Alab á's Nag ô (Yoruba) community was one of the most important in early twentieth-century Rio de Janeiro. The mothers of Donga and Jo ão da Baiana -Tia Am élia and Tia Perciliana de Santo Amaro, respectively -were initiates of Jo ão Alab á's Afro-Brazilian religious (Candombl é) community. The first two were sons of immigrants from Bahia the last two were sons of cariocas. Among them were Donga (Ernesto dos Santos, 1889 –1974), Jo ão da Baiana (Jo ão Machado Guedes, 1887 –1974), Sinh ô (Jos é Barbosa de Silva, 1888 –1930), and Pixinguinha (Alfredo Viana Filho, 1897 –1973). Some of the principal figures of early carioca samba ( carioca refers to people or things from Rio de Janeiro) frequented the port scene. As Roberto Moura (1995) and others have shown, a number of those immigrants established themselves in the area surrounding Rio de Janeiro's ports, where they built community networks, developed economic support systems, and maintained traditional religious and cultural practices, including samba. They often mention black immigrants from Bahia, who migrated around the time of abolition, in 1888. The first references to samba in Rio de Janeiro appear at the end of the nineteenth century. Rec ôncavo samba relies heavily on small, rapid steps (the famous miudinho ), is accompanied by violas (guitarlike instruments with varying numbers of strings) and pandeiros (similar to tambourines), and includes a vocal passage known as chula. Late nineteenth-century references describe a samba quite similar to the one performed today in the Rec ôncavo (the hinterland beyond the bay around Salvador, Bahia). Other scholars also cite Amerindian origins.Ĭurrent knowledge of post-1860s samba is based primarily on research and sources from Bahia and Pernambuco, with Bahia having received the most attention from scholars. The most accepted version suggests that the word comes from the Quimbundo (Angola) word semba, which probably included the pelvic thrusts of umbigada. The word's roots are most likely Bantu, but more specific details are difficult to trace. The word samba began to appear regularly in newspapers and literature during the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1944 the author and musical scholar M ário de Andrade declared that lundu was the first Afro-Brazilian cultural form accepted in elite circles, even if ridicule often accompanied that acceptance. Lundus were also frequently described as including stringed instruments, and they served as inspiration for a genre of can çonetas, or ditties, sold as sheet music for piano and voice beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, Brazilian and Portuguese sources also used the word batuque to refer to celebrations and entertainment among slaves.ĭescriptions of batuques and lundus coincide on many points: dancers, singers, and observers are arranged in circles observers participate through palm clapping and singing refrains couples dance in the middle of a larger circle and there is a frequent use of umbigada, the movement through which dancers select partners by touching navels. Beginning at the end of the eighteenth century in Brazil and Portugal, the term lundu referred to a dance performed by free men and women of mixed racial background. In the seventeenth century, the Portuguese used the word calund ú to describe dances and ceremonies that preceded spirit possession and divination. The next known reference, found in 1844 in nearby Bahia, describes black slaves playing samba, but does not indicate whether those slaves were born in Africa or Brazil. That reference, found in Pernambuco in northeastern Brazil, does not mention peoples of African descent. The first known printed reference to samba music in Brazil dates to 1838.
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