QUEENS AND BATUQUEIRAS: RACE, GENDER, AND KNOWLEDGE IN THE TRANSNATIONAL MIGRATIONS OF AFRO-BRAZILIAN MARACATU NAÇÃO AN ABSTRACT SUBMITTED ON THE NINETEENTH DAY OF APRIL 2021 TO THE DEPARTMENT OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE SCHOOL OF LIBERAL ARTS OF TULANE UNIVERSITY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY BY ___________________________ Amy Katherine Medvick APPROVED:________________________ Dr. Daniel B. Sharp, Ph.D., Director _______________________ Dr. Christopher J. Dunn, Ph.D. _______________________ Dr. Felipe Fernandes Cruz, Ph.D. This study examines maracatu nação, a working-class, Afro-Brazilian carnival pageant from the city of Recife in Pernambuco state, and its relationship to the transnational circuits of knowledge production created by elite artists and intellectuals interested in the practice. Maracatu nação features the procession of an African royal court dressed in elaborate and ostentatious European Baroque garb, with thunderous drumming, call-and- response songs of competitive bravado, and dance. Linked to the coronation festivities of Black Catholic Brotherhoods and the rites of Afro-Brazilian spirit-possession religion, and associated with black, working-class neighbourhoods in Recife, in recent decades maracatu nação has commanded increased attention from academics and artists, gaining popularity among the local lighter-skinned middle-classes, within other regions of Brazil, and in the Brazilian diaspora. However, though this attention has exploded since the 1990s, this dissertation demonstrates that the relational patterns that characterize this interest extend well into the early twentieth century. Combining archival, ethnographic, and close reading methodologies, this study uncovers the how the field activities, creative and intellectual output, interventions, and field relationships of local and foreign artist-folklorists established enduring representations of maracatu nação as well as the intellectual paradigms through which the practice is understood today. Engaging with transnational and relational theories of identity and culture, this study also examines how performers of maracatu nação navigate the landscape shaped by former generations of researchers, and how they situate their practice and themselves within historical narratives of local blackness. Performers of maracatu nação continue to grapple with two legacies left by former visitors: one, the practice of stylization of maracatu nação by elite artists, which contributed to the term maracatu estilizado (“stylized maracatu”) becoming a pejorative term used to place limits on innovation; and two, the threat of “going to the museum”—the cessation of a group’s activities and donation of their instruments and costumes to a local archive—perceived as a kind of death. These two intertwined discourses produce a tension between notions of tradition and innovation that are central to how performers of maracatu nação conceive of the conditions necessary for the practice’s survival. QUEENS AND BATUQUEIRAS: RACE, GENDER, AND KNOWLEDGE IN THE TRANSNATIONAL MIGRATIONS OF AFRO-BRAZILIAN MARACATU NAÇÃO A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED ON THE NINETEENTH DAY OF APRIL 2021 TO THE DEPARTMENT OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE SCHOOL OF LIBERAL ARTS OF TULANE UNIVERSITY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY BY ___________________________ Amy Katherine Medvick APPROVED:________________________ Dr. Daniel B. Sharp, Ph.D. Director _______________________ Dr. Christopher J. Dunn, Ph.D. _______________________ Dr. Felipe Fernandes Cruz, Ph.D. ©Copyright by Amy Katherine Medvick, 2021. All Rights Reserved. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation is a product of the shared insights and support of so many who have helped me along the way. I would first and foremost like to thank all the remarkable and thoughtful people who agreed to let me into their world and share their knowledge of maracatu nação with me: Fábio Sotero, Danilo Santos, Eliene da Silva, Mestre Walter, Toinho and Teté Silva, Mestre Arlindo, Karen Aguiar, Hugo de Oliveira, Fabio Aquino, Leandro Santana, Marcionilo Oliveira, Carine Sousa, Cristina Barbosa, Renato Lins, Helder Aragão de Melo, Bernardinho José da Silva Neto, Rubens Antunes, Raimundo Lázaro da Cruz, and José Amaro Santos da Silva. I hope I am able to do justice to your teachings. I would also like to thank Rodrigo Calabria, José Fernando Souza e Silva, and Angeles, for their assistance in connecting me to the right people at the right time, and your own insights into the world of maracatu nação. An extra special thanks to Carlos Sandroni for helping orient me in Recife and inviting me to share my research in your classroom. I would also very much