FALLS, CUSHIONS AND "GEOSIMBOLYSMS" IN THE AMERICAN VENICE: THE "CATIMBOLADOS" IN THE RECIFE(1937-1945)

Abstract

In the New State regime (1937-1945) in Brazil, black people has been exalted as national element. However, in the face of the Communist threat, the formation of "different" social groups in Brazil has not been accepted. In Pernambuco, the Interventor Agamenon Magalhães was incisive in the fight against the Afro-religious practices, and thus the xangôs of Catimbolândia, located in the environs of Recife, on the riverside of the Beberibe river, in the border with Olinda. During this period, the capital of Pernambuco was a disciplinary space, immersed in the urban reforms and in the re-education of citizens in front of the new, distancing itself from the colonial-African marks of past times. It has the desire of the materialization of the American Venice – white, healthy, catholic and modern. Despite the rigid structure of domination, the black people of the terreiros were not passive agents to the repression, they tried to assure their houses and customs making use of varied strategies of resistance, constructing their territorialities inside and outside the xangôs. The “catimbolados” created multiple disguises, hiding places, and geosymbolisms within the terreiros and public spaces of American Venice.