Cachoeira, State of Bahia, Brazil
Saturday, July 28, 2012
The sisterhood is the oldest organisation of African women in the Americas and has been in existence for nearly 200 years. The original sisters were the ones who worked in the houses of the Portuguese slave masters and used their positions of privilege to raise money to buy the freedom of other enslaved Africans as well as helping those who escaped to make it safely to the Quilombos.
The "Good Death" refers to their primary religious observation of Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in the Catholic Church and more importantly in Candomble, the worship of the iyas, female spirits of the Ancestors including members of the Sisterhood who have transitioned and ancestors who during slavery, died free or fighting for liberation
. All are believed to have achieved the Good Death.We left Salvador on a full belly of porridge and headed for the highway north to Cachoeira making a first stop at Santo Amaro. Cachoeira and Santo Amaro are at the heart of what was once the world's largest sugar producing area, at its heights Bahia had over 600 sugar mills. Travelling through the more rural area gave a different perspective of Bahia and here the greater African concentration was very evident, and is the reason for the prominence of Condomble as a major religion force in the lives of the people. Being a rural community, Santo Amaro had some familiar characteristics such as people using donkeys with hampers for transportation. Here, houses were not crammed together as in the city and the open space with lush vegetation as a welcomed sight.
We visited the market and once again the familiarity was striking. The setting, the people and the variety of fruits and vegetables; we could have been in any African or Caribbean town. Even the potter selling terracotta on the street side provided a connection with mid-20th century Jamaica. When the use of the clay jar for storing water and keeping it cool was explained, it invoked the vivid picture of our grandmothers using it for the same purpose, doing exactly the same thing for the same reasons
.One interesting observation we took note of was that during the 1 hour we spent in Santo Amaro, we heard more reggae music played than during the previous week in Salvador.
Leaving Santo Amaro, we headed west driving along the edge of the lush Atlantic forest and made our way to Cachoeira. Cachoeira and the sister city of Sao Felix are located on the hilly slopes and spread out down the valley to the banks of the Paraguacu river. As we descended the slope into the valley the white painted houses with their red clay tile roofs juxtaposed against the lush greenery made a very interesting picture. It was almost like we were approaching a giant billboard of one of the many paintings we had seen in so often Pelourinho.
In Sao Felix we visit the Danneman cigar factory where we saw African women working for minimum wage rolling tobacco all day to meet each woman’s daily quotas of 400 cigars. These women were beautifully dressed, diligently executing their craft which would be later sold for great profit for the enjoyment of rich Europeans. As in many post-colonial societies, time passes but some things never change. Exploiting his intimate knowledge of the place, out guide secured permission for us to go into a store room behind the office
. There, we saw a personal collection of several beautifully frames pictures of the Sisters of Good Death.We left Sao Felix and headed back across the Paraguacu via the narrow iron bridge to our 2:30 pm appointment with Brother Valmir, the caretaker of the Church of the Sisters of the Good Death. The church was closed but Valmir opened it especially for us. The sisters were preparing for an election the following day to decide the new administration of the sisterhood for the next three years, so they would not be coming out and we would not be able to meet them. This was a great disappointment for us initially but after the presentation by Valmir we left, still feeling very inspired.
Valmir is the only man who works for the Sisters and he explained that his role covers caretaker, press secretary, advocate, negotiator, chauffer and what we would term general ambassador. All this, in addition to his other works in the community as social worker, youth worker, counselor etc. The sisters currently number about 20 and are aged from 50 to 108 years old. Can you imagine it, 108 years old freedom fighters still active and working on a daily basis to preserve the culture and freedom of African people? Brazil is truly unique in this respect, and this is the reason that Cachoeira holds a special place in the heart of Africans in Bahia and Brazil in general
.Brother Valmir spoke with an emotion that demonstrated that he was living the life and had a deep knowledge of the history of Africans in Brazil and the global context of African people’s struggles. We discussed the social issues confronting young people in the community and the obstacles standing in the way of progress.
Before we parted Bro Valmir blessed us with a prayer to the Orixas by reciting what he informed us, based on research, was a close approximation of the first prayers prayed by Africans when they landed on the shores of the Americas, in chains and fell to their knees to ask for the protection of the gods of Africa. “Now that I have arrived in this foreign land to be a slave, protect me and if I die here, free my spirit”
As we left Cachoiera we passed a number of locations where offerings were placed on the highway for the Orixas.
While many of us in the west are proud to have gained consciousness and reconnected with our African past, millions of our people here have never disconnected at all.
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