Stanzas and Sticks: Poetic and Physical Challenges in the Afro-Brazilian Culture of the Paraı´ba ...

34 Pages·2014·2.37 MB·English

History Workshop Journal Advance Access published February 13, 2014
Stanzas and Sticks: Poetic and Physical
Challenges in the Afro-Brazilian Culture
of the Paraı´ba Valley, Rio de Janeiro
D
by Matthias Ro¨hrig Assunc¸ a˜o o
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My father was a tenant farmer h
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And a great sharecropper ://h
He sang calango all night through w
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And never lost at rhyming x
Martinho da Vila1 ford
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BeneditoGonc¸alves,afterachallengegamewithoneofthosepresent,left als
with Salvador for the road, and on this occasion he, the witness, saw .org
Benedito assault Salvador with a number of blows.2 a/
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Guaratingueta´, 1890 lb
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APPROACHING MALE CHALLENGES m
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Inherseminalworkonfreemeninaslavesociety,MariaSylviadeCarvalho L
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Franco emphasized the pervasiveness of violence among free poor men in ra
theParaı´bavalleyduring thenineteenth-century BrazilianEmpire. Physical ry, U
aggression happened frequently between men who were neighbours, co- niv
workers,friends,orevenrelatedtoeachother,shewrote,andthese‘violent ers
altercations were not sporadic’, but part of ‘the flux of everyday life’. For ity o
Franco,thatviolence‘permeatestheentiresocialorganism,emerginginthe f E
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lessregulatedsectorsoflife,suchasleisurerelations,andprojectsitselfonto se
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thecodificationoffundamentalculturalvalues’.Onthebasisofnineteenth- on
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century criminal records in the municipality of Guaratingueta´, she notes e
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that while fights originated in various contexts, they always derived from ru
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verbal challenges. It is these ‘poetic disputes’, and their relationship with ry 2
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physical challenges between males, that I examine in this article. , 2
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Although Franco perceived the importance of the desafio (challenge) in 1
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thepopularcultureoftheregion,shegreatlyunderestimated,inmyview,its
creativepotentialandthevarietyofitssocialfunctions.Perhapsherreliance
upon criminal records, combined with a curious neglect of other types of
source,conditionedhersomewhatnegativeassessmentofpopularculturein
University ofEssex [email protected]
HistoryWorkshopJournal doi:10.1093/hwj/dbt007
(cid:2)TheAuthor2014.PublishedbyOxfordUniversityPressonbehalfofHistoryWorkshopJournal.
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2 History WorkshopJournal
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Fig.1. CalangosingingatQuilomboSa˜oJose´,2007,withJoa˜oBatistaAzedias(left)andManuel a/
Seabra(secondleft). t A
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Fig.2. ManuelSeabra(left)andJorgeFernandesplayingsticksatQuilomboSa˜oJose´,2007.
Stanzas andSticks 3
the Brazilian ‘valley of slavery’.3 I argue, in contrast, that the various types
ofverbalandphysicalchallengewerecrucialtothedevelopmentoforiginal
cultural forms in the Paraı´ba valley. Verbal challenges were at the heart of
three cultural practices which crystallized after emancipation, in 1888, and
whichrepresentthemostwidespreadandimportantformsofruralfolkcul-
ture in that region. They are the jongo, the calango, and the folia de reis.
