Music and Myth in Afro-Brazilian Congado

27 Pages·2017·1.98 MB·English

Yale Journal of Music & Religion
Volume 3|Number 2 Article 1
2017
The Acoustics of Justice: Music and Myth in Afro-
Brazilian Congado
Genevieve E. Dempsey
Mamolen Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University
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Recommended Citation
Dempsey, Genevieve E. (2017) "The Acoustics of Justice: Music and Myth in Afro-Brazilian Congado,"Yale Journal of Music &
Religion: Vol. 3: No. 2, Article 1.
DOI:https://doi.org/10.17132/2377-231X.1075
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The Acoustics of Justice: Music and Myth in Afro-Brazilian Congado
Cover Page Footnote
I am thankful to the Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund of the Reed Foundation for providing the
generous support of time and resources to write this article. I would also like to extend my gratitude to the
American Association of University Women (2015-2016) and the Fulbright IIE Program (2014-2015) for
facilitating the ethnographic and archival research and writing for my dissertation. The idea for this paper
emerged during my Ph.D. at the University of Chicago and I wish to thank my dissertation committee, Travis
A. Jackson, Philip V. Bohlman, Melvin L. Butler, and Kaley R. Mason, for the engaging environment that they
fostered. I extend very special thanks to Susan Youens at the University of Notre Dame for her insights and
suggestions on this project as well as enthusiastic support throughout the years. My sincere gratitude also goes
to the anonymous readers and editors at the Yale Journal of Music and Religion for helping to shape the
manuscript’s ideas. I am grateful to Philip V. Bohlman for contributing valuable input to this article and, above
all, for providing unwavering mentorship and inspiration. Finally, a very special thank you to the wise, patient,
and welcoming Congadeiros without whom this project would not have been possible.
This article is available in Yale Journal of Music & Religion:http://elischolar.library.yale.edu/yjmr/vol3/iss2/1
The Acoustics of Justice
Music and Myth in Afro-Brazilian Congado

Genevieve E. V. Dempsey

Predominantly composed of Afro-
We say that the Congado drum represents the
Brazilians, Congadeiros typically come from
altar of Our Lady of the Rosary. Hence, the
drum is sacred. It must be played only to marginalized communities in Minas Gerais, a
praise Our Lady of the Rosary and the black state in the north of Brazil’s southeast. There
saints.
are thousands of Congadeiros, however, all
—Kedison Geraldo (2014)
over urban and rural Brazil, notably in the
Reflecting on the sacred nature of the drum,
states of São Paulo and Goiás. Many work as
Kedison Geraldo, a musician in the Afro-
farmers, housekeepers, instrument makers,
Brazilian, popular Catholic community of
security guards, and hairdressers, among other
Congado, concluded a myth of origin about its
trades. Against a backdrop of racial struggle,
rituals. His observations constituted part of a
Congadeiros use myth to build an economy of
longer myth of the numinous apparition of
survival, at once social, religious, and aesthetic.
Our Lady of the Rosary in the sea to the
Although myth is not the only means to
enslaved ancestors of Congadeiros, the African
express their ultimate concerns, I want to claim
and Afro-descendant peoples who have carried
that it functions as a central vehicle for
out vernacular ceremonies in veneration of
articulating their epistemologies, particularly
Our Lady, their principal icon of devotion, and
those surrounding race, that condition their
black saints, such as St. Benedict and St.
actions in everyday life. To address further the
Iphigenia, since the seventeenth century in
question of suffering and survival in Congado
Brazil.1 In the story, the beauty of the slaves’
communities, it is helpful to review Geraldo’s
handcrafted instruments and melodious songs
myth in its entirety. Invoking an intriguing
coaxed Our Lady from the ocean. Their
scene, Geraldo related:
musicality, combined with religiosity and
There was a ship on the sea. An image of Our
humility, encouraged her to sit atop the
Lady of the Rosary fell from the ship. The
Congado drum rather than reside in the church
white people tried to retrieve the image. The
of the white devotees, who also beckoned black people asked if they could also retrieve
from the seashore. The lore does not merely the image, but the white people wouldn’t let
them. The white people constructed a chapel
illustrate a celestial situation; it also conveys an
for her and tried to take her to it. But, the
earthly quest for justice and social harmony. By
following day, the image appeared in the water
alighting on the drum of the slaves, Our Lady
again. She would not let the white people take
of the Rosary inspired black people to envision her image. Thus, the black people had the
and consolidate a different kind of personhood opportunity to bring the image to the slave
quarters [senzala].
and order—grounded in fairness, equality, and
First came Congo, which represented the
compassion.
youngest black people who were anxious for

