,
we put on a rosary [necklace] and then we dance, and they arrive and we black out and only come back
afterwards.” — Patricia de Sousa
20
“The procession goes from house to house. If you don’t have any money, bring cachaça…. We pour it on
the mast….All the people carrying it are drinking….We don’t leave until they give us something to
drink….We adorn it with oranges, bananas, pineapples, palm fronds and a bottle of cachaça….We lift up
the mast with ropes….And we’re chanting and singing, praising the forest:
20
‘The banana tree, the banana I take from there
The banana I ate was the banana I took from there…’ ”
— Sebastian Batista
“It also includes…the erection of a mastro, a replica of a ship's mast that is dressed with branches of the
wild olive tree or the coconut palm….The mastro is placed close by the entrance of a church, to the
rhythms of drums, chants, and clapping. Model ships carried by hand or worn as a costume voyage
symbolically through the streets, stopping to demand gifts.
….The ship, like the gift-bearing mast, is a complex symbol….. Ships are festooned with brightly
colored banners….The ship's harassment of bystanders for gifts represents the assault on the Islands by
pirate ships…”
— “Traditional Festivities in Cape Verde” by Gabriel Moacyr Rodrigues, Cape Verdean World Wide
Web Site, a collaborative project of the worldwide Cape Verdean community, hosted at the University of
Massachusetts, Dartmouth
http://www.umassd.edu/specialprograms/caboverde/cvfestas.html
20
26
27