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The Prehistory of Samba: Carnival Dancing in Rio de Janeiro, 1840–1917

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

John Charles Chasteen
John Charles Chasteen
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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Abstract

Rio's pre-Lenten carnival and its Afro-Brazilian dance, samba, have been symbols of Brazilian identity since the 1930s. This article explores the choreographical antecedents of samba, before the crystallisation of the modern dance genre with that name, highlighting the importance of earlier social dances in the evolution of the twentieth-century symbol. It traces the development of carnival dancing in Rio de Janeiro from the time when few danced, through the long reign of the polka, to the emergence of generalised carnival street dancing around 1889. A modified view of the roots of samba has interesting implications for on-going debates on the social meaning of Brazilian carnival.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , February 1996 , pp. 29 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

1 de Queiroz, Maria Isaura Pereira, Carnaval brasileiro. O vivido e o mito (São Paulo, 1992)Google Scholar; Linger, Daniel Touro, Dangerous Encounters: Meanings of Violence in a Brazilian City (Stanford, 1992)Google Scholar; Raphael, Alison, ‘Samba and Social Control: Popular Culture and Racial Democracy in Rio de Janeiro’, PhD dissertation, Columbia University, 1981Google Scholar; and Soihet, Rachel, ‘Resistência e circularidade cultural: O carnaval carioca e a relativização da dependência (1890–1945)’, in América: descoberta ou invenção (Rio de Janeiro, 1992)Google Scholar. Soihet's, arguments are well substantiated in her unpublished book manuscript, ‘Subversão pelo riso: reflexões sobre resistência e circularidade cultural no carnaval carioca (1890–1945)’ (Niterói, 1993)Google Scholar. The attitudes of carnival participants, visà-vis the reigning academic critique, were described to me by Luís Fernando Vieira of the Associação dos Escritores, Pesquizadores, e Divulgadores da Música Popular Brasileira.

2 The musical history of modern samba is traced by de Alencar, EdigarO carnaval carioca através da música (Rio de Janeiro, 1965)Google Scholar.

3 On the multiple superimposed rhythms (also called polymeter), see Vassberg, David E., ‘African Influences in the Music of Brazil’, Luso-Brazilian Review, vol. 13, no. 1 (1976), pp. 37–8Google Scholar.

4 This view, very widely held among Brazilians, receives some substantiation from Matta, Roberto da, Carnavais, malandros, e heróis (Rio de Janeiro, 1979), p. 14Google Scholar, who seeks in carnival the key to ‘what makes brazil, Brazil’ [sic].

5 Tupi, Dulce, Carnivals de guerra: O nationalismo no samba (Rio de Janeiro, 1985), pp. 96–11;Google Scholar.

6 In addition to Pereira de Queiroz and Raphael, already cited, see Rodrigues, Ana Maria, Samba negro, espoliação branca (São Paulo, 1984)Google Scholar.

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8 Parker, Richard G., ‘Myths of Origin’, in his Bodies, Pleasures, and Passions: Sexual Culture in Contemporary Brazil (Boston, 1991), pp. 7–29Google Scholar.

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10 Sachs, Curt, World History in Dance (London, 1933), pp. 344–90Google Scholar.

11 Both are cited in Assunçao, Orígenes de los bailes tradicionales, pp. 87–91.

12 Tinhorão, José Ramos, Música popular de índios, negros, e mestiços (Petrópolis, 1972), pp. 117–58Google Scholar.

13 Tinhorão, Música popular, pp. 124–8.

14 Travellers' descriptions are collected in Hazard-Gordon, Katrina, Jookin: The Rise of Social Dance Formations in African-American Culture (Philadelphia, 1990)Google Scholar; Kinser, Samuel, Carnival, American Style: Mardi Gras at New Orleans and Mobile (Chicago, 1990)Google Scholar.

15 The first traveller cited is D. Francisco Manuel de Melo, who visited Brazil in 1655–8, and the second is Pereira, Nuno Marques, author of Compêndio narrativo de Peregrino da América (1608)Google Scholar, both quoted in Tinhorão, , A música popular no romance brasileiro (Belo Horizonte, 1992), pp. 15–18Google Scholar.

16 Tinhorão, Música popular, p. 53; and Cahero, José Antonio Robles, ‘Nadie se engaña si con fe baila, Entre lo santo y lo pecaminoso en el Baile de San Gonzalo, 1816’, in De la santidad a la perversión: O de por qué no se cumplia la ley de Dios en la sociedad novohispana (Mexico, 1985), pp. 93–128Google Scholar.

17 Kiefer, Bruno, A modinha e o lundu: duas raizes da música popular brasileira (Porto Alegre, 1977), pp. 33–4Google Scholar. For melodies and lyrics collected from oral tradition, see Pedreira, Esther, Lundus e modinhas antigas: Século XIX (Rio de Janeiro, 1981)Google Scholar.

18 On the travellers (Lindley and Tolenare) see Kiefer, A modinha e o lundu, pp. 34–5; and Tinhorão, Música popular, p. 147. On Bonifácio, José and Pedro, prince, see Macauley, Neill, Dom Pedro: The Struggle for Liberty in Brazil and Portugal, 1798–1834 (Durham, 1986), esp. p. 112Google Scholar.

