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Afro-Bahian History and Culture Reading Resource List

Resources in English

Journal Articles

Books

  • African-Brazilian Culture and Regional Identity in Bahia, Brazil, by Scott Ickes
  • Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia, by João José Reis
  • Axé Bahia: The Power of Art in an Afro-Brazilian Metropolis, by Patrick A. Polk, Roberto Conduru, Sabrina Gledhill, Randal Johnson
  • Brazil’s New Racial Politics, edited by Bernd Reiter and Gladys L. Mitchell
  • Capoeira: The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art, by Matthias Röhrig Assunção
  • Brazilian Popular Music and Globalisation, by Charles A. Perrone & Christopher Dunn
  • Brazil, Mixture or Massacre?: Essays of a Genocide of a Black People, by Abdias do Nascimento
  • Afro-Politics and Civil Society in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, by Kwame Dixon
  • The Masters and the Slaves: A study in the development of Brazilian civilization, by Gilberto Freyre

Fiction Novels

  • Cacao, by Jorge Amado
  • The War of the Saints, by Jorge Amado
  • Tent of Miracles, by Jorge Amado

Blogs

Website articles

Films

Radio Podcasts 

Recursos em Português

Artigos de Jornal

Livros

  • Genocídio do negro brasileiro: Processo de um Racismo Mascarado, por Abdias do Nascimento
  • A Trama dos Tambores: a musica afro-pop de Salvador, por Goli Guerreiro
  • Casa Grande & Senzala, por Gilberto Freyre

Romances de Ficção

  • Cacau, por Jorge Amado
  • O Sumiço da Santa, por Jorge Amado
  • Tenda dos Milagres, por Jorge Amado

Blogues

Artigos do site

Filmes

Music / Música

Afro-Bloco / Bloco-Afro Videos

Names to Know of Afro-Bahian Samba-Reggae Movement / 

Nomes para Saber do Movimento Samba-Reggae Afro-Baiano 

 

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Afro-Brazilian Cuisine: A Search for the Roots of Soul Food

In a recent blog post, Afroculinarian Michael Twitty describes how the book, The Masters and the Slaves (titled Casa-Grande & Senzala in Portuguese), by Gilberto Freyre, introduced him to the historical beginnings and sociological influences that produced a significant part of the food culture in Brazil through traditional Afro-Brazilian cuisine. Twitty also credits the book as what inspired him in his own search for the “roots of soul food” from his own ancestral past.

How a Brazilian Scholar Inspired My Search for the Roots of Soul Food

 

 

(The photo above is a Bahian dish called Vatapa. Photo from Afroculinaria)

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Dia da Consciência Negra (Black Consciousness Day)

November 20 is known as Dia da Consciência Negra (Day of Black Consciousness or Black Awareness Day) in Brazil. On this day, Brazilians recognize the efforts towards equality of the Movimento Negro (Black Movement) and celebrate black resistance and liberation by honoring Zumbi dos Palmares, a national hero.

Zumbi dos Palmares was a warrior and leader of anti-slavery resistance. Zumbi was born in 1655 in one of the quilombo settlements of Palmares in Pernambuco, Brazil. He was captured as a boy by soldiers and given to Father Antonio Melo who baptized him with the name ‘Francisco”. At the age of fifteen, Zumbi escaped and returned to the Palmares where he became one of the community’s most famous leaders and their last.

Also called Angola Janga (Angola Small) by those that lived there, Palmares was established as a shelter not only blacks, but also of poor whites, Indians and mestizos extorted by the colonizer. Palmares was like the Promised Land, and Zumbi, was regarded as eternal and immortal, and was recognized as a loyal and brave protector.

Zumbi was an extraordinary and talented military leader along with his wife, Dandara, who was also a fighter and defender of anti-slavery liberation in her own right, and leader of the female arm of the Palmares army, while helping to take care of sick children, the elderly, those injured by slavemasters. In 1694, a Portuguese army of 9,000 men began an undertaking that would lead to defeat Macaco, the main town of Palmares. Zumbi was found killed on November 20, 1695.

For years, Palmares was defended by Zumbi and Dandara against the military expeditions which intended to bring runaway slaves back into slavery. The Day of Black Consciousness is celebrated on November 20 in Brazil and is dedicated to reflection on the inclusion of blacks in Brazilian society. The date was chosen to coincide with the day of the death of Zumbi dos Palmares, in 1695.

Paintings depicting Zumbi and wife Dandara of Palmares

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Founding of Ilê Aiyê

Ilê Aiyê, the first afro-bloco of Brazil, was started in Curuzu, Liberdade, which with about 600,000 inhabitants is one of the most populous black neighborhoods in the country. The group was founded on November 1, 1974 to preserve, enhance, and expand exposure of the African-Brazilian culture in Brazil and has pursued this goal in different ways.

Throughout its history, Ilê Aiyê has been honoring African countries and Afro-Brazilian uprisings which has contributed strongly to the process of ethnic identity and the cultural self-esteem of black people. With its 3,000 members, Ilê Aiyê today is the heritage of Bahian culture, a milestone in the process of re-Africanization of the Bahia Carnival.

The musical rhythmic movement, invented in the 70s by Ilê Aiyê, was responsible for the revolution of the Bahian carnival which continues to develop and represent new rhythms derived from African traditions.

To promote political and educational consciousness, Ilê Aiyê does so through thematic selection of dance, gestures, language codes that transmits the African ancestry of the past with the historical and social context of blacks enslaved in Brazil, and then with the everyday Afro-Bahian of today, in addition to working in the pan-African universality of the Afro-descendant.

Ilê Aiyê also expresses the evolution of black/African renaissance and African American movements (adapted to the Bahian reality) focusing on the relationship and identification between black people from anywhere in the world, always emphasizing their common ancestral origin.

Source: http://www.ileaiyeoficial.com/

The video below brings together 40 years of carnival images of Queens of Ilê who represent the celebration of black beauty.