AuntMariaandtheJongodaSerrinha

Image description: This is a photograph of a group of people gathered in an outdoor setting, possibly in a local community. At the center of the image is an elderly woman wearing a green and white blouse with a white headscarf. She is playing a large drum. Around her are several children and adults, some dressed in green and white clothing, actively taking part in the musical activity. Behind them is a simple structure and a view of a city with many buildings. Everyone appears to be involved in a celebration or cultural event.

On May 14, 2019, Tia Maria took the stage at the Copacabana Palace and personally received the “Yes to Racial Equality” award, presented by the Instituto Identidades Brasileiras. At the venerable age of 98, looking utterly elegant in her turquoise dress, Tia Maria thanked them for the tribute and spoke in a serene tone: "Jongo da Serrinha is grateful, and it would be a great pleasure if you could all spend an afternoon with us there someday. Jongo is good. You'll like it." Four days later, during a jongo circle, Tia Maria fell ill, and passed away that same day.

The award given to Maria de Lourdes Mendes, Tia Maria, was a tribute to a history of struggle for the preservation of Black culture in Rio de Janeiro. Tia Maria was part of the first generation of residents born in the Serrinha hillside community, when the Madureira neighborhood, in Rio's Zona Norte, was still a rural area, in the early 20th century. Besides being one of the founders of GRES Império Serrano — the samba school in which she paraded until the end of her life —, for decades (and until her very last breath) Tia Maria was the leading reference of jongo in the city and in the country.

Image description: This is a painting depicting a party or celebration scene in a place that looks like a village or settlement. The image is in vivid colors, with emphasis on shades of blue, red, and yellow in the characters' clothing. On the left side, we see people dancing and interacting animatedly. A Black man is at the center, wearing a hat and dancing enthusiastically. Around him, others dance and enjoy themselves, some holding musical instruments. On the right, more people take part in the celebration, some holding fruit and other objects. In the background, there is a simple house with a thatched roof and brick walls. To the left, we see a distant mountain and a sky with clouds. In front of the house, there is a large basket of fruit and other market items.

Jongo arrived in Rio along with Bantu people, brought from Angola, in the 19th century. Jongo is a dance performed in a circle, to the sound of drums and sung pontos, with bodies playing through spins and umbigadas. For many experts, jongo was a strong influence — or even an ancestral link — for the birth of samba. The beat of the jongo drums — there are three: the Caxambu, the Candongueiro, and the Angoma Puíta — is sacred: one must ask permission and receive their blessing before entering a circle. After all, the drum is made by joining two harvested lives — animal hide and tree bark — which have the power to transform into a new entity, bringing the joy of life through the ancestral beat. In 2005, jongo culture was recognized by Iphan as an intangible heritage of Brazil.

In Rio de Janeiro, the preservation of this tradition owes a great deal to the efforts of the cultural group Jongo da Serrinha, in Madureira, founded by the legendary Vovó Maria Joana Rezadeira and her son, Mestre Darcy do Jongo, in the 1960s. Until then, jongo was danced by the elders in the backyards and terreiros of the Serrinha hill, in Madureira. Vovó Maria Joana realized that this tradition would be lost if the dance didn't include the younger ones — who watched, hidden, but unable to take part — in the circle.

Image description: The image is a photograph of a group of people in a scene, possibly during a cultural event. The spatial arrangement is asymmetrical, with some individuals in the foreground and others behind. On the left, adults and children dressed in traditional attire are standing, while on the right two adults are dancing prominently. The background is dark, highlighting the participants. The predominant colors are beige and brown, with lighter tones in the dancers' costumes and darker tones in the onlookers' clothing.

The Grupo Cultural Jongo da Serrinha was then born to organize ongoing actions of safeguarding, education, art, culture, and citizenship, preserving and spreading this rich manifestation of Afro-Brazilian culture. Tia Maria, who had been a jongueira since birth — her mother sang the pontos and songs since she was a girl — was called upon to take over the group's direction, and since the late 1970s, she has become the main guardian of the Jongo da Serrinha.

It took years of struggle for the association's preservation. Since 2015, Jongo da Serrinha has held a spacious headquarters, with 1700m², on Rua Compositor Silas de Oliveira; and today it is an NGO coordinated by women, most of them Black, directly involving hundreds of people, including musicians, dancers, managers, teachers, and students.