The present state of research
in Brazil
Waldeloir Rego
It was on the Bahia coast that the Portuguese discoverers and colonizers
landed, and it was there, in 1549, that Brazil's first town was founded, later to
become the first capital and the centre of important events. So it was from
Bahia that the African slaves spread outward over the rest of Brazil. It should
be noted, however, that most of them stayed in Bahia, where one still meets
with survivals of Dahoman religious rites. Bahia is also the only place where
religious ritual is practised in the Fon language. One can still distinguish rituals
which originated in Mahis, Savalu, Abomey and many other places in Dahomey.
Traces of Nigerian ritual, in the Yoruba language, are even more marked.
Until recently a Nigerian teacher was giving lessons in the Yoruba language,
and innumerable foreign researchers (mostly African) come to Brazil, and to
Bahia more especially, to study the African diaspora.
Studies concerning black people are very inadequate in Brazil. Genuine
specialists are rare, though many people toy with the subject who are not really
interested, who have not the necessary training for scientific work, and who
really pursue other, sometimes commercial, ends. Some use the subject just
to lengthen their curriculum vitae or to obtain grants for travel abroad, using
studies about the black people as a pretext. Others again have purely political
aims.
The Brazilian Government gives some support, though it is still modest,
to studies on this subject, especially through the Cultural Department of the
Ministry for Foreign Relations. The Joaquim Nabuco Research Institute in
Pernambuco has long been interested in the question of the black people in
Brazil. In Bahia, where most of them are concentrated, a section of the Federal
University of Bahia, the Centro de Estudos Afro-Orientais (Centre of Afro-
Oriental Studies) enjoys limited support from the Ministry of Education and
Culture. But lack of resources has so far prevented it from achieving anything
of importance, apart from a course in the Kikongo language given by a teacher
from Zaire, N'Landu Ntotila. This is a high-level course, but it is in danger of
being dropped this year through lack of funds. As for the course in the Yoruba
language mentioned above, that has already been suspended despite the
interest it aroused among students and followers of the Yoruba religion.