emancipation. They jumped, they danced. Then
1 Urbain Souchu Rennefort, Histoire des Indes Orien-
came the Caboclo who was dressed as
tales (Paris: Arnoul Seneuze, 1688), 204–05.
indigenous people and represented the land.

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 3, No. 2 (2017) 1
Then the Vilão, Catopê, and Marujada—who closed doors of the main church and sing the
were slaves that were arriving in the port. Also, following song to the accompaniment of
the Candombe, the group that has three sacred
drums:
drums which are played in closed spaces. And
finally came Moçambique. Moçambique repre-
sents the group of the oldest black people that I am going to tell you a story, I ask that you
were tired and still chained. pay attention,
Because they didn’t have an altar, Our It is an ancient story from the time of slavery.
Lady of the Rosary sat upon a drum. Thus, we It was on the thirteenth day in May when the
say that the Congado drum represents the altar group worked.
of Our Lady of the Rosary. Hence, the drum is Look, the black man was captive and the
sacred. It must be played only to praise Our princess liberated him.
Lady of the Rosary and the black saints.2 Look, the black man was captive and now he
turned into a respected man.
This myth provides traction on the kind of
It was in the time of slavery that the white
signifiers most precious to Congadeiros. It
man was in charge.
shows how Congadeiros felt empowered When the white man went to Mass, it was the
during slavery by Our Lady of the Rosary’s black man who brought him.
The white man entered into the church and
divine presence, and emboldened by the
the black man stayed here outside.
bestowal of her blessings and spiritual care.
And if the black man protested, he would be
Indeed, practitioners imbue lore with common
hit with the whip.
themes such as immanence, black pride, and The black man prayed when he arrived in the
perseverance in order to remember their slave quarter [senzala].
He prayed, and to Zambi [God/Central
ancestors and envisage racial equality. It is
African divinity], he surrendered himself.
because of this function as a tool of
What suffering, what suffering, Jesus Christ is
remembrance and grace that their stories
in the sky, protecting the souls of these
transform into directives for their actions as suffering black people.
well as visions of how the world might look in

racial harmony.
After worshipers conclude the “Lamento
On matters of providence and survival in
Negro,” they typically intone a final song that calls
Congado communities, myth is not the only
for the church doors to be opened. They sing:
witness; music also speaks to these profound
levels of human meaning. A paradigmatic
Santo padre,
example of how music illustrates matters that
Abre a porta,
concern Congadeiros derives from the
Nego véio quer entrar
commonly performed “Lamento Negro” Prá assistir à santa Missa
(Black Person’s Lament), a song sung before Que vosmicê vai celebrá.

the beginning of a Congo Mass (Missa Conga).
Blessed father,
The Congo Mass retains the major elements of
Open the door,
Catholic liturgy, but Congadeiros add their
The black person has come and wants to enter
own vernacular musical and ceremonial aspects To see the blessed Mass
to it. Before Mass, Congadeiros gather at the That you are going to celebrate.

