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The batizado<\/em> of Bumba-meu-boi da Floresta was especially meaningful, and sad, this year.\u00a0 The founder and leader of the group for over 40 years had died the previous week.\u00a0 This leading Baixada<\/em> group, based in a bairro<\/em> of Sao Luis, holds a private baptism on June 23-24 \u2014 in the heritage manner.\u00a0 The ceremony begins late in the\u00a0evening in the group\u2019s\u00a0headquarters (sede<\/em>), and the\u00a0boi<\/em> is baptized after midnight after prayers and hymns in a\u00a0long liturgy.\u00a0 The group then enters the street in a procession that lasts into the early hours of the morning.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The recently-deceased leader, Mestre Apolonio Melonio, died at the age of 96.\u00a0 He joined Humberto de Maracana, another iconic figure of the BmB<\/em>, who died only a few months before.\u00a0 Just a few years before that Maranhao\u2019s popular culture lost\u00a0 Terezinha Jansen, leader of Boi de Fe em Deus<\/em>, who died in\u00a0 2008.<\/p>\n As the older generation of founders and leaders leaves the scene, leadership is passing to a new group of leaders who are often women and products of a more modern and urbanized Maranhao.\u00a0 This is especially true for groups in Sao Luis, the capital city, but even groups in the interior find that their survival depends on adapting to the needs of modern government, media and commercial organization.<\/p>\n The\u00a0batizado<\/em> honored tradition, but also honored the passing of a member of the older generation and\u00a0another step in the transition in the transformation and modernization of the festival.<\/p>\n For years much of the\u00a0management of the group\u00a0been shared by Mestre Apolonio with\u00a0his wife Nadir Cruz.\u00a0 Now Nadir, her daughter\u00a0Talyene\u00a0Melonio,\u00a0and the senior members of Floresta are adjusting to the new era of the group.<\/p>\n<\/a>