Agudás from Benin

“Brazilian” Identity as a Bridge to Citizenship

Datos Bibliográficos

ID20071206
AutoresMilton Guran (autor de correspondencia)
Año2007
Páginas147-158
Fecha de publicación2007-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoCHAPTER
RevistaCultures of the Lusophone Black Atlantic (SOURCE_BOOK)
EditorialPalgrave Macmillan US (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1057/9780230606982_7
OpenAlexW2491882001
ISBN9780230606982
IdiomaPT
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas12

“Are you a Brazilian? So, you are not a foreigner in Benin: you are like a relative of Uidá!” I heard this everywhere I went in Benin. In this area of Western Africa, Portuguese was the trade language when the French colonial administration was established at the end of the nineteenth century. Even today Agudá people greet one another with a loud “como passou?” (How are you doing?). As in Bahia, Nossa Senhora do Bonfim is celebrated in January. In Porto Novo, one of the cities of Benin in which the presence of the “Brazilians” is most marked, the celebration begins with a true carnival procession in which everybody wears a special costume and two great Brazilian flags open the parade. People sing songs in a particular kind of Portuguese (also in Yoruba, Fon, or Gum1) reaffirming the Brazilian origins of this festival. The celebration of Bonfim is completed by the performance of bourian, a popular show that is simply an African version of the burrinha, an old festival that was very popular in late-nineteenth-century Bahia (in its original form it has now almost disappeared)

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Annals · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Citizenship · Colonialism · Ethnology · FLAGS register · Geography · Humanities · Identity (music) · Parade · Political science · Politics · Portuguese · Procession · Yoruba · African history and culture studies · African Studies and Ethnography · Agriculture and Rural Development Research · History · Law