2 Kedison Geraldo, interview by author (Belo
Horizonte, Brazil, 2014).
Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 3, No. 2 (2017) 2
Upon the song’s conclusion, the church doors their aural and oral expressive forms reflects
part and the group moves over the threshold, this will to survive.
playing and singing boisterously to announce Some may suggest, however, that music
the beginning of the Congo Mass. and myth are too distinct for comparison. I
The “Lamento Negro” and Geraldo’s claim here, however, that they are eminently
myth yield productive insights about Congado translatable modalities because each entity
struggles for the exercise of rites and rights. references the other within its text and
Embedded within the oral and aural texts are subtext. Myth gives primacy to scenes of
various dilemmas that practitioners confront: music making, and their musical performances
how do they think that their ancestors provide purchase on the ideas of collectivity,
asserted control over their bodies and minds racial pride, and transcendence embedded in
in the context of slavery, and how can black myth. It is precisely the endeavor to see
agency and autonomy be mobilized today sameness in difference that best captures the
despite pervasive racial discrimination and ways in which myth and music converge to
impoverishment? In representing autonomy illuminate the larger picture of common
and justice in myth and song, practitioners humanity and humaneness that pervade the
come to instantiate social and intellectual Congadeiros’ everyday lives. As embodied
mobility outside of these expressive spheres. performances, music and myth are both
Indeed, my broader interest in comparing generative and reflective of the conditions of
music and myth is to make patent how these possibility necessary for Congadeiros to self-
entities signify the possibility of being fashion themselves according to their own
otherwise, 3 of being different from what imaginary. Indeed, by destabilizing the non-
dominators dictated in the past and from what comparative approach, this endeavor opens
the nation-state continues to demand and up intriguing ways to understand how ideas
stipulate of minority groups today. such as race and social mobility constitute the
Employing methods from ethnomusi- human condition writ large.
cology, anthropology, and history, and using Similar to other nationalisms across Latin
participant observation, interviews, archives, America that emphasize cultural mixing and
and literature, I compare sound and lore racial miscegenation (mestizaje) as the essential
because they deal with the cosmic, and thus in centerpiece of national identity, Brazilian
turn help practitioners to intervene in the nationalism has cultivated an equally totalizing
lived-in world. Despite being different in form discourse of mestiçagem (miscegenation). While
and figuration, music and myth express miscegenation represents an attempt to
similar, fundamental stories about the capture the diverse inhabitants of Brazil, it
suffering of Congadeiros’ ancestors as well as also forecloses opportunities for certain com-
their struggles for racial equality in the munities to occupy unique racial and semiotic
present. What myth and music mediate are the categories of signification. At stake is not that
lives of human beings in crisis, who miscegenation shuns a black legacy in toto but
nevertheless persist; and everything about that by drawing it into a discourse of mixing,
it drains it of distinctiveness.

