The Afro-Brazilian Museum (Museo Afro-Brasiliero), Ibipuera Park (Sao Paulo)
Sao Paulo has many treasures among its museums. One of the most unusual — unique, perhaps — is the Afro-Brazilian Museum. There are other museum in Brazil with this emphasis, but even the one in Salvador does not have the resources or scope of this one of this massive and insightful collection.
The museum reputedly houses more than 6,000 items, some 70% of which are said to be permanent with the remainder being temporary exhibits (the last photo below shows a traveling exhibit from the Smithsonian Anacostia on Lorenzo Dow Turner and the gullah language in the North American sea island.
The mural below draws simultaneously on Sao Paulo’s tradition of bold wall are, on youth culture, and on the museum’s goal of honoring the contribution of black Brazilians to the nation.
The interior of the museum is a vast and sensitive display of the African heritage of Brazil. Many — perhaps the most interesting parts — are still closed to photography, so I cannot show some of the displays and special exhibits. There are rich descriptions of slavery and there is a model of a slave ship, photos and art work on (and sometimes by) Bahian mulatas — sometimes mistresses of slavers and sometimes entrepreneurs in their own right. There are also: a display of African-Brazilian spiritual practice with a guide to orixas in Candomble, including photos of famous spiritual leaders; art work by Brazilians of African heritage; crafts and artisan work of all sorts; and photographic displays of famous Afro-Brazilians (see the photos below by of Madalena Schwartz).
The Museum, established in 2004, is in the Manoel Nobrega Pavillion designed by Oscar Niemeyer and built in 1959. Signs in the entryway emphasize that its opening was attended by representatives of the African nation of Benin attending. the symbolism is important because Benin is the nation whose current territory include many areas of West African slave exportation. The area around the Bight of Benin was a major port for exportation of slaves, but it was also an area rich in natural minerals. The Portuguese gave their word — minas (for mines) — to the area because of its rich mineral deposits. The term “minas” became a shorthand Portuguese name for the diverse African people imported from that region. There were often referred to in bills of lading and slave sales simply as “Minas,” further obscuring their original African origins and identities. This is one of the practices that makes it difficult to trace the origins of African descendants (another of which was the systematic destruction in the 19th Century of bills of lading and sales lists of Africans sold at auction).
Photography of Madalena Schwartz
Many of the museum’s thousands of items,and most of its displays are not available for photographers, but the images below give some of the flavor of the museum.
Photography of the Bumba-meu-boi of Northeast Brazil
Our own research in the Northeast of Brazil includes the Bumba-meu-boi celebration, which is featured in the museum as a significant cultural form of African-Brazilians. These photos below are from that celebration in Sao Luis. The first photo in the image is of Mestre Apolonio Melonio, an iconic figure who founded Bumba-meu-boi da Floresta. We have met him many times, and were saddened by his death in June of 2015.
The second photo is a Cazumba, an evocative forest creature in the Baixada tradition of celebration (see earlier posts for more on the various rhythmic forms of the celebration). The mask is not identified, but we believe it is early work of Abel Texeira of Maranhao, whom we have gotten to know over the years. An earlier post in the series shows Abel, who is now retired. His wife continues his masking style.
A major surprise was the North American exhibit from the Anacostia community museum of the Smithsonian. It features black cultures in the South Carolina sea islands where Lorenzo Dow Turner found strong linguistic connections between “gullah” and West African languages (especially, we understand, Mende which is a language from Sierra Leon). Turner is honored as the founder of African linguistics in the United States.
In one video segment, words from the language as spoken in the U.S. are compared to nearly identical words in various African languages. Turner showed that gullah was not a corruption of English as a dialect with strong African origins.
The Bandeirantes Memorial (just outside Ibipuera Park, Sao Paulo)
The Afro-Brazilian Museum honors the contributions of African descendants to the culture of Brazil. In doing so it evokes ambivalent feelings because of the slavery system that brought those African cultures to Brazil. The memorial to the Bandeirantes also evokes ambivalent reactions — it honors the early explorers who fought their way into the interior of Brazil, but who also enslaved or eliminated the much of the indigenous population they found in their way.
The Bandeirantes were explorers and adventurers of the 17th century. They were often Portuguese born in Brazil, but there were also Spanish and Italian and other nationalities. Many in the entourage were of mixed birth, having European fathers and indigenous mothers.
This part of the memorial emphasizes the leadership of a mass of men by powerful Europeans.
What is was all about: The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas
After Columbus’ landing in the Americas in 1492, he apparently returned to Spain by way of Portugal to announce his discovery. This is ofen described by historians as a triggering event in the competition between the two Iberian nations in a race to colonize the New World. However, whatever the incidents promoting the rivalry for colonies, the Spanish and Portuguese contest the interior of Latin American.
The Pope attempted to settle the competition by negotiating the Tordesilla treaty which divided Latin America — even though Latin American geography, and particularly its interior, were largely unknown and unmapped.
In the 17th Century various explorers carried the Portuguese flag (bandeira, hence their name “bandeirantes“) and extended the claim of Portugal far into the western part of Brazil that the papal treaty had granted to the Spanish.
The treaty was silent on the French and Dutch, both of whom made attempts at colonizing Brazil in the 17th century. The northeastern city of Sao Luis (Maranhao), for example, has the distinction of being the only Brazilian city to be founded by the French. The French colonization of Sao Luis (beginning in 1612) was disputed by the indigenous population, the Dutch and the Portuguese for the next four decades before Sao Luis and Maranhao becoming more or less securely Portuguese.
Another engraved stone on the monument seems to praise the Bandeirantes for having made Brazil as large as it is today. There is an ambiguity in the story, and in the monument, between the aspirations of the adventurers and the largely indigenous populations they found in their way.