Imagine a country that enslaved black Africans until the penultimate decade of the 19th century. These people were exploited as a captive workforce, for example, working on sugar cane and coffee plantations. In addition to the material wealth created by blacks and appropriated by whites, the diaspora of enslaved Africans bequeathed to this country an immense cultural fortune, always revered in cuisine, language, music, enchantment of the world or sacredness.
The description could be of Brazil, but it is of a mirror of us reflected in the Caribbean Sea: Cuba. It comes from that island, a little larger in area than the State of Santa Catarina, the plot Lonã Ifá Lukumicreated by Grêmio Recreativo Escola de Samba Paraíso de Tuiuti.
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The lyrics of the samba that will be performed by Pixulé, stage name of Roosevelt Martins Gomes da Cunha, were commissioned by the association from history professor and composer Luiz Antonio Simas, in partnership with Claudio Russo and Gustavo Clarão – who have already made other sambas on demand for Tuiuti parades.
“I joined the partnership because the plot interested me”, says Simas in an interview with Brazil Agency. “I was very motivated by the plot about Afro-Caribbean religiosity and the relationships it has with Brazil.”
Understand the plot Lonã Ifá Lukumi requires analyzing the three words that make up this title. Loña concerns connections, paths or communication between humans and deities; Lukumi (or Lucumí, in Portuguese) refers to the Yoruba descendants enslaved in Cuba; “Ifá”, teaches master Nei Lopes, is “a form of religiosity” that “unites spirituality and rationality, philosophy and technicality; which bases and justifies countless ritual practices.”
Singer, composer, researcher and writer Nei Lopes is the author of the book Ifá Lucumí: the rescue of tradition (Pallas Editora). The publication “originated the plot”, as said by Paraíso de Tuiuti carnival worker, Jack Vasconcelos, in an audio shared by the group to the press.
Historian Luiz Antonio Simas is one of the authors of the samba-plot of Paraíso do Tuiuti Victor Vasconcelos/Disclosure
From the book to the avenue
According to Vasconcelos, the parade will take place on the avenue with “six sectors”, with sections of passersby and floats. The first will show the arrival of Ifá on Earth and the passing of knowledge to the first babalaôs (priests). Then, the school will tell how Ifá reaches other civilizations, in addition to the Yoruba in African territory.
Next, the parade will deal with the African diaspora caused by the slave trade, and how resistance to the exploitation of slave labor occurred in Cuba. One episode portrayed will be the revolt of slaves in sugar cane mills in the province of Matanzas in 1843 (Matanzas Revolt), led by a woman called Carlota Lacumí, a descendant of Yoruba people who brought the religiosity of Ifá to the Americas.
The fourth sector of the Tuiuti parade will deal with Adeshina Remigio Herrera, the first Ifá babalaô (priest) in Cuba, also from the province of Matanzas, which is close to the western tip of Cuba.
In this “new world”, the spirituality of the orixás will interact with the ancestry of the original peoples. “It’s a great meeting” from which “Ifá Lucumí will flourish”, says the carnival worker.
In the next part of the presentation, the school will present elements that make up religious worship, such as settlement sites, sacred rituals (ebós), food and offerings. “It’s very similar to Candomblé”, compares Jack Vasconcelos.
Babalaô murdered
The Paraíso de Tuiuti parade will end with the arrival of Ifá Lucumí in Brazil, which took place in the early 1990s, with the arrival in Rio de Janeiro of the Cuban babalaô Rafael Zamora Díaz (1959 – 2011), Awó de Orumilá Ogunda Keté (religious name). The babalaô who settled in Rio was shot dead when he arrived home in Cosme Velho, south of Rio.
Paraíso de Tuiuti was founded in 1952 by samba artists remaining from the extinct samba schools Unidos do Tuiuti and Paraíso das Baianas, and Bloco dos Brotinhos – all groups from the Morro do Tuiuti community, in the São Cristóvão neighborhood, in the north of Rio de Janeiro.
Paraíso de Tuiuti’s best result was runner-up in the Special Group, in 2018, with the plot My God, My God, Is Slavery Extinct?. Since 2017, the blue and yellow samba school has competed uninterruptedly among the elite of Rio’s carnival.
Discover the plots and order of parades of the Rio de Janeiro Special Group
1st day – Sunday (15/2)
- Academics from Niterói – From Alto do Mulungu Hope Arises: Lula, the Worker of Brazil;
- Empress Leopoldinense – Chameleon-like;
- Portela – The Mystery of the Prince of Bará;
- Mangueira First Station – Mestre Sacacá do Encanto Tucuju – the Guardian of the Black Amazon
2nd day – Monday (16/2)
- Independent Youth of Father Miguel – Rita Lee, the Patron Saint of Freedom;
- Hummingbird of Nilópolis – Bembé do Mercado;
- Unidos do Viradouro – Up, Ciça;
- Unidos da Tijuca – Carolina Maria de Jesus.
3rd day – Tuesday (17/2)
- Tuiuti Paradise – Lonã Ifá Lukumi;
- Unidos de Vila Isabel – Macumbembê, Samborembá: I dreamed that a Sambista dreamed of Africa;
- Grande Rio Academics – The Mangrove Nation;
- Salgueiro Academics – The delirious carnival journey of the teacher who was not afraid of witches, cod or the wooden-legged pirate.