Jongo refers to a rhythm, a type of lyric and a dance whose origins are
located in West Central Africa.4 Calango stands for a sung duel accompa- D
o
niedbymusicandacouplesdance.Foliadereis(Kings’Folly’)isatheatrical w
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performance, or ‘folly’, inspired by medieval Iberian mystery plays about lo
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the three wise men or ‘kings’ who visited the newborn Jesus.5 Physical ded
challenges were present in all three, but were also at the core of jogo do fro
m
pau (stick play) and the fighting that erupted at social gatherings. h
Limited communication between historians and anthropologists/folklor- ttp
ists in the decades after the Second World War may explain why Franco ://hw
showed no interest in further exploring the role of challenge in the caipira, j.o
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orruralculture,oftheParaı´bavalley.6Thirty-fiveyearsbeforethepublica- ford
tionofherwork,however,theEuropeanorAfricanoriginsofthedesafioor jo
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challengehadalreadybeenthesubjectofacademicdebatebetweenoutstand- rna
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ing sociologists and folklorists such as Luı´s da Caˆmara Cascudo, Roger .o
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Bastide and Ma´rio de Andrade. Cascudo explored the Iberian origins of a/
thedesafioinhisclassicVaqueirosecantadores(1938),andcategoricallyas- t A
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sertedthat:‘Theimprovisedchallenge(desafio),accompaniedbymusicalin- e
struments, does not exist in African lands’.7 Roger Bastide, while praising rt Slo
Cascudo’s book and acknowledging the Iberian origins of the desafio of m
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North-easternBrazil,indicatedthatpoeticchallengesexistedinmanysocie- L
ties.8Bytransformingapparenthostilityintoplay,theycontributedtosocial ibra
cohesionandto‘smoothingoutofcustoms’.9Furthermore,hewondered:‘Is ry, U
itnotcuriousthattheseduels,inwhichthecabocloandtheblacktakepart, niv
should contain nothing from the more primitive Indian and African ers
societies...?’10 Ma´rio de Andrade took this further, asserting: ‘As to the ity o
Africans, I think it is impossible to accept that they had no custom of f E
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poetic-musical bouts’. His research on the rural samba of Sa˜o Paulo led se
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him to believe that ‘a satirical attitude’ is one of the characteristics of on
African and black singing.11 Bastide pursued the debate in another article, Fe
b
wherehesuggestedthattheBraziliandesafiowaslocated,likethemutira˜o(the ru
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workexchangebetweenequalsinruralcommunities),ata‘crossroads,where ry 2
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threeroadscomingfromAfrica,theIndiesandPortugalmeet’.Heconcluded , 2
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notonlythatpoeticchallengeswereknowninAfrica,butthat‘theBrazilian 1
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black,influencedbywhites,transformedandenrichedtheAfricanchallenge’.
12BastidethusraisedanissuethatIshallpursuehere:theinteractionbetween
variousformsofchallengesandtheirinsertionintonewculturalpractices.
Half a century later it is of course possible to discuss verbal-poetic
challenges in the light of a much more copious literature. Recent work
has shown the importance of verbal challenges, mainly in poetic forms, in
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countries as diverse as Indonesia, Italy, Fiji, Bolivia and Turkey.13 This
suggests the widespread prevalence of ritualized verbal challenges between
males. Similarly, stick-play (and fighting with sticks) has been a feature of
many societies in Europe, Africa and Asia. Irish and Portuguese men
excelled in it, as well as Southern African ethnic groups such as the Zulu.
Itwasorisalsoprominent inthePhilippines, SouthernIndia andtheplan-
tation societies of the Caribbean.14 Interpretations of verbal and physical
challenges have been manyand various: displaced aggression, conflict reso- D
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lution, social control, the construction of male identity, adolescent rite of w
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passage, conferral of status, and development of verbal and physical skills lo
a
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haveallbeenidentifiedasunderlyingreasonsforcontests.Infact,thesocial ed
contextofverbalchallengesdifferssomuchineachcasethatgeneralization fro
m
is often inappropriate. Here I argue that the verbal and physical challenges h
that developed during the post-emancipation period in the Paraı´ba valley ttp
reflect very specific processes that can be linked to the formation of the ://hw
‘Black Atlantic’. That is, they represent creative adaptations of various j.o
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kinds of materials developed by enslaved Africans and their descendants ford
in Brazil in the context of slavery and post-emancipation. jo
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StudiesofverbalchallengesinthespecificcontextofplantationAmerica rna
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or post-emancipation societies initially focused on ‘playing the Dozens’ in .o
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the USA. According to Roger D. Abrahams, these verbal duels are typical a/
for an African-American boy growing up in a ‘mother-orientated family’, t A
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wheretheconstructionofhismasculinityrequiresa‘violentreactionagainst e
theworld ofwomen whichhasrejected him,toa lifefilled with expressions rt Slo
of virility and manliness’.15 Henry Louis Gates, expanding on the work of m
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Abrahams and others, demonstrated in his seminal work how verbal duel- L
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ling such as ‘playing the Dozen[s]’ belonged to the rhetorical strategies of ra
African Americans generically known as ‘signifyin(g)’.16 ry, U
My aim here is to describe the context and explain the various types of niv
challenge in the popular culture of the Paraı´ba valley, drawing both upon ers
the existing literature and on fieldwork carried out since 2005 in various ity o
communities of that area. After sketching the social context of the ‘games’ f E
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(brincadeirasorfolguedos)duringwhichpoeticandphysicalchallengestook se
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place, I discuss the different types of challenge, and the circumstances in on
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which they could turn into rougher contests or violent brawls. e
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The analysis of so dynamic a phenomenon as popular culture requires ru
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some kind of chronological framework. Establishing precise temporal ry 2
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boundaries is however very difficult when dealing primarily with oral , 2
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memory. The abolition of slavery in 1888 is of course a landmark, but 1
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when does ‘post-emancipation’ end? I am inclined to see the 1960s as the
turning point when important processes of modernization, from the intro-
ductionofelectricitytoaccesstotelevision,startedtochangedailylifeinthe
Brazilian interior. Obviously the timescale for these changes differed for
eachtownandhamletinthestateofRiodeJaneiro.Intervieweesthemselves
provide clues regarding the time frame. ‘Sidoca’, a former participant in
Stanzas andSticks 5
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Fig.3. Fofo(JorgeMaurı´cio)singing,GrupoCalangoItakomosi(Vassouras). a/
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Fig.4. Feija˜o(LuizFernandoCandido)singing,GrupoCalangoItakomosi(Vassouras),2007.