Thus when Congadeiros invoke blackness
3 Christine Arce, Méxicos Nobodies: The Cultural
Legacy of the Soldadera and Afro-Mexican Women (Albany: as a hallmark of their identity, it is often inter-
State University of New York Press, 2017), 21.
Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 3, No. 2 (2017) 3
preted as contradicting the national ideology The Inner Workings of Congado
of miscegenation and discourses of racial
The term Congado (also known interchangeably
democracy (nonracism). In this way, Congado
as Congada and Congos) encompasses multi-
claims to blackness are as much about indexing
valent meanings, cutting across diverse periods
a black phenotype as about identifying with
of time and place. It can refer to the commun-
black culture so as to deflect the Congadeiros’
ity as a whole, the songs, dances, parades, and
invisibility and inaudibility. Moreover, the dia-
rituals themselves, as well as the groups of
logue between black racial identity and the
around 15 to 150 musicians who are accom-
social conditions of its production is rendered
panied by royal entourages.4 The royal court of
clear through a comparison of sound and lore.
kings and queens that parade behind the
Indeed, the politics of the aesthetic realm can
musical groups are intended to personify the
be read from the perspective of both myth and
celestial kingdom of Our Lady of the Rosary;
music because together they outline the
in this sense Congado evokes the European
essential elements of the Congado communi-
Catholic tradition of parading with sacred
ty’s knowledge. In the broadest sense, more
objects in pilgrimages and processions.5
than merely witnesses to the telling of
The royal parades also concomitantly
“history,” music and myth become media for
invoke African-derived king and queen coro-
remembering a racial past, making its present,
nations, known variously as festa dos negros
and envisaging its future.
(festival of the black people), festa de reis Congos
While Congadeiros represent a small per-
(festival of the Congo kings and queens),
centage of Brazilian citizens, their negotiations
coroação de rei negro (coronation of the black
of the conjuncture of race and rights through
king), coroações de reis de nação (coronations of the
mythic and musical discourses illuminate
kings of the nations), and reinados negros
contemporary debates that materialize in
brasileiros (black Brazilian kingdoms). African
Afro–Latin American identity politics. Indeed,
and Afro-descendant slaves and free(d) peoples
these “regional” expressions become simul-
cultivated these festivities of sacred and secular
taneously national and transnational in scope
outlook throughout colonial and postcolonial
because the representation of blackness as
Brazil, culminating in what we know today as
constitutive of Congado is just one case in
Congado.
point among many similarly related pheno-
The practitioners can engage in seven dif-
mena. To situate Congado music and myth
ferent kinds of Congado groups—Congo,
within broader geographic and temporal con-
Moçambique, Candombe, Catopê, Vilão, Marujo,
texts is to reveal the decided interrelationality
and Caboclo—although the existence of certain
between different relata in a network of
groups is contingent on the particular locale.
diverging and converging processes of ex-
change across the Americas. Thus, Congado
as a case study allows for greater theoretical 4 There are several interchangeable ways of
describing song among Congadeiros such as: cântico
and ethnographic nuance of the complex
(chant), música (denoting music in general as well as a
scenarios of contact and becoming within single song), cantiga (short song), cantoria (singing), and
Latin America and the Afro-Atlantic world. canto (song in general as well as an individual song).
5 Carlos Brandão, A clara cor da noite escura: Escritos e
imagens de mulheres e homens negros de Goiás e Minas Gerais
(Goiânia, Goiás: Editora da Universidade Católica de
Goiás, 2009), 117.
Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 3, No. 2 (2017) 4
The ensembles are distinct from one another, archipelago and city situated four miles off the
having different repertoires and ritual res- coast of the state of São Paulo, Brazil. One
ponsibilities, yet they also perform together in entry reads: “The Festival of St. Benedict took
festas, multiday festivals comprised of proces- place. One can appreciate how interesting the
sions, coronations, banner raising and lower- tradition is and how worthy the Congadas are
ing rituals, visitations to homes, feasts, Mas- of conservation.”8
ses, ceremonies for the payment of promises, This contrasts with the 1945 entry, which
and the like (see Fig. 1).6 condemns the Congadeiros for creating a
Approximately each weekend from the pagan festival intertwined with religious over-
end of Lent to November, groups travel to tones. The priests prohibited the entrance of
festivals hosted by fellow Congadeiros in the Congada with their characteristic garb to
neighboring cities or invite these groups to the grounds of the church. Henceforth, “in
animate their own rituals (see Fig. 2). When June the traditional Festival of St. Benedict
the Congado religious cycle concludes, parti- was celebrated with a triduum preached in
cipants commence other vernacular Catholic preparation for the Mass. There was no pagan
traditions such as folias de reis, rituals associated Congada.”9 Within the span of five years,
with the Magi.7 In the broadest sense, their Congados went from being esteemed in the
rituals both align with and stand apart from popular imaginary to being rebuked for
Roman Catholic practices in that they per- paganism.
form ceremonies such as Mass and novenas, The Roman Catholic Church’s shift from
while also carrying out practices such as dan- acclaim to damnation of Congado groups still
ces, visitations, coronations, songs, parades, mediates, in my understanding, the complex re-
and dawn ceremonies that are often critiqued lationship between the two communities today.
by Roman Catholic authorities as profane. On one hand, there is a deep imbrication
Thus, the Roman Catholic Church sometimes between Congado groups and the church, as
embraces and sometimes denounces Conga- evidenced by various collaborations; for
deiros in accordance with changes in their example, when priests preside over the Congo
socioreligious values and subjective perspec- Mass. At the same time, the uniqueness of
tives. Congado ritual shows how they endeavor to
A case in point of how Congado practices remain autonomous actors. What is inter-
signify both within and outside of official esting, thus, is to chart how they negotiate this
practices is the 1940 record of Congado in the insider/outsider positionality within the
book of inventory (livro de Tombo) of the church and state through expressive and af-
Parish of Our Lady of Help of Ilhabela, an fective modalities.