like to thank Isabella at the Libraries of the Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Angelina Lima at the Laboratório da Historia Oral e Imagem at the Federal University of Pernambuco, and Suzianne França and Marília Bivar at the Museu do Homem do Nordeste, for their vital assistance in navigating those archives. The sources that I found with your help have enriched my research incalculably. ii I would like to thank the Stone Center for Latin American Studies, Tulane’s School of Liberal Arts Graduate Summer Merit program, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for the generous support and funding that made my research and graduate career possible. I would especially like to thank Jimmy Huck for all the guidance offered and innumerable questions answered. I would also like to thank my dissertation committee—Felipe Fernandes Cruz, Christopher J. Dunn, and Daniel B. Sharp—for their ongoing support and teaching through this process. A special thank you goes to Daniel Sharp for so many important conversations over my years at Tulane. Your endless encouragement, thoughtful criticisms, and enthusiasm for my project has sustained me through the inevitable monotony of research and writing. My gratitude also goes out to my fellow graduate students and other colleagues that have gone through this journey alongside me. An extra thanks goes to Jessica Glass—my dissertation is better for all the time we spent processing Brazil and our relationship to it together. I would like to thank Barbara Cavalcanti and Ivson Oliveira for your friendship and support during my time in Recife. Ivson, I am proud to say that some of my last days of pre-pandemic life were spent roaming the streets of Olinda and Recife with you. I would also like to thank Tallita for insisting that I come with you to Nazaré. That is still the farthest away I have ever been from home. Thank you to Goreth for your hospitality, and for saving me from the scorpion. I would also like to thank Aline Morales and the Brazilian music scene of Toronto, Canada, who first introduced me to maracatu nação and its incredible history. A debt of gratitude goes to Injimbere Baranyanka, Bemnet iii Tekleyohannes, Mirra Kardonne, and Tova Kardonne, for being my first teachers in thinking about race, gender, and social justice, and for the friendship and conversation that sparked the questions I am still trying to answer today. A huge thank you to my family and especially my parents, Sally McKay and Peter Medvick, for engendering a love of music and a sense of curiosity in me—the two most important ingredients. Finally, thank you to Ben Gieseler for getting me through this year. I could not have done this work without you. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS................................................................................................ ii 1.0 INTRODUCTION: NATIONALISM, REGIONALISM, MODERNISM, MARACATU............................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Historical and Contemporary Overview of Maracatu Nação..................... 3 1.2 Outline and Research Questions................................................................. 17 1.3 Methodology.................................................................................................. 22 1.4 Theoretical Framework................................................................................ 26 1.5 Historiography and Scholarly Contributions............................................. 38 1.6 Modernism, Nationalism, Regionalism, Maracatu.................................... 43 2.0 KINGS OF CONGO TO NAGÔ QUEENS: RACE, GENDER, AND RELIGIOSIDADE IN THE HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS OF MARACATU NAÇÃO ..................................................................................................................... 58 2.1 Kings of Congo............................................................................................. 60 2.2 Nagô Queens................................................................................................. 96 2.3 The Rise of the Maracatu Queen............................................................... 114 2.4 Religiosidade and Maracatu Nação: A Theater of the Colonial.............. 122 3.0 FOLKLORE’S ORCHESTRATIONS: AESTHETICS OF TRAGEDY IN THE FAILED “TRANSPOSITION” OF MARACATU NAÇÃO ................................ 131 3.1 The (Failed) Movement to Make Maracatu the “New Samba”: Maracatu- canção and the Federação Carnavalesca Pernambucana............................. 140 v 3.2 Banzo Songs: Maracatu and an Aesthetics of Tragedy in the Work of Ascenso Ferreira and Capiba.......................................................................... 155 3.3 “The Transposition of the Popular”: Ariano Suassuna as Bridge