Here is the most exotic an as yet undiscovered figure of the wonderful armorial world, who walks the steep streets of Olinda and the hills and suburbs of Recife with its colours, its rattles and its ribbons floating in the wind, recalling plantations and Carnivals. (BONALD NETO, 1991, p. 289).
‘Caboclo de lança’ (literally translated as ‘Hillbilly with Spear’) is a character from rural Maracatu (a traditional style of music and dance associated with the Pernambuco Carnival) or from ‘Baque Solto’ – which is also known as ‘Maracatu de Orquestra’ or Orchestral Maracatu. The origins of this maracatu are still not completely known. Some researchers are unanimous in saying it derives from a mixture of Afro-Indigenous cultures. Others believe it is a result of popular manifestations – cambinadas, bumba-meu-boi, cavalo-marinho, coroação dos reis negros, caboclinhos, folia de Reis – that existed in the interior of Pernambuco. It is made up of “dirty” people – Mateus (Matthew), Catirina (Catherine), burrinha (little donkey), ‘babau’, caçador (hunter), a ‘baianal’ (woman from Bahia), damas de buquê (flower girls), dama do paço (ladies of the court), ‘calungas’, ‘caboclos de penas’ and ‘caboclos de lança’, and an orchestra (box drum, bass drum, gong, a type of friction drum called ‘cuíca’, trombone and piston – a type of oboe).
Until the 1920s, ‘caboclos de lança’, mostly made up of sugarcane labourers, never really caught the attention or fascination of people as they lived and paraded in the countryside towns of Pernambuco. In the 1930s, a time of decline for sugarcane plantations, the growth of the industry and modernisation of the economy, resulting from the Revolution of 1930, accentuated the displacement of country people to the cities and the coast. With those people came the rich traditions of the sugarcane regions to Recife, including, and especially at Carnival, rural maracatu and its characters.
The ritual that precedes the ‘caboclo de lança’ presentation, in the interior and the city, involves ceremonies that take place in small pieces of land, such as the blessing of the spears and the flower that is carried in the mouth, a consecration of Calunga (a doll that represents the divine, carried by the woman from Bahia), and the sexual abstinence of the men, which begins a few days before Carnival. Bonald Neto (1991, p. 284) recorded information obtained in an interview by Evandro Rabello with the ‘caboclo de lança’, Severino Ramos da Silva, of Goiana, who explained:
[...] the ‘caboclos’ [members of the group] leave protected as much by the “guiada” [the long wooden spear] [...] as by their spiritual support [...]. It is the purification ritual [...] that gives strength to the ‘caboclo’ willing to take part in a Carnival. [...]
So, before going out on the Friday, the Caboclo’s abstinence begins, until Ash Wednesday, no more looking for women, nor having a bath or shower “to not open the body”, making him sleep unclean as if he came from the street. At the time that they will go out on the first day, everyone goes to the “table”.
The Master makes a potion which is drunk with a flower in the glass and three drops of wax from a candle that has been blessed by a priest. Then the Master authorises the caboclo to leave. Many go out with a white carnation or rose in their mouth or hat for ‘defence’, to close their body [...].
[...] the “street” is always the dangerous exterior and full of hidden dangers. Whoever walks in the “middle of the road” needs to be “prepared” and protected from all evil. That is why the ‘caboclos’ drink “azougue” [a violent cocktail of gunpowder, olive oil and brandy], prepared by the Master. [...]
At the return, on Wednesday, they go straight to Church to receive the Ashes and “farewell” anything wrong done in Carnival.
The clothes of ‘caboclo de lança’ stand out. They are made up of:
• Hat – in the olden days, ‘caboclos’ used to wear a ‘funnel’ of decorated cardboard. Nowadays, they wear a straw hat decorated with multi-colour strips of cellophane, though the colour of the spiritual “guide” predominates (yellow: Oxum; blue: Iansã; red: Xangô)
• Handkerchief – coloured, tied around the head and sewn into the straw hat;
• Face – painted with red paint, generally annatto.
