Abstract
Working closely with one musical and spiritual community—Maracatu Nação Leão Coroado—this thesis explores the musical practice of maracatu de nação in relation to the Afro-Brazilian cosmology of Candomblé in Pernambuco, northeastern Brazil. Maracatu de nação was named national cultural patrimony of Brazil in December 2014, signalling a remarkable transformation from once-persecuted cultural practice to celebrated symbol of national and regional identity. As the oldest continuously active maracatu group in the world—founded in 1863—Leão Coroado’s cultural journey offers unique ways into thinking about the dynamics of knowledge, power, race, religion, historiography, musicality and the sacred in postcolonial and post-slavery Brazil.Chapter 1 introduces the reader to some key figures in Leão Coroado's history, and opens out the debates around their cultural status. Leão Coroado has been a gathering point for academics and folklorists, cultural activists and practitioners, who have all shaped the group's journey, and therein the larger story of maracatu de nação. This chapter considers the trajectory of this group in relation to shifting discourses of nationhood, citizenship, race, culture and the sacred in Brazil. Chapter 2 delves into the concept of ground in both maracatu and Candomblé. I explore the physical and metaphysical ground that this community is operating on and through, as well as the practice of offering natural substances to the ground in Candomblé ritual, and the particular notions of nature, divinity, reciprocity, ancestrality and life and death cycles which accompany this. Throughout this enquiry, counterhegemonic logics of ecology and history emerge as guiding forces in the lives of my interlocutors. Finally, Chapter 3 listens in to Leão Coroado’s rhythmic and aesthetic praxis. I propose that incisive historico-cultural critique is encoded in the group’s rhythmic performance and disclosed through a myriad of sung, rhythmic, melodic, embodied, spoken and unspoken methods. I trace the trajectory of Leão Coroado’s particular rhythm and consider how it has come to hold meaning for those who play, listen to, critique and identify with it.
Throughout this thesis I argue that sensory, affective and sacred knowledge systems—frequently marginalised by cultural and academic discourse—enable cultural communities to (re)inhabit their histories in powerful, diverse and non-linear ways. I contend that knowledge systems which cultivate reciprocal relations with ancestors and the natural, sacred world contain important responses to political oppression, historical rupture and ecological crisis. I also deploy fine-grained, reflexive and conversational ethnography to encourage a shift away from meta-analyses which would claim any overarching truths about maracatu or Candomblé. Instead, this thesis harnesses ethnographic approaches which disclose this community's intimate relationship to the emergence and circulation of particular cultural, spiritual, historical and musical truths. This offers insight into how cultural practitioners navigate irretrievably fractured histories and their contemporary repercussions.
| Date of Award | 1 Jul 2020 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Frederick Moehn (Supervisor), David Treece (Supervisor) & Martin Stokes (Supervisor) |