Carnival in São Luís, Maranhão, February 2016

An earlier post compares the Carnival in Rio with that in the smaller cities and the interior. This post shows some elements of the Carnival period in São Luís, the capital of Maranhão. It is not even remotely complete since much of the period was spent in the interior.

However, Maranhão has a wide range of cultural activity — carroças (floats), samba groups, blocos with African and indigenous identity, and a myriad of ad hoc groups that celebrate in the streets.

The celebration begins in the streets on weekends almost directly after the last celebrations of Christmas. Actually, they overlap so that the ritual of queima da palinha (see earlier posts) and many celebrations in the Afro-Brazilian spiritual houses overlap both seasons.

Flag of the group Fuzileiros da Fuzirca. This is one of the *blocos* that take to the streets during the pre-Carnival season. They are marching groups with heavy percussion, accompanied by singing and sometimes dancing.

The street popcorn vendor, a *bloco* and the street crowd in downtown (centro) São Luis are in the background

The day after the parade. These are floats and detritus left over the morning after the passarella/parade, which, like Rio, is held on a paved runway between two grandstands. Performance is competitive and heavily supported with sound systems and timing lights so the groups can keep to their time limit (which, in Maranhão, is an aspiration that is far from reality).

Float, or carroça. These are nothing like the floats in the Rio de Janeiro Carnival, but are nevertheless expensive in a small city in a bad economy.

A darker *carroça* theme, perhaps from watching the film “Orfeo Negro” (*Black Orpheus* in English). This voodoo/macumba evocation is unusual in Maranhão because such related practices are protected as religions and practiced widely.

The remains of the *passarela* have their own sad beauty

Parade of the “Indio blocos” — parade/performance groups that invoke indigenous themes. The costumes are actually more evocative of the dancers in the Rio de Janeiro *Carnaval*

The “Afro blocos” have a much longer history in São Luís and generally provide a more elaborate performance. They perform both on the streets and in this organized parade/*passarella.* Here they are on the long runway between two set of stands for crowds (mimicking the practice in Rio). In Rio the groups parade for at least nine hours, filling the night and broadcast live throughout Brazil. Not so here.