Blacks of the Rosary: Memory and History in Minas Gerais, BrazilBlacks of the Rosary tells the story of the Afro-Brazilian communities that developed within lay religious brotherhoods dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary in Minas Gerais. It shows how these brotherhoods functioned as a social space in which Africans and their descendants could rebuild a communal identity based on a shared history of an African past and an ongoing devotional practice, thereby giving rise to enduring transnational cultures that have survived to the present day. In exploring this intersection of community, identity, and memory, the book probes the Portuguese and African contributions to the brotherhoods in Part One. Part Two traces the changes and continuities within the organizations from the early eighteenth century to the end of the Brazilian Empire, and the book concludes in Part Three with discussion of the twentieth-century brotherhoods and narratives of the participants in brotherhood festivals in the 1990s. In a larger sense, the book serves as a case study through which readers can examine the strategies that Afro-Brazilians used to create viable communities in order to confront the asymmetry of power inherent in the slave societies of the Americas and their economic and social marginalization in the twentieth century. |
From inside the book
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... active and collective engagement with, rather than flight from, the power-infused cultural programs of state elites.”8 Likewise, Africans and their descendents in Minas Gerais actively participated in organizations that simultaneously ...
... active one. People do not simply have memories; they actively remember through ritual and storytelling.20 Remembering, then, is a practice, and it is both similar to and linked to the act of believing. Marilyn Motz points out that “a ...
... active avenues of communication with the spirit world and the world of the dead, which resonated not only with early modern Europeans but also with Africans who were exposed to Christianity. In Europe, rosary prayer beads and the ...
... active, celebratory functions were as important as private contemplation. In fact, these voluntary associations of lay brothers and sisters were not a private place of a personal relationship with God, but rather public spaces in which ...
... active in the everyday lives of the people, and the people sought to keep in their favor by erecting altars and engaging in rituals in their honor.19 Ancestors, an important part of the kinship complex, were also revered and honored ...
Contents
1 | |
15 | |
39 | |
3 Early Formation of the Brotherhoods 16901750 | 67 |
4 The Late Colonial Period 17501822 | 103 |
5 The Brotherhoods in the Brazilian Empire | 139 |
6 Congados and Reinados 18881990 | 173 |
7 Voices of the Congadeiros | 207 |
Conclusion | 241 |
Appendix | 251 |
Glossary | 259 |
Bibliography | 263 |
Index | 281 |
Back Cover | 288 |
Other editions - View all
Blacks of the Rosary: Memory and History in Minas Gerais, Brazil Elizabeth W. Kiddy Limited preview - 2005 |
Blacks of the Rosary: Memory and History in Minas Gerais, Brazil Elizabeth W. Kiddy Limited preview - 2007 |
Blacks of the Rosary: Memory and History in Minas Gerais, Brazil Elizabeth W. Kiddy No preview available - 2007 |