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Folia de rei (Kings’ Follies) in Miracema, recalls: ‘I saw a lot of stick fight-
ing,whenIwenttothesedances,inthoseup-countryvillages.Iwasayoung
chapthen’.Sincehewasbornin1933,wecansafelyassumethatthecalango
dances followed by stick fighting took place at least until the 1950s.17
Intervieweesrefertothatpastas‘formerly’or‘indaysofold’(antigamente,
de primeiro), but at the same time leave no doubt that they are not talking
about the ‘times of slavery’. While the oldest informants experienced those
‘days of old’, and for that very reason are called the ‘ancients’ (antigos) the D
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younger generations only know this period from hearsay. w
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SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS OF MALE CHALLENGES e
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Challenges between males were as much part of everyday life as they were fro
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featuresofthespecialeventsthatmarkedouttheseasonalrhythmofthelife h
of rural communities – for instance the celebrations of patron saints such ttp
as Saint Benedict, particularly worshipped among black communities, ://hw
Abolition (of slavery) Day on 13 May or the Christmas cycle from j.o
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24 December to 6 January. Challenges could either take oral poetic forms, ford
or consist of physical contests. Both types had their rules and did not jo
u
necessarily descend into violence – that is, result in physical harm. rna
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However, according to all testimonies, brawls did happen quite frequently, .o
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the outcome usually being a generalized fight between all men present at a a/
venue. They used swiping kicks (rasteiras or pernadas), sticks and even t A
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knives and sickles. These brawls were seen as a continuation or a ‘normal’ e
consequence of the non-violent verbal and physical challenges. rt Slo
Verbal duels at work were most common during the mutira˜o, the trad- m
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itionallabourexchangebetweenpeasantspractisedinmanypartsofBrazil. L
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Becausethemutira˜obroughttogetherpeoplefromthecommunityorneigh- ra
bourhood, it provided an excellent occasion for challenges. Maria Sylvia ry, U
Franco already reported that ‘the challenge [desafio] occurs between the niv
factions which coincide with the working parties that have been allocated ers
specific tasks’.18 Folklorists also highlighted the competitive spirit that pre- ity
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vailed among participants in a mutira˜o. The rural worker who finished his f E
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taskfirstinitiatedthebra˜o,thatis,thechallengesongwhosefunctionwasto se
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stimulate the other workers.19Singing during work took theform ofjongos on
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orcalangos.Itseemsthattheformerwereparticularlyusedinslaverytimes. e
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According to Stanley Stein, slaves worked close enough to be able to hear ru
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each other singing. The leadersof workinggroupschallenged eachother or ry 2
poked fun at the master and overseer.20 After Abolition, ‘duel singing’ re- 5, 2
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mained important in all communal work, yet it seems that the jongo lost 1
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ground to the calango in the working context, even in predominantly black
communities. Teresina de Jesus, from the maroon community of Sa˜o Jose´,
for example, remembers calangos being sung while the hay was mown.21
AccordingtoAlceuMaynardArau´jo,thelastworkertofinishhistaskin
themutira˜owascalledcaldeira˜o.‘Itwascommonfortheotherstopokefun
at the caldeira˜o. Nobody wanted to be the caldeira˜o.’22 Typically whoever
Stanzas andSticks 7
finished first would provoke the caldeira˜o with jibing verses, to which the
latterhadtorespondinkind.Inotherwords,inthecontextofthemutira˜o,a
physicalchallenge(whoworkedharder)wascombinedwithaverbalcontest,
and seems to have occurred predominantly between males. Masculine iden-
titywashenceconstructedasmuchthroughhardmanuallabourasthrough
theabilitytosingandrhyme.Thesedesafiosduringcommunallabourcould
also result in stick-play between two men or even whole working parties.
