AfricanMotherlandHeritage

Beats of the Atabaque - Professor Paulo de Xangô

The unaccompanied singing of a samba circle, backed by clapping and verses repeated by the chorus of voices, begins after the greeting to the Orixás. “Epa Babá, Oxalá! Epahey Oyá! Ora yê yê ô, Oxum!” The sound echoes from the bend of a steep hillside, in a green area nestled between mansions and luxury buildings in Lagoa. The sign above the gate leading into the 18,000 m² of forest quickly reveals that this is the Sacopã quilombo. “We are from Nigeria. We are Black people surrounded by white people,” says samba musician Luiz Sacopã, referring to the history of the urban quilombo established at the top of the Sacopã hillside in 1929, whose founders included his father, Manoel Pinto, his mother, Eva Manoela Cruz, and four siblings.

Image description: The image is a black-and-white photograph. On the left side, we see a woman wearing a dress with embroidered details and a headscarf. She is holding a bamboo pole. In the center, there is a figure covered by a mesh net, who appears to be being led by another person. Behind this figure stands a man wearing a white shirt and white pants, with a necklace hanging around his neck. On the right is an older woman, also wearing a headscarf and dressed in traditional attire. She is looking at the figure covered by the net. In the background, there is a window with metal bars and a religious image hanging on the wall.

“No terreiro de preto velho, iá, iá / Ora vamos, Saravá / A quem meu pai? Xangô!” (“In the terreiro of the old preto velho spirit, iá, iá / Come now, Saravá / To whom, my father? Xangô!”). A few kilometers from there, another samba circle with a touch of capoeira and the beat of the berimbau echoes from a remaining quilombola community. This time, it's the quilombo of Pedra do Sal, located in the port area, near the Cais do Valongo. This is an area that was once nicknamed “Pequena África” by Heitor dos Prazeres, and that, in 1987, was listed as a material heritage site of Black culture in Rio de Janeiro. Frequented, in the early 20th century, by formerly enslaved people, it was from there that the first and most popular terreiros and samba circles in Rio de Janeiro emerged, such as that of babalorixá João Alabá, on Rua Barão de São Félix.

Image description: This is a photograph of a person playing a traditional musical instrument. The image shows a hand holding a finger wrapped with white adhesive tape, positioned over the instrument. The instrument has a white surface with wooden strings tied with cotton threads. In front of the instrument, there is a colorful fabric with geometric patterns in red, black, and white. In the background, we see a white wall and a brown column.

Coming from the old Rua Visconde de Itaúna, near Praça Onze, a passageway led to the house of dona Hilária Batista de Almeida, Tia Ciata, a mãe de santo and one of the best-known Bahian aunts in downtown Rio. It was at the Casa da Tia Ciata that Donga and Mauro de Almeida composed what is considered the first samba in history to be recorded: “Pelo Telefone.”

Image description: This is a photograph of a cultural or religious event. In the upper left, we see two people dressed in traditional attire, holding flowers. In front of them stands a person, also wearing traditional clothing. In the center, there is a figure lying on the ground, covered with a red and white cloth, while another person, standing, leans over them. On the right, seated in chairs, are three individuals dressed in colorful, adorned costumes. Behind them, there is a white curtain and hanging green plants. In the upper right, we see a flag with the text "DIVINO ESPÍRITO SANTO."

Examples of the symbiotic relationship between the sacred and the profane, spaces where the traces of candomblé and umbanda pulse, Rio's samba circles and terreiros keep alive the heritage of that ancestral tradition of uniting agogôs, xequerês and atabaques, led by Alabês and Curimbas, to seek, in the sharpness of the senses and the performance of bodies, the manifestation of the divine.