Old traditions live at Brazil's carnival

[Jahness]

Old traditions live at Brazil's carnival

By MICHAEL ASTOR,
Associated Press Writer

As morning breaks over the rolling green cane fields, the 19-year-old sugar cane cutter takes an herbal bath and offers a prayer to indigenous and African spirits before transforming himself into something resembling an electric, Day-Glo lion from outer space.

Josenildo Estevao da Silva dons colorful pantaloons, hoists a rack of cow bells onto his back and tops off the outfit with a brilliantly sequined poncho and a screaming headdress of neon ribbons. Then he marches several miles down dirt roads to rehearse with hundreds of other lance-wielding revelers who will converge on the state capital of Recife Sunday.

"When I'm all dressed up I become a warrior. It's a very powerful feeling," says Silva, a member of Cambinda Brasileira, a group of Maracatu revelers founded in 1898.

The most visible manifestation of carnival occurs more than 1,000 miles to the south in Rio de Janeiro, where nationally televised samba parades have fans rooting for their favorite groups with a passion usually reserved for soccer teams.

But nearly every region of Brazil has its own carnival traditions. In recent years, a growing number of revelers turned off by the commercialism of Rio's grand spectacle have begun looking elsewhere, to states such as Bahia and Pernambuco, where more homegrown rhythms dominate the celebrations.

Perhaps none of these traditions has benefited as much from renewed attention as maracatu, a deeply secret, semi-religious ritual born among former slaves in the sugarcane fields of Pernambuco state, with roots stretching back to African and indigenous cultures.

"We have the most democratic carnival in Brazil. It's open to everyone and it's free. You don't have to sit in a stadium like in Rio or pay to party in a cordoned-off area like in Bahia," says Recife Mayor Joao Paulo Lima Silva, who for eight years has dressed up as a maracatu lance-bearer to kick off the party.

Anthropologists say the origins of the ritual are mysterious, a mixture of several traditions with the dancers fancying themselves warrior members of an Indian tribe for reasons that are not entirely clear.

The music of maracatu consists of improvised verses sung a capella and answered by the thundering of trumpets, trombones and host of percussion instruments — a very different sound from the drums of Rio's samba schools.

Maracatu was disappearing in the 1980s, and in 1989 only 11 groups remained in Pernambuco state.

But then an association was formed to promote the tradition, and authorities cracked down on violence by maracatu groups who would often attack their rivals to steal their costumes.

The number of groups grew to 112 as they admitted women and children. Women cannot perform as lance-bearers, but take on roles that had previously been performed by men in drag.

Maracatu also received a boost from popular musicians Chico Science and Nacao Zumbi, who dressed as maracatu lance-bearers in their video for "Maracatu Atomico," a huge hit on MTV Brazil. Science died in a car crash in 1997, after working to restore Brazilian music's reliance on traditional rhythms rather than American pop.

The success of that movement sent hordes of middle-class Pernambuco residents into rural areas and slums to study at the feet of long-forgotten masters, breathing new life into maracatu and other traditions.

But some say the growing popularity of maracatu is watering down the tradition.

"Some groups today have lost their religious link and a lot of the younger people no longer respect the rules. They are interested in the look (of the costumes) but have no interest in sustaining the meaning of the ritual," said Sumaia Viera, a researcher of traditional cultures at the Federal University of Pernambuco.

The groups themselves are secretive about their spiritual preparations, which include abstaining from sex for two weeks and imbibing special potions, including one made of sugarcane brandy and gun powder.

But many maracatu supporters welcome the newcomers.

"If you're going to be picky about who is going to dance, you're not going to have too many people dancing," says Manoelzinho Salustiano, vice president of the Association of Maracatus Baque Solto of Pernambuco. He says old-timers teach the new arrivals about the rituals, and "the more they learn about it the more interested they get."

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