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Luislinda Valois

In 1984, Bahian-born Luislinda Valois was the first black woman to become a judge in Brazil, just one of many achievements. She earned her law degree at the age of 39 and lived in the city of Curitiba, in the south of Brazil, working as a municipal attorney, deputy chief and chief of the National Department of Roads and Railroads (DNER) for six years . Valois has won numerous awards and honors for her tireless dedication to the defense of black people and the oppressed. In 2009, she released her first book, O Negro no Século XXI (The Black in the 21st Century) detailing the current situation of black people in education, work, social justice, public policy and sports, and in 2010, she won the prestigious Claudia award, which honors women who dream, achieve and transform the lives of Brazilian people, in the category of Public Policy. Today, at 73, she continues to fight so that black women have more of a space in society.

 

Check out this article on Black Women of Brazil’s website to learn about other Afro-Baianas making a difference in Bahia.

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Tia Ciata

Tia Ciata (Hilaria Batista de Almeida, 1854-1924)
(Edited from her biography by Alvaro Neder)

Tia Ciata, aka Tia Assiata, was a woman from Bahia who had a fundamental role in the birth of Cariocan urban samba as a genre. She migrated to Rio from Bahia in 1875 and developed an informal cultural center at her home, where she would initiate the biggest composers and musicians of Rio de Janeiro of her time into the subtleties of samba from Bahia. As a result of this, in 1917, the first samba to be recorded, “Pelo Telefone,” was a collective composition done in her house, in which she herself participated, along with others.

During the day she would sell tidbits downtown, and at night she would reign in her home as an organizer of meetings for black townspeople. She was a leader in the Candomblé religion and would hold worship rituals for the orixas at her residence. It is important to note that, in that period, there were no public places for the poor or black inhabitants to socialize. So the meeting places of these segments of society were essentially family homes. Tia Ciata’s house became legendary because not only would she hold regular Candomblé sessions, but also because these sessions were followed by a samba, a kind of party where people could drink, eat, play, dance to music, meet and mingle, thus producing the birthplace of samba in Rio. In fact, as the sambas were persecuted by police, they were frequently disguised as religious activities. So, in these festive reunions, Tia Ciata’s house became widely known in Rio. Not only to black people, but also politicians, bohemians, musicians, and batuqueiros (percussionists) would gather there, attracted by her excellent culinary skills and the music. The parties could last for several days in a row, and people would spend the entire time there without returning to their homes until the feast was over.

The cultural exchange was the central focus in Tia Ciata’s house. Being a precursor of the migratory movements of blacks arriving from Bahia to Rio with the end of slavery (1888, five years after her arrival) and the massive demobilization, in 1897, of the troops of Baianos engaged in the fight against the fanatic religious leader Antônio Conselheiro, Tia Ciata was on the verge of a movement which would deeply influence the national culture via its ascendancy over the important capital, Rio de Janeiro. The most important composers and musicians of the time, like Caninha, Joao da Baiana, Donga, Pixinguinha, Sinhô, and Heitor dos Prazeres, along with less representative names like João da Mata, Mestre Germano, Minan, Didi da Gracinda, and João Câncio were regulars at her house. Disciples that continued her work were her son Eduardo da Tia Ciata, her granddaughters Lili da Tia Ciata and Tia Cincinha, her grandson Buci Moreira, Ministrinho da Cuíca, Dino, and Santa, among others. In that close interlacing of Baianos and Cariocas, Tia Ciata was one of the most influential tias (aunties) from Bahia, through her influential cultural center, that introduced the Cariocas to the culture from Bahia.

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Festa da Boa Morte

Festa de Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte (Assumption Day or the Festival of Our Lady of the Good Death) falls on the Friday closest to August 15 and lasts three days. It is a celebration of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary (mother of Jesus) that starts off with a solemn mass and then a procession in the streets of Cachoeira in Bahia. Organized by the Irmandade da Boa Morte (Sisterhood of the Good Death)—a secret religious society of elder Afro-Bahian women and the oldest of its kind in the New World—who praise the liberation of their enslaved ancestors with dance and prayer and a mix of themes from Candomblé and Catholicism. It is the second most important examples of religious syncretism in Bahia after Lavagem do Bonfim. For these women, their faith in the ascension of Mary into heaven never meant a denial of their faith in their Nagô ancestral traditions of the orixás and voduns. The orixá Nanã Buruku, a grandmotherly deity and orixá of wetlands, swamps, and marshes and mother to orixás Exu and Obaluaye, is honored and venerated. The festival is a mix of prayer, litanies, hymns, church masses, processions, capoeira and folk dances like maculelê and samba de roda, drumming, feasts, and sacred Candomblé obligation ceremonies until dawn.
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Luiza Mahin

Luiza Mahin was born some time in the 1800s in either the Gulf of Benin, West Africa or Bahia (her exact place of birth and birth date are uncertain) and claimed to be of African royalty. Based on her surname, she is assumed to be of the Mahi tribe from the Nagô (a subgroup of the Yoruba) nation who were practitioners of Islam. Luiza Mahin is most iconically known to have been very involved in many of the slave revolts and uprisings that occurred in Bahia during the early half of the nineteenth century. She was a key player and strategist in the Malê Revolt as she helped to distribute messages in Arabic to others involved. It is said that had the Malê Revolt been successful, she would have been declared the “Queen of Bahia”. It’s not clear whatever happened to Luiza Mahin. Some reports say she escaped to Rio de Janeiro, was found and arrested before being deported to Angola. Other tales say that she escaped to Maranhão where she settled and helped to influence Afro-Brazilian culture there. She had at least one son, Luiz Gama, who was a well-renowned Bahian poet and abolitionist who had this to say about her:

“I am the native son of a black African woman, free, of the Nagô nation, whose name is Luiza Mahin, pagan, who always refused baptism and christian doctrine. My mother was short, thin, beautiful, the color of jet black unglazed, teeth white like snow. Haughty, generous, a sufferer, and vengeful.”