6 Fig. 1 depicts the Black Community of the
Arturos as they parade throughout their community
during the payment of promises ceremony of the
Festival of Our Lady of the Rosary. Notice how the
woman cloaked in a blue cape walks on her knees
around the chapel in request of or thanks for the
intercession of Our Lady of the Rosary. 8 Livro de Tombo da Paróquia Nossa Senhora
7 Glaura Lucas, Os sons do rosário: O Congado mineiro d’Ajuda de Ilhabela, 1940, 44.
dos Arturos e Jatobá (Belo Horizonte: Editora UFMG, 9 Livro de Tombo da Paróquia Nossa Senhora
2002). d’Ajuda de Ilhabela, 1945, 68.
Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 3, No. 2 (2017) 5
Fig. 1: Congado payment of promise ceremony from the Black Community of the Arturos, Festival of Our Lady of the
Rosary, Contagem, Minas Gerais, 2014. Photo by author.

Fig. 2: Gabriel da Silva Baeta Nedes drums and sings in the annual festival for the abolition of slavery on May 13, 2014,
Concórdia, Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Photo by author.

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 3, No. 2 (2017) 6
Congadeiros understand their instruments While the designation Congado typically
to be inherently sacred, as well as vehicles for finds currency throughout Minas Gerais, this is
placing themselves within history. For not always the case. Practitioners from the city
example, practitioners use percussion instru- of Montes Claros, for instance, do not identify
ments called gungas/campanhas (ankle shakers) with the term Congado, nor do they have a
and patangomes (hand shakers), which are comprehensive appellation that encapsulates
crafted from empty food cans and hubcaps, the three groups in the region: Catopê,
respectively, and sealed with black seeds inside. Marujada, and Caboclo. Practitioners from the
Gungas are not merely rhythmic support; they wider Belo Horizonte region, in contrast, often
echo the sounds of the heavy chains and bells refer to Moçambique, Candombe, and Congo
worn by their ancestors. The patangomes together as Congado. Congado thus is a term
represent the tools with which slaves panned that both scholars and practitioners use, but its
for gold in the mines of eighteenth-century applicability is context-contingent. Still, other
Minas Gerais. Thus, gungas and patangomes practitioners deem this term to be problematic,
evoke the co-presence of their ancestors in preferring instead the designation Reinado.
material form. Reinado is intended to invoke the totality of
Besides the gungas and patangomes, the royal court and musical groups by gesturing
musicians in Moçambique also play tambores/ to both the European-inspired tradition of
caixas, or double-headed cylindrical skin drums. parading with ecclesiastical retinues and the
Likewise, in Congo, musicians perform on African-inspired ceremony of imperial coro-
slightly smaller double-headed cylindrical skin nations. These hybrid rituals of European and
drums, as well as on the tamboril/tamborim (small African origin undergirded and continue to
frame drum), tarol (snare drum), pandeiro help black people to build their own structures
(tambourine), meia lua (half-moon shaker), reco- of social relations, remember Africa, demon-
reco/canzalo (metal/wood/bamboo scraper), strate status and prestige, and define their
caxixis (bamboo shakers of various sizes), sanfona relation to local socioreligious society.10 Thus,
(accordion), acordeon de oito baixos (button traversing centuries and diverse contexts,
accordion), viola (five–double-coursed guitar), Congadeiros have called their performances by
bandolim (four–double-coursed guitar), banjo, various names to imbue them with particular
marimba, and violão (guitar). cultural values and subjectivities, but above all
In my reading, implicit, if not explicit, in to give them autonomous purchase on their
these ways of making instruments is the traditions. Indeed, the various ways in which
imperative to foreground the disruptive practitioners refer to their traditions speak to
knowledge of Congado autonomy and agency how Congado is less a single entity than a
through the materiality of the object and the constellation of cosmovisions and rituals
aurality of its sound. From fiery drumming to mobilized to counter the injustice of racial
rapturous antiphonal homophony, Conga- invisibility in Brazilian society.
deiros exercise creative license through sacred
song to redress oppression, counteract social
exclusion, and, to the extent that is possible,

