Since the initial establishment of the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary in Brazil as a means of unifying and recreating ethnic identities and communities in the African diaspora, throughout three centuries of social, political and ecclesiastical transitions, the brotherhoods of Minas Gerais have undertaken a turbulent metamorphosis, and while ritualism and tradition are maintained at the core of these organisations, it is their plasticity in the face of ubiquitous change that best characterises their odyssey into the modern age. In her book: ‘Blacks of the Rosary, Memory and History in Minas Gerais, Brazil.’ Elizabeth Kiddy masterfully chronicles this journey, intermingling archival documentation that provides an insight into the ethnic and hierarchical composition of the brotherhoods, with extracts and interviews of prominent members, that shed light on their cultural significance in today’s Brazil. Kiddy examines and challenges some of the assumptions and preconceptions assigned to the brotherhoods and delivers a finely nuanced overview of both their temporal and spatial existence. Moreover, Kiddy asserts that the survival of these lay organisations is an attestation to their resilience in navigating a continuous interplay of legislative and authoritative obstacles, transforming and rebranding their external relationship with Church and state officials, while cultivating their link to a collective memory and ‘cosmology’[1]. Finally, the author identifies the transience of the brotherhoods and the congadeiros through an evaluation of devotion and its manifestation in these communities, skilfully connecting Afro-Brazilians in colonial Minas Gerais to their urban descendants.
To identify a singular argument or conclusion from Kiddy’s work is no easily accomplished feat. Within this book is found an extremely broad spectrum of anthropological and sociological components, divided chronologically and geographically in three parts: the antecedents of the mineiro both in Europe and in Africa, the timeline of the brotherhoods in Minas Gerais, from the arrival of the first Europeans and Africans until the end of slavery in 1888, and later the ongoing methods of the congadeiros and the brotherhoods in the twentieth century. These contribute to an incredibly rounded and thorough analysis of the history of not only the brotherhoods of Minas Gerais, but equally the origins of the Rosary, the formation of European lay organisations and even the trajectory of the early colonial period. However, the ideas introduced in the introduction of this review; the nuanced position of the brotherhoods in previously simplified ideas of resistance and accommodation, the survival of these organisations, and the central theme of devotion, will be considered the main theses embodied in the text. Kiddy examines all these factors and bases her theses on three pillars of research; archival documents from Minas Gerais that highlight the changes in demography and infrastructure, anecdotal and qualitative examples from current devotees of the brotherhoods, and two case studies of modern brotherhoods in Oliveira and Jatobá.
To elaborate on the first of these central focal points, the author identifies some of the misconceptions or contradictions often found in more ‘traditional’ scholarship, namely the long-held belief that the brotherhoods were ‘slave organisations’ despite most of their membership being free men and women, brought together by affective ties rather than shared legal status.[2] Furthermore, Kiddy also highlights the limitations of the resistance/accommodation model that is often attributed to these communities, exposing some of the ways in which these organisations were, and continue to be synonymous with both assimilation and defiance. For example, from the flat-out refusal to pay certain taxes to the state and expression of defiant autonomy in the writing of their compromissos during the late colonial period, to the resistance of Pombaline and later Ultramontane reforms that attempted to centralise ecclesiastic control, and finally the creation of the Associação dos Congadeiros de Minas Gerais in the twentieth century that gave the congadeiros a somewhat representative political platform. [3] [4] In doing so, Kiddy exposes the many avenues that exemplify the obstreperousness of these communities and the shortcomings of the resistance/accommodation model as an insufficient absolutist perspective.
Another common generalisation found in not only some scholarship, but also wider collective memory and occidental thought, is that the transatlantic slave trade utterly and unmitigatedly erased any trace of African culture remaining in its victims, and while the barbarity of the middle passage did diminish familial and geographic ties to the culture of the African, it would be irresponsible to assume that they retained no collective link to their ancestral homeland or culture. Kiddy defends this retention of collective memory well, challenging the eurocentric lens through which social categorisation is often viewed, and champions the brotherhoods as a vehicle for the reorganisation of disparate groups and the laying of foundations for new cultural and ethnic identities built on the commonalities of ancestry, regardless of how contradictory it may appear to western historical discourse.[5] Kiddy’s identification and contradiction of these preconceived notions are a consistent and intrinsic element of her research that are developed throughout this text.
