We are a people fond of a party. Taking this premise as our starting point, we can say that our saints would be no different. If someone out there is preaching otherwise, we need to reconsider the character of that saintliness. Still haunted by a kind of Manichean obsession, most of the doomed souls wandering around here fall back on the notion that what is sacred does not mix with the profane. Negative. In the syncopated everyday, what is most present is the intertwining in which the profane is sanctified and the sacred is profaned. In Rio de Janeiro, the living proof of this is Saint George, the warrior who drops into the samba and stretches carnival all the way to the end of April.
Image description: This is a black-and-white photograph of a public procession. The image shows a dense crowd of people gathered at an important event. In the central area, there is a white horse adorned with flowers, followed by a procession that includes people dressed in formal attire. On the right, an individual in white attire carries a coffin covered with flowers. On the left, musicians play wind instruments. The background is filled with onlookers watching the ceremony.Fiéis seguem a imagem de São Jorge em procissão no Rio de Janeiro, s/d. Arquivo Nacional. Fundo Correio da Manhã.
April 23rd, a holiday in the city of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro, has stood out on the aldeia's calendar as one of the main municipal festive dates. Around here, São Jorge is the man! Given such popularity, his celebration wouldn't fit a scaled-down street fair. So, folks, you can put the water on for the beans, because the party is coming in on horseback. The warrior saint's day is marked by joy, faith, devotion, and, above all, by the diversity and contradictions that forge the city and its rites.
Image description: This is a photograph of an altar with several religious figures and decorative objects. On the left side, there is a statue of a white horse. In the center are two figures dressed in traditional garments, one of them holding an object that appears to be a crucifix. On the right, there is a figure dressed in a blue and gold robe, followed by other small figures of people wearing colorful garments. In the background, there is a white wall with red lines. In front, there is a soda bottle and other objects.Altar na entrada do Beco do Rato, Rio de Janeiro. Imagem extraída de:
These two elements, the sacred and the profane, are hallmarks of popular festivities in Brazil. For people who imagine, since this is a celebration of a Catholic saint, that they will find traces of what is theoretically expected in attributes of sainthood, the feast of Saint George presents exactly the opposite. The city carnivalized the saint. The warrior, so much like the people of Rio, comes down from the altar to take over samba school halls, dive bars, street corners, backyard feijoadas, balloons, fireworks, gunshots, and a whole lot of other things that weave together the everyday life of the carioca.
And since the sacred and the profane meet at the crossroads that make up the city, it's worth remembering that April 23rd is also the birthday of another street saint: Alfredo da Rocha Vianna, Pixinguinha. Master of choro carioca, the boy raised in the neighborhood of Catumbi picked up all the tricks of the saxophone and the flute playing in the cabarets of Lapa, movie theaters, carnival ranchos, theaters, and nightclubs.
Based in the Leopoldina suburb, between Ramos and Olaria, Pixinguinha incorporated into his musicality the drums of terreiros, the polkas of the salons, carnival marchinhas, North American jazz, and Bach's counterpoints to invent Brazil's great music.
He died inside a church on Praça Nossa Senhora da Paz, on a Carnival Saturday in 1973, while waiting for a baptism and listening to the fanfares of the Banda de Ipanema. He was, at the same time, son of the city and father to it. Creator and creature. Averse to purisms, wary of essences, son of Ogum and devotee of São Jorge, he is also revered on the profane altars where cariocas praise their worldly sainthoods. As he died during Carnival like a saint and orixá, the band paraded on, in the middle of the rain, to the sound of Carinhoso.
