Brazilian and African sources for the study
of cultural transferences from Brazil to Africa313tions were not being purchased. There was a certain introspection within the
centre and its research which tended to define Africa as being a coastal strip
between Ghana and the Cameroons, with heavy emphasis being given to the
cultural transferences between Benin, Nigeria and Bahia.^4 Researchers, par-
ticularly foreign researchers were guided into certain cultural areas and during
the early 1970s Ihe orientation of CEAO seemed to be linked to a series of
repetitive studies of candomblé cults and rites located in Salvador and its
environs.^6 Certain transformations occurred in the mid-1970s and the centre's
definition of Africa also changed as a new cultural axis was established between
CEAO and the Université Nationale du Zaïre, with an exchange of language
professors, Portuguese being taught in the African country, a Bantu language
in Bahia. The major influence within the Bahian African Studies Centre remains
ethno-cultural, with linguistics occupying a major portion of the research time
of the centre's members.^6
Researchers whose concerns are more directly related to themes within
Afro-Bahian, Afro-Brazilian history are to be directed to the Archive of the
State of Bahia and to the Municipal Archive in Salvador. Despite the tragic loss
for researchers in the burning of documents relative to Brazilian slavery
in 1890,^7 ample material relative to property exchanges, sale of slaves, Church
ownership and African commerce to Bahian ports can be obtained in the two
major public archives. Classification of documents, seemingly the bane of
researchers in any country, remains a problem in the Bahian archives, although
incomplete guides are available. Because of interest in the subject of Bahian
slave rebellions and revolts, particularly in the nineteenth century, a brief
collection of holdings of the State Archives is available to researchers, although
personal experience of the writer has attested to the limitations of that particu-
lar guide and the necessity of direct 'attack' upon the shelves of the archives
for unearthing potentially useful cartons of information. Another problem of
a logistical nature for the researcher in Salvador archives is the daily operating
schedule, 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays. Fortunately one other important source
of research material for Afro-Brazilian history has morning work hours—the
State Library—thus allowing for organization of a full workday.
The new State Library was completed in 1971, and at the time of utiliza-
tion by the writer, was still in a test phase, surely concluded with refinements
in the institution's workings and organization, five years later. The newspaper
holdings of the library are of interest as they date from the nineteenth cen-
tury, with also a rather complete collection of twentieth-century newspapers
from throughout the state of Bahia, particularly Itabuna and Ilhéus. An unex-
pected discovery while reading newpapers from Ilhéus for the 1930s was the
presence of an Afro-Brazilian organization in that city, ideologically linked to
the United Negro Improvement Association of Marcus Garvey and his ' Back-
to-Africa Movement' that had attracted Afro-Americans in the United States