negotiate belonging within the Brazilian nation
10 Elizabeth W. Kiddy, Blacks of the Rosary: Memory
and global ecumene on their own terms. and History in Minas Gerais, Brazil (University Park:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005).
Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 3, No. 2 (2017) 7
Genesis and Transcendence Speaking to this issue, ethnomusicologist
Glaura Lucas outlines myth as a medium of
Congadeiros typically deploy myth to narrate
historical remembrance. By doing so, she
the genesis of their community—to explain
seems to imply concomitantly that the past is
how it originated and why they organize their
nowhere more applicable than in the making of
sacred rituals in particular ways. In Myth and
an alternative, emergent present.
Reality, Mircea Eliade writes,
Congadeiros search for the causes in the
Myth, then, is always an account of a
mythic text, the beginning, the base that forms
“creation”; it relates how something was
and structures the festival, the nature of their
produced, began to be. . . . In short, myths
faith, the feeling and attitude toward sacralized
describe the various and sometimes dramatic
objects, the music, song, and dance. The legend
breakthroughs of the sacred (or the
maintains alive the memory and history of
“supernatural”) into the World. It is this
slavery, the suffering of their ancestors in
sudden breakthrough of the sacred that really
captivity and the maneuvers of resistance.13
establishes the World and makes it what it is
today.11 Through Lucas’s observations, we can
appreciate how Our Lady’s apparition is not
Eliade in his observations limns out a similar
merely about the genesis of a musico-religious
issue in Congado wherein practitioners blur the
tradition; the myth also adumbrates the
boundaries between being, becoming, and
ongoing processes of remembrance and re-
being-in-the-world. In other words, the primordial
sistance of a black Catholic community.
nature of Congado’s beginning—how it began
Indeed, embodying foundational epistemes of
to be—cannot be unbound from how
the community, the myth of origin both
practitioners understand their ontological state
narrates a story of origin and structures wor-
of being-in-the-world. From this viewpoint, Con-
shipers’ broader ideologies about the nature of
gadeiros use mythological metaphors not only
their socioreligious structures and contexts.
to explain how their musico-religious universe
Despite not being able to confirm the
commenced, but also their ultimate vision of it.
historical “truth” of Our Lady’s apparition, the
It is precisely the metaphors of survival,
myth is not a falsehood to be juxtaposed
uniqueness, and favor embedded in myths of
against historicity. Even if we had empirical
origin that mediate their most fundamental
subjectivities.12 In the broadest sense, then, the proof of the apparition, it would tell us little
more about who Congadeiros were and about
myth of origin creates the conditions of
how Congadeiros self-fashion themselves. Ulti-
possibility necessary for beginnings, as well as
mately, myth enacts a “‘true history,’ because it
those necessary for the development of a
always deals with realities.”14 Understood by
habitus of black pride. In this way, myth
Congadeiros as history, this reality that myth so
becomes the ne plus ultra not only of the past
readily captures is grounded in questions of
but also of the present and future.
racial identification. Congadeiros derive much
pride from the conviction that black musicians,

not white people, drew Our Lady from the
11 Mircea Eliade, Myth and Reality, ed. Ruth Nanda
waters with sweet singing, ardent drumming,
Anshen, trans. Willard R. Trask (New York: Harper &
Row, 1963), 6.
12 George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We
Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 13 Lucas, Os sons do rosário, 60.
10. 14 Eliade, Myth and Reality, 6.
Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 3, No. 2 (2017) 8