Finados:illustriousdeadwhounitethecity

Odette Vidal Cardoso, the carioca who would become known as Menina Odetinha, lived only nine years. Born in Madureira, the daughter of Portuguese immigrants, Odetinha was very devout and died a victim of paratyphoid, an infectious disease, after enduring 49 days of suffering. Witnesses say she would repeat: "I offer you, oh my Jesus, all my suffering for the missions and for poor children." On the day of her death, she declared: "My Jesus, my love, my life, my everything."

Buried in the Cemitério São João Batista, Odetinha began performing miracles in the 1970s and came to be worshipped as the little saint of the Cemitério São João Batista.

Image description: The image is a black-and-white photograph of a funerary monument in a cemetery. From the background to the foreground, we see a hill covered with trees and a clear sky. On the right, there is another monument with a carved figure. In the center, the main monument bears an inscription reading "VIVE EM CRISTO" and is adorned with two doves and a flower within a chalice. In front of the monument, white flowers are arranged in a vase.

Around the same time that Odetinha was performing miracles, the statue of the Cristo do Porto das Caixas, in Itaboraí, began to bleed and perform fabulous wonders. Newspapers reported farofeiro pilgrimages that jammed up the newly opened Rio-Niterói bridge and crossed the Niterói-Manilha road to revere the image. The dozens of wax heads, arms, and legs, left in a room in praise of graces received, caused a mixture of fascination and dread.

In the neighborhood of Lins de Vasconcelos, one of the city's macumba strongholds, home of the ogã Tião Casemiro, the golden voice of the umbanda festivals, and of traditional houses such as the Templo Espírita Tupyara (1943) and the Tenda Espírita Ventania (1954), Odetinha gives her name to a municipal daycare center. In 2021, Pope Francis recognized the “heroic virtues of the Servant of God Odette Vidal Cardoso, faithful lay woman,” as the document describes her, granting her the title of venerable.

Odetinha and the Cristo de Porto das Caixas got along quite well with the excursions of macumba centers to a waterfall in Japeri, near the train station where Tião Medonho's gang held up the paymaster train, which came to be known as "the Iguaçu Falls of macumba."

Image description: The image shows a photo of a little girl displayed in a religious setting. The girl is smiling and has short hair, held back with a floral accessory. The photo sits inside a frame embroidered with floral details and lace. Colorful ribbons hang below the frame, adding a festive touch to the decoration. In the background, we see an altar with a statue of a religious figure and a wall lamp. To the right, there are red chairs and a wooden column.

In this fantastic mix, the venerable girl Odetinha, born in Madureira, sanctified in the São João Batista cemetery, and recognized by the Vatican, invites us to think that the city of Rio de Janeiro has grown accustomed to ritualizing affection for its illustrious dead.

Joining the little saint Odete are names such as singer Clara Nunes and actor Paulo Sérgio. Both are true phenomena when it comes to pilgrimages to tombs in Brazil. While Paulo Sérgio drew more than a hundred thousand people to his wake at the Caju cemetery and continues to draw pilgrims along the Rio-São Paulo axis, the singer was followed by tens of thousands of people at her wake at Portela's samba hall and owns one of the most visited tombs to this day at São João Batista, in Botafogo.

Image description: The image is a photograph of three people in a setting that appears to be a cemetery or a memorial site. On the left, there is a man with a black backpack, wearing a blue and white striped shirt. He is interacting with a white funerary monument that has framed photos of two women. In the center, a man in a green t-shirt is reading something from a book or notebook. On the right, a woman in a white blouse with a black polka dot print is looking at the monument. The background features a stone wall with a sculptural detail of dragons and a tree with yellow flowers behind the monuments.

In the Inhaúma cemetery, the pilgrimage is to the tomb of Taninha, a girl murdered in one of the most shocking crimes in the city's history, in 1960. The child, at four years of age, was murdered by Neide, her father's mistress, who came to be known as the Beast of Penha. Block 21, vault 17 of the cemetery, is still decorated to this day with dolls, a statue of São Jorge, and plaques thanking her for graces received.

The city's illustrious dead are revived, joined together in the memories, affections and rites of its people, making us ponder the idea that the miracle is something extraordinary; like a kind of the most intimate mystery of worldly affections.