Additionally, an element that underpins the whole book is the pervasive question of how these organisations have managed to survive through so much adversity and change, a question that Kiddy answers definitively throughout. The way this survival is presented is through an examination of the challenges faced by the brotherhoods and their responses to said challenges. These obstacles ranged from economic, such as the general decline in the economy of the captaincy that affected membership numbers in the latter half of the eighteenth century, legislative, for example reforms that favoured centralisation of either the state or the Vatican, or even social and political, as seen in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in which is evident a departure from these types of organisations in favour of secularisation and republicanism. Kiddy posits that the successes of the brotherhoods lie in various factors: the aforementioned manifestations of resistance carried out by the brotherhoods over time both by individual parishes’ efforts to secure a future, and by structural and demographic diversity that has syncretically intertwined the brotherhoods with the cultural values of Brazil. Overall, it is the heterogeneity and flexibility found in the organisations (that is not to say there were no limitations on this, and hierarchies were often established along lines of colour in their membership) that have allowed them to endure governmental upheaval, religious reformation and social transition.
Throughout the text, Kiddy draws on the integral theme of devotion to focalise the arguments surrounding the brotherhoods’ longevity and socio-cultural importance. The significance of this devotion is a concept that is specifically and consistently evidenced throughout the book. Kiddy charts the development of manifestations of said devotion on several occasions, contextualising each in wider frameworks of religious expression, both African and European. Kiddy demonstrates how devotion to Our Lady and the annual festival were the ‘two pillars on which the concept of being black in the brotherhoods was erected’ and highlights the significance of each of these declarations of faith.[6] The first of these pillars then, is exemplified in the adoption of Our Lady by Afro-Brazilian communities as a patron saint of the black population, be it through the legend of Our Lady appearing on the water and only complying to the entire spectrum of black peoples together (a story that is told various times throughout), to the belief that true rosary beads can only be made from the plant As lágrimas da nossa senhora and its origins, Kiddy demonstrates the ways in which this European figure has been instrumental in reconstructing ethnic communities.[7] Furthermore, the exposition of the congado as an intrinsic component of these brotherhoods’ structure underlies much of Kiddy’s work, particularly in the third section, in chapter seven: Voices of the Congadeiros wherein first-hand accounts of prominent members and other congadeiros are recounted.[8] Many of these accounts hinge upon the significance of the festival and the great supplications granted to the most devoted members of health, prosperity and peace.[9]Finally, these stories exhibit the sustained ritualism of the communities and a belief in ‘magic’, evident in the reverence shown to the staff of the congado royalty10that alludes to the overlap of the brotherhoods’ connections to both African and European religious tradition.[10] Overall, Kiddy ties together these two concepts and posits that they are the instruments and cultural materials with which these communities have sought to ensure their survival as a community, maintain their devotions and the link to their ancestors as well as foster a pride in their African roots.
In conclusion, in producing this text, Kiddy has cogently delivered not only an incredible chronology of a multifaceted and diverse community, but equally represented the brotherhoods’ ambitions, motivations and self-perception over the course of three centuries, in what is a thought-provoking challenge to some of the misconceptions of this branch of society and the wider African diaspora. Through her study of these transient and fluid organisations, Kiddy has demonstrated the power of the members of these brotherhoods, while exposing the limitations of eurocentric interpretations of religious and cultural separation, and proposing that religion, or rather, cosmology, for these people was not only an aspect of their life and shared culture, but a continuous connection to shared social memory, ancestry and ethnic identity. A connection that has sustained their self-preservation regardless of the countless challenges they have faced.
Ross Hardy graduated with a BA in Hispanic Studies from the University of Nottingham in 2021 (this review was written during his studies).
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