Roads were another arena for daily encounters, and for that reason also D
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became the scene of challenges and brawls. These arose, for example, when w
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two groups of muleteers met. As Jorge Fernandes remembers: lo
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In the old times [de primeiro], things were odd to this point. Every faz- fro
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endeiro[ownerofabigestate]milkedhiscows,collected[themilk]inthe h
can, and had an employee to take it to the cooperative, on the donkey’s ttp
back. That group, right, went together, and another group came from ://hw
theretohere.Everybodytieduphisdonkeytoapoletobeabletofight, j.o
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and then they hit each other, right, in the middle of the road. A wooden ford
handle...Holy Mary! ...They went for the stick, one on the receiving jo
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end,theotherhitting.Andthen,fine,theyuntiedtheirdonkeys,mounted rna
their animals, and everyone went their own way.23 ls.o
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a/
All sources concur, however, that both poetic and physical challenges t A
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were particularly associated with leisure. From slavery times on the e
challenge was a feature of sites of social encounter, ‘appearing again as rt Slo
the link between entertainment and aggression’.24 Yet the challenges that m
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were part of recreation in communities were usually friendly, and clearly L
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non-violent. The jogo do pau (‘stick-game’), for example, was played on ra
Sundays by peasants and rural workers employed on estates. On the two ry, U
Cardoso fazendas, in the municipality of Vassouras (RJ), workers played niv
on a stone or cement floor. According to one interviewee, the owner even ers
encouragedthepractice,becauseherecognizeditsrecreationalvalueforhis ity o
employees.25 ‘Sticks’ was also played on Sundays in the black community f E
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of Sa˜o Jose´. The aim was to measure various types of skill in a relaxed and se
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friendly atmosphere. As Manoel Seabra likes to tell: on
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When Sunday dawned, we went to play sticks. People came together. ru
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Then we played until...When one left the game, another one entered. ry 2
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Then we played malha [a kind of bowling of Portuguese origin]...After , 2
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the malha game, we went to bathe at the waterfall. The whole bunch 1
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of people went. After the bathing, they came here, and played football.
It was fun...26
Itwasalsocommonforadolescentsandyoungmentoplaysticksinfrontof
a grocery shop (venda). Then the game was accompanied by alcohol con-
sumptionandtheaudiencecommentedontheskillsofindividualplayersor
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the current game. In these circumstances people started to bet, and the
competition would become more serious.
The regular dances (bailes) were another unfailing occasion for chal-
lenges. There were various pretexts for them – for example the end of a
mutira˜o.27 In the rural areas of Brazil television was not available until the
1970sandevenradioswererareuntilthe1950s.Sobailes,whichtookplace
about every fortnight, were an important source of entertainment.