19 de Janeiro, Diário do Rio, ‘Repartição da Policia’, 7–9 02 1842Google Scholar; ‘Rio de Janeiro’, jornal do comércio, 9 Feb. 1853. See also Pereira de Queiroz, Carnaval brasileiro, pp. 49–51; and for an anthropological discussion of entrudo's relationship to modern carnival, Linger, Dangerous Encounters, passim.

20 ‘Noticiário’, Diário do Rio de Janeiro, 5–6 Mar. 1862.

21 ‘Teatro Lyrico’, Jornal do comércio, 7 Feb. 1864.

22 Efegê, Jota (João Ferreira Gomes), A dança excomungada (Rio de Janeiro, 1974), p. 43Google Scholar.

23 On the Cidade Nova, see Moura, Tia Ciata e a pequena Africa no Rio de Janeiro, pp. 34–49; and Jota Efegê, A dança excomungada, pp. 103–28.

24 Jota Efegê, A dança excomungada, pp. 52–60.

25 Ibid., pp. 104–6.

26 For a judicious introduction to the large literature on tango, see Natale, Oscar, Buenos Aires, negros, y tango (Buenos Aires, 1984), esp. pp. 185–206Google Scholar; quotation: Jota Efegê, A dança excomungada, pp. 80–1.

27 Moura, A tia Ciata, pp. 27–9.

28 O Paiz: ‘O Carnaval’, 8 Mar. 1886 and 13–14 Feb. 1888; ‘Mascaras avulsos’, 5–6 Mar. 1889 and 17 Feb. 1890. Also ‘Os Cucumbys’, Gazeta de Notícias, 13 Feb. 1888.

29 Morais, Eneida, História do carnaval carioca, 2nd ed. (Rio de Janeiro, 1987), pp. 39–43Google Scholar. The Zé Pereiras were clearly on the scene already in the 1870s: Gardel, Luis D., Escolas de Samba: An Affectionate Account oj the Carnival Guilds of Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro, 1967)Google Scholar.

30 O Paiz: ‘Os grupos’, 18 Feb. 1896, and ‘As passeatas’, 23 Feb. 1898.

31 ‘Os grupos’, O Paiz, 26 Feb. 1895; and especially Jornal do Brasil: ‘Grupos carnavalescos’, 19 Feb. 1901, and passim.

32 de Notícias, Gazeta: ‘Carnaval’, 11 02 1902Google Scholar, and ‘Nas ruas’, 5 Mar. 1905. Also ‘Grupos carnavalescos’, Jornal do Brasil, 24 Feb. 1903.

33 ‘Carnaval’, Gazeta de Notícias, 11 Feb. 1902.

34 Gazeta de Notícias: ‘Scenas da vida carioca no carnaval’, 23 February 1903; ‘Un cordão carnavalesco na atualidade’, 6 Mar. 1905.

35 Gazeta de Notícias: for example ‘Carnaval de 1906’, 14 April and 16 Feb. 1906.

36 Gazeta de Notícias: ‘A arte nos cordões: a poesia’, 20 Feb. 1906; ‘O carnaval fluminense: Nas priscas eras antes de 1840’, 6 Mar. 1905. See also, ‘Crônica do carnaval’, O País, 25 Feb. 1906.

37 ‘Filhos da noite’, Gazeta de Notícias, 16 Feb. 1906; ‘Os grupos’, O País, 11 Feb. 1902.

38 ‘Carnaval’, Jornal do Brasil, 9 Feb. 1920.

39 ‘Echos do carnaval’, O País, 17 Feb. 1915.

40 ‘Ideas de carnaval’, O País, 3 Feb. 1913.

41 Vianna, Hermano Paes Júnior, ‘A descoberta do samba: música popular e identidade nacional’, PhD diss., Museu Nacional da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, 1994, pp. 24–49 and 215Google Scholar.

42 For example, de Queiroz, Maria Isaura Pereira, ‘Escolas de samba do Rio de Janeiro, ou a domesticação da massa urbana’, Ciência e cultura, vol. 36 (1984), pp. 893–909Google Scholar, and Raphael, Alison, ‘Samba Schools in Brazil’, International Journal of Oral History, vol. 10, no. 3 (1989), pp. 256–67Google Scholar. Queiroz has muted, but not substantially revised, this point in her more recent Carnaval brasileiro (1992).

43 Tupi, Carnavais de guerra, p. 96.

44 See Rodrigues, Samba negro, espoliação branca, passim.

45 Hanchard, Michael George, Orpheus and Power: The Movimento Negro of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, 1945–1988 (Princeton, 1994), p. 21Google Scholar.

46 Queiroz, Carnaval brasileiro, pp. 71–116.

47 Soihet, ‘Subersão pelo riso’, p. 1.

48 Soihet demonstrates that the carnivalesque ethos of ‘anything goes’ did, nevertheless, offer some opportunities for women, especially middle-class women, to escape and redefine social norms: ‘Subversão pelo riso’, pp. 171–98.