After writing the slightly melodramatic post below, I wanted to share one of the great Brazilian holidays I’ve experienced here. São João and the festas juninas, celebrated in June, actually reminded me of the parts of Halloween and the Fourth of July that I like best. People hanging out in the streets at night, dressing up in costumes, decorating front stoops, setting off fire works… these are all São João traditions, plus bonfires, foods made with corn, forró music, and quadrilhas - a kind of square dance.
São João originates in the pagan celebrations of the summer solstice. With the Christianization of Western Europe, the Church gave the celebrations a Catholic coating, turning them into a commemoration of the birth of St. John the Baptist - São João. The traditional fogueiras came to be known as representations of the fire St. John’s mother set to alert Mary of the baby’s birth. Portuguese colonization brought the São João festivities to Brazil, where the celebrations took on local characteristics. The typical (Brazilians love to use this term when discussing folk traditions - típico/a) corn-based foods people eat today during São João come from indigenous and African cuisine. The quadrilhas made their way to Brazil with the Portuguese court, who were complete admirers of everything French, including the contradance-ish quadrille. Now it’s a dança popular - a folk dance. Check out my friends’ quadrilha, Raio de Sol!
I spent São João in Igatu, a tiny town in Chapada Diamantina, with my Fulbright friends Amalia (who also went to Oberlin!) and Carolyn. We had spent about a week exploring Chapada, an incredible national park with gorges, waterfalls, interesting rock formations, and rivers. The three days we spent in Igatu were a chance to recuperate from our days of hiking and to get to know a town and some people from this old mining region in the state of Bahia. It’s one of my favorite places I’ve visited so far in Brazil.
From the first moment we arrived, Igatu had good vibes for me.
This little boy and I became fast friends when I noticed him throwing those tiny firecracker rocks and he noticed me sitting on a big rock watching. He started calling out, “Which color now?” I said a color and he picked out a firecracker of that color to throw. We repeated this dialogue for a few minutes, until he disappeared inside. He came out a few minutes later all squeaky clean after a bath, with his relatives in tow. When they saw me on the rock, they all came over and offered me a beer. The little one was even cuter up close, of course.
Carting firewood to build a bonfire that evening.
Bonfires lit up the streets that night. We came upon one outside every third or fourth house. Besides providing light, they kept us warm — Igatu is high up, and it was chilly!
Kids everywhere love fireworks. We heard bangs throughout the streets all night.
City folk from Salvador pour into Igatu this weekend to dance quadrilhas and celebrate the culture of the interior. São João is a countryside tradition. People dress up as country folk, using costumes reminiscent of Pippy Longstocking in a kind of country bumpkin caricature. (I’ll save the analysis for another post.) With all the plaid shirts, I felt like I was back at Oberlin.
The morning after, signs of the festivities linger — charred logs from bonfires, firecracker wrappers, beer bottles. The paper and fabric decorations stay up all weekend. It’s not long before townies and visitors start trickling out into the streets to begin the festivities again. During the day, people drink and eat. The evening begins with the children’s quadrilha and gets rowdier as the night goes on.
My mom has some aprons from Portugal like the ones the dolls are wearing.
A dream come true for American high schoolers - easy access to firecrackers and small fireworks. The downside? People really do get hurt. I bought a necklace from a woman whose daughter had fallen and hit her head while jumping around some fireworks the previous night. “The rocks are rough,” she said. Everyone (including locals) takes care while walking around on the cobblestone streets.
We checked out a beautiful church and graveyard, too.
The stone houses from the mining period reminded me of my grandfather’s village in Portugal. Makes sense.
Finally, the person I will never forget from Igatu. Amarildo runs a convenience shop out of the front room of his home. He has a couch in there, and the shutters are open for people to request through the window, as well. He sells candy, liquor, (about $1/dose - tamarind, ginger, licor de alguma coisa i.e. liquor of something, licor de qualquer coisa i.e. liquor of anything), and assorted goods like envelopes and individual band-aids.
Amarildo is also an unofficial town registrar and demographer. He makes books that list all the residents of the town (326), subdivided into categories such as marital status, number of children, natives and non-natives, people over 80 years old, etc. He also made a book of Attractions in Igatu and Surrounding Areas, as well as one that records the artists who have performed at Igatu’s Winter Music Festival. He plays an important role in the town, when the Brazilian census may not make its way out to Igatu very often — and the census doesn’t keep track of everything Amarildo does, anyway.
During São João, he was the talk of the town (or rather the tourists) because in addition to these books and his quirky merchandise, he has created a shrine to Xuxa, a Brazilian talk show host. He has posted pictures of her on his wall, created collages, and collected every magazine article he’s come across on her and preserved them in plastic folders. Several years ago, one musician passed through Igatu during the Winter Music Festival and saw the Xuxa collection. Later, she mentioned Amarildo to Xuxa when she was interviewed on Xuxa’s show. Xuxa thanked Amarildo and sent him a kiss. Amarildo made a certificate for himself with letters and words cut out from magazines that lists the date of the show and that Xuxa thanked him and gave him, “her #1 fan since 1995,” a kiss.
It was hard to tell what people in Igatu and Brazilian tourists think of Amarildo. Do they think he’s eccentric and special, or off his rocker and strange? I’d guess the former, because he’s a very nice, genuine man who seems to take his work seriously and has his head on straight.
When I took this picture with him, I gave him a friendly arm squeeze. Amarildo’s return was reserved - I imagine everyone expects him to be warm, but he must get a lot of visiting admirers. It’s hard to return a warm squeeze when you know this is just another person passing through.
