May-2015
Bumba meu boi – Saint John
Our friend and expert on the Bumba meu Boi game, Prof. Dr. Soraia Chung Saura, visited us here in Maranhão and she gifted us with beautiful descriptions of her visit:
“First admire, then you will understand.” Gaston Bachelard
The family is now wandering through Maranhão, arriving just before the June festivities. This time they settle in the city, the island of love, São Luís do Maranhão. After months and months living in tiny houses in rural communities, there is great excitement about their new home: it’s an apartment. Perfect for following the marathon of the June festivities. It’s a marathon because of the effort and commitment necessary to go where everyone is: the parties. And what parties! I tend to think that we from the southeast don’t know much about parties. Up here in the north, they take on unlimited, immeasurable proportions, with gigantic contingents of people.
Saint John receives the main honors in the weeks that precede and succeed his day, the 24th of July. It is for him that there are over 50 fairs spread throughout the capital, each one with countless performers. The Bumba-meu-boi groups come from everywhere. From the countryside to the city, they present themselves in all their splendor. The fun reaches its highest point.
Pois que prepararam, cada qual seu boi, cada qual em se
And so each one prepared this homage in secret, their own bull, their own song. Since Lent they embroider and rehearse an exquisite spectacle, new songs, with whim and delight, in order to please all the saints. The designs are wonderful and full of meaning, works of devotion, miniatures of the world, expressing the intimacy of things. They hold the grandeur of life through small and detailed designs, longstanding images, countless hours sewing bright and colorful beads onto black velvet in an endless composition. We saw the embroiderers putting on the final touches just before the presentations. “You can always have more embroidery, it never ends,” I heard from one of them. And so they express the world’s expanse.
On Saint John’s Day, each group baptizes their bull, making a commitment. The beast leaves its condition as a pagan animal to establish its sanctified nature, becoming the representative of people to saints and entities, and thus playing freely. They sing gorgeous tunes:
“Ó meu São João / Venha receber / Essa coisa linda / Que fizemos para você. / Com a sua luz divina / Ilumina o meu Batalhão / É humilde essa oferenda / Mas é de bom coração.”
“Oh Saint John / Come receive / This beautiful thing / That we made for you. / With your divine light / Enlighten our Battalion / Our offering is humble / But you have a good heart.”
The name of the new calf shines over the black velvet: “Saint John’s Spoils,” “Glow of the Night,” “God Knows,” “Conjurer,” “Lovely Beauty,” “Beautiful Night?” “God’s Help,” “Lovely Day,” “Light of the Farm,” “Saint John’s Power,” “Enchanted,” all show why they were brought to the world.
David has a funny way of mimicking his way among the people, turning his steady hand into an invisible gesture, focused on the colorful movement of the evening. Renata keeps one eye on the scene, another on the children, and her ears open to the revelers. They’re a couple full of listening, silences, and respect. Their sons shuffle their way into the games, their big smiles flashing between the streamers, feathers and lights. They learn to play, sing and dance with the other children. If we can say the festivities have a function in this world, the main one is to make us all perform, collectively, the mythical exercise of traveling through ancient universes, a question challenging the dormant humanity in us all: animal, beast, danger, life, death, the anguish of the implacable vanishing of time. It’s the joy and beauty of being alive in a magical world, year after year. There’s seduction, wonderment, rapture. With such a colorful and festive revelry, it’s hard not to become enchanted – those who watch and those who play, we must remember we’re all participants. Therefore, to be a child in the middle of such a colorful and noisy party, full of masks, sounds and colors, with a multicolored, sparkling, dancing Boi beast with real (and therefore threatening) horns, is an adventure through a world of mythology and enchantment.
Text: Soraia Chung Saura
Photos: Renata Meirelles
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