Neighbours and family members organized them together.28 Dance, D
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during this period, meant calango above all. The term refers to both a w
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musical genre and a dance. An accordion, a tambourine (pandeiro) and a lo
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drum accompanied the singers.29 Men and women danced in couples hold- ded
ing each other. The steps, according to folklorists such as Cascudo, are fro
m
similar to the urban samba.30 Yet the calango was, at its core, ‘a form of h
challenge’.31 And according to oral memory, it was the challenge of the ttp
calango that often led to a brawl: ://hw
j.o
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There was singing, there was the calango. They started to sing calango, ford
and there was this contest. The one who defeated the other in the calan- jo
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go...the one who was defeated didn’t like it, and there a fight started, rna
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and the guys who were in the audience, right, they always booed... The .o
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one who lost was booed, and of course that was difficult for him, right? a/
Then the stick hit hard... The fight started, and the cudgel struck with t A
no holding back.32 lbe
rt S
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The regularity of the fights explains why every man came ready-armed m
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with a cudgel. They hid them when entering the house where the event L
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was happening. As Jorge Fernandes explains: ra
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Whentherewasadance,everyonecarriedhisstick,right?Whentheguys niv
arrived, some slipped the stick in the top of the hut, in the roof of the ers
hut.Othershidthestickinathicketofcane,orgrass.Theyusedthisfor ity o
self-defencebecauseoncemidnightarrived,thefightingbrokeout.Itwas f E
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raretohaveadancewithoutafight.Thenthedancestopped,everything se
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finished.33 on
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Jongos too took place on weekends or holidays, in particular 13 May, ru
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AbolitionDay.Incontrasttothecalangos,thisdancewasalwaysperformed ry 2
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intheterreiro,thatis,thecourtyardnexttothehouse,consistingofstamped , 2
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clay or earth. Whereas calangos were not religious, jongos had links to 1
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Afro-Brazilian religion and acknowledged African ancestors in the form
of pretos velhos (‘old blacks’). For that reason jongueiros maintained close
tieswithmacumba,laterumbanda,andprominent singerswereoften priests
orheldotherofficesatAfro-Brazilianshrines.34Therearealsoanumberof
formal similarities. Jongo strophes, for instance, are called pontos, as in
macumbaandumbanda.Indeedthisassociationbetweenjongoandmacumba
Stanzas andSticks 9
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Fig.5. ManoelSeabra,jongueiro,stickplayerandcalangosinger,2007. ry
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is precisely one of the reasons for the decline of jongo until it began to be
revived in the 1980s: the Catholic Church actively discouraged its practice,
and the Protestant churches that spread after the Second World War vehe-
mently opposed it. Hence after conversion to Protestantism the jongo dis-
appeared even in many close-knit black communities. For the same reason
jongueiros today tend to stress its secular character.35
Jongoisaring danceaccompanied bytwoorthree drums,withsubstan-
tialregionalandlocalvariations.Inthemostcommontype,dancersforma D
greatcircleinfrontofthedrums,withawomanandamaninthemiddle.36 ow
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According to Ribeiro, ‘these two engaged in real dance and tap-dancing lo
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duels’.37 More serious than the physical challenges in the dance perform- ded
ance, however, were the sung duels, called pontos de demanda. The term fro
m
demanda has again a similar meaning in macumba and umbanda, where it h
referstoputtingaspellonsomebody.Accordinglyjongochallengesbetween ttp
singerscouldresultintheloserhavingtohandoverhisdrumsorevenbeing ://hw
‘tied up’ (amarrado), that is, ‘bewitched’ and physically immobilized until j.o
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theendoftheperformanceatdawn.Theatmosphereofajongocouldhence ford
become potentially dangerous. Maybe for that reason children were not jo
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allowed to participate in them until quite recently. As in the dance, rna
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women as well as men joined in pontos de demanda, clapping and also sing- .o
ing, although they never beat the drums.38 Often a jongo in the courtyard arg/
wascomplementedbyacalangoinsidethehouse,andmightsimilarlyleadto t A
challenges and fights.39 lbe
TheannualcelebrationsoftheNativitycyclecreatedacontextofintense rt Slo
socialinteractionwhichalsofavouredchallenges,especiallybetweenmen.In m
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many regions of Brazil, the folias de reis (‘Kings’ Follies’) brought together L
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men and women of all ages who shared a devotion to the Biblical magi ra
or Three Wise Men. Revellers (folio˜es) for a Kings’ Folly usually had to ry, U
commit themselves foratleast sevenconsecutive years.Theycame together niv
at Christmas, and paraded each night until Epiphany (6 January). ers
Participants often did not return home during this period, but stayed with ity o
theKings’Folly,especiallyiftheylivedatadistancefromitsheadquarters. f E
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Theconsumptionoflargequantitiesoffoodandalcoholwaspartandparcel se
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of these celebrations, which intensified social interactions not only between on
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the members of thegroup and theirfamilies, butalso between thefolia and e
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the wider world. Some folias travelled over great distances to perform, ru
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expanding their everyday social relations. The Christmas period thus facili- ry 2
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tatedmomentsofcommunionandreassertedsociallinks,butitalsoopened , 2
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up wider horizons and allowed approaches to hitherto unknown people. 1
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Consecutive nights of celebration, lack of sleep, alcohol consumption and
religious exaltation might well induce peculiar states of mind, and lower
manybarriers.40Nowonderthenthatsomeaspectsofthefolguedo(revelry)
alsobredchallenges,confrontationsandbrawls.Itispossibleeithertoargue
that fights in this context only expressed the memory of previous clashes
or latent conflicts, or, on the contrary, that the Kings’ Follies specifically