The Day of the Dead (Dia dos Falecidos) in Caixias (Maranhao) Brazil is a major event as it is elsewhere in Latin America. We came here because of a special observance involving grave singers and the massive commemoration that is customary here. The observance is at the Cemiterio Olaria.
This is not the oldest cemetery in the city — that is Cemiterio dos Remedios where the wealthier citizens were buried. In Remedios some of the citizens showed their heritage and wealth by using Portuguese tiles (azulejos) on the grave markers.
In the Cemiterio Olaria there where there are few large tombs and other signs of wealth. Many graves are unmarked or simple mounds of dirt. Most have a wall built around them, but rarely have a gravestone as in the cemeteries where the wealthier are buried. They are packed together with no walkways or open space. You pick your way through the grave sites — carefully they are ringed with mourners, candles, or even fire.
On the day and of the Day of the Dead graves are lit with thousands of candles. Just before night the visitors leave pick their way through the dust and smoke back into Caxias.
The graves in this old cemetery are so close that you can scarcely put a foot down to walk between them. With hundred, or thousands, of others in the cemetery you are often forced to step across candles, smouldering fires, and even on some of the graves themselves. Picking your way through the fire and dust in the falling evening is a challenge, and the temperatures over 90 degrees combine with the thousands of candles and fires. Sometimes visitors are choked with heat and dust. Outside dozens of vendors sell boxes of candles and water. A local business passes out fans for visitors.
We visited this cemetery specifically to see the custom of grave singers who go from site to site, apparently pre-arranged by the families who can afford them. They play and sing, accompanied by a flag bearer with the emblem of the Holy Ghost and a small oratorio.
The word “oratorio” typically refers to certain forms of religious vocal music, but it is also the term in Brazil for a small box containing an image of a saint or other religious symbols. It serves as a portable altar. Oratorios were used by traveling priests who rode from village to village, fazenda to fazenda, preaching in rural areas where there was no church.
The oratorio is a symbol of traditional devotion and its survival in the interior where churches and priests were often not available. The traveling priest performed that function, carrying his altar and holy books with him. It is also a reminder of the fact that the institutional Catholic Church could not penetrate into the interior in a permanent way during the early years of Brazil. This led to many variations on traditional practice, a lack of control from Rome (or Lisbon), and a fair amount of non-sanctioned priestly behavior (having a family, for example).
In this ceremony the oratorio is carried by the singing group along with its instruments and a flag bearer who carries a red banner with the dove of the Espirito Santo. The person requesting the observance stands in front of the flag and holds the oratorio until the singing is done.
A little about Caixias, Maranhao
Although we went to the city to seem the Day of the Dead customs, it is a historical city that played an important economic role in the 19th century. It is also the site of one of the most famous of the slave rebellions that marked the mid-19th century of Brazil (about 50 years before slavery was abolished in 1888).
The Balaiada Rebellion
Caxias is the famous historical city where the Balaiada Rebellion of 1838-40 culminated. It briefly brought together a non-elite coalition of slaves, poor farmers and a few artisans. In the most popular rendition it seems to have begun as a riot or jailbreak to free men who had been imprisoned facing transport to fight in the army. It spread to farmers and to slaves, who destroyed plantations and formed an army of sorts.
A force of about 3,000 slaves was led by Cosme Bento Chagas (photo above). For a few months they captured and held the small city of Caixias. They may have hoped to make Caixias into something resembling the model of a quilombo, the communities that were formed by freed and escaped slaves.
After a few weeks the slave army was crushed by the military, winning the commander of the army action the title of “Duke of Caxias.”
Brazil’s slave rebellions were eventually crushed, unlike the Haiti where the only successful rebellion forced the French to withdraw at the beginning of the 19th century. However, Brazil had experienced centuries of slave self-rule in quilombos, remnants of which survive by the hundreds today. There are an estimated 300 such settlements in Maranhao alone — some not far from present-day Caixias.
The Balaiada Rebellion is memorialized in its own museum in Caxias.
Getting There — the bus to Caixias
The small city of Caixias is about 4-6 hours by bus from Sao Luis. The variation in time depends on several factors — there is only one highway and sometimes there is trouble, blocking the road for hours. There is also bus trouble from time to time, and we sometimes see a bus parked along the roadside with someone spinning a wrench and cursing. Sometimes it is the bus we are in.
The worst of the road hazards are the legendary bus stops.
The Dia dos Falecidos at a the Cemiterio Olaria in Caxias
There are several cemeteries in the city, but this one has an unusual custom that we went to see. Here is part of our group of four. This event is virtually unknown outside Caxias and the rigors of heat, dust and inaccessibility will not make this a tourist stop. Simone was filming for us. Jandir works in one of the institutions of the Secretariat of the state of Maranhao and is documenting these practices while they still exist.
The custom of cemetery singers is common in east, central, and southeast Maranhao. These groups are often referred to as Folioes de Divindade, which translates roughly to “Merrymakers/pranksters of divinity.” They are performers under the banner of the Espirito Santo. There are many such groups, usually composed only of men. This group is led by Chico Touro, whose birth name is Francisco Lacerdo Nunes. This group consisted of the singers/musicians, flag bearers, an organizer who seemed to know which sites to visit (and collect the fee). There are others, including a boy who stayed near the guitar player to fan him from the heat, dust and smoke.