• Collar – there are records that show, in the 1920s, collars were a minor part of the costume, short, decorated with painted sand, pieces of glass and, because of this, were very heavy. In the 1960s, with the arrival of much lighter and cheaper sequins, collars began to cover the chest, the shoulder and the back and reached down to the buttocks, above the “surrão” (see below). Made of cotton or coloured velvet, chita (a traditional Brazilian flowered cheap fabric) and embroidered with sequins; on its edge is a woollen fringe. The collar is the highlight of the costume. Also, its manufacture is almost always done by the men of the group, though nowadays, there are women working on the collar. This is the case of Lúcia da Silva, wife of the ‘caboclo’ Zé do Carro, From Maracatu Cambinda Brasileira, who took a stand and imposed her work;
• Shirt – long-sleeved, with vivid colours;
• Ceroulão (underpants) – chintz trousers;
• ‘Fofa’ – loose trousers with fringes, worn over the underpants; according to Bonald Neto (1991, p. 288), ‘fofa’ was the name of the socks: “[...] calico trousers, with elastic in the legs, making leggings that are tucked into striped socks, called ‘fofa’, a type of above-the-knee sock worn by a goalkeeper [...];
• Above-the-knee socks – worn to protect the knees from grazing when performing “falls”, kneeling or lying down;
• Surrão – “a rigging of rattles, generally wooden and covered with lambskin, tightly secured by leather loops around the shoulders and waist” that weighs up to 15kg. Nowadays, the rigging is covered with a brightly-coloured wool and has a pocked lined with synthetic shag, to replicate lamb’s leather; it is kept at buttock-level, with no specific, but always an odd, number of rattles, so as not to bring bad luck;
• Shoes – white comfortable sneakers to handle to walking during three days of Carnival;
• Spear – the “guiada” is two metres long, made from wood cut by either Imiriba or Quiri people, heated and buried in mud for four to five days to harden, then its bark is stripped and a four-cornered point is sharpened, before it is decorated with dozens of metres of coloured ribbons, each about 60 centimetres long. They are then taken to a group’s plot of land to be made ‘street-ready’ (consecrated, baptised with prayers and smoke); Dark glasses and a white carnation in the mouth.
One of the outstanding features of caboclos de lança when they present is the dance: the choreography has a frenetic ritual; they run from one side to the other, work their spears and execute manoeuvres called ‘falls’.
They started curving their bodies to the ground, lifting themselves and jumping as high as possible (GUERRA PEIXE apud SOUTO MAIOR, 1991, p. 286).
The spear, held in both hands, thrust upwards, downwards and to the sides, making the crowds back off, while the caboclo came running, jumping and dancing... the mane of strips of cellophane or multi-coloured crepe paper lifting and falling (REAL apud SOUTO MAIOR, 1991, p. 286).
Symbols of the Pernambuco Carnival, caboclos de lança can be seen during the Carnival period in these towns: Igarassu, Nazaré da Mata, Buenos Aires, Tracunhaém, Carpina, Chã de Alegria, Lagoa de Itaenga, Feira Nova, Araçoiaba, Paudalho, Camaragibe and São Lourenço da Mata.
Of these places, Nazaré da Mata, seventy-five kilometres from Recife, is where around twenty rural maracatu groups are concentrated. Among them, the oldest is Cambinda Brasileira, founded in 1918 at the Cumbe Plantation. Leão Formoso (Handsome Lion) is the second oldest (1980). In the 1990s, the groups Águia Misteriosa (Mysterious Eagle), Leão Misterioso (Mysterious Lion), Leão de Ouro (Golden Lion), Cambinda Nova (New Cambinda), Leão da Selva (Jungle Lion) and Leão Africano (African Lion) were formed. In 2009, from the town of Coração Nazareno came the country’s first rural maracatu group made up only of women.
Nazaré is considered to be the City of Maracatus and, for this, the State government invested in the construction of a thematic display, christened at the Parque dos Lanceiros (Lancer Park), situated near the town’s entrance. It is made up of concrete sculptures by the Recife sculptor Cavani Rosas, with heights of 3 metres that show caboclos de lança in classic positions of their performances.
Recife, 27 February 2009.
(Updated on 14 September 2009).
Translated by Peter Leamy, January 2011.
sources consulted
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how to quote this text
Source: BARBOSA, Virgínia. Caboclo de Lança. Pesquisa Escolar Online, Joaquim Nabuco Foundation, Recife. Available at: <http://basilio.fundaj.gov.br/pesquisaescolar>. Accessed: day month year. Exemple: 6 Aug. 2009.