ARTS OF BAHIA

For most of its 460-year history, Brazil was a country of Portuguese masters and Indian or Negro slaves. To harvest the sugar cane, mine the gold, and fell the mighty dyewood (brazil) that gave the country its name, slavers imported sturdy Negroes by the boatload from Africa. Greatest concentration of slave labor was in Salvador, capital of Bahia on Brazil's northeast bulge, which even today is the most African city (pop. 417,000) in the New World.

To highlight the contributions of Bahia to Brazilian culture, some 1,000 objects, ranging from gaily painted gourds and handsomely decorated clay pots to ritual drums (named rum, rumpi and le) and the ornate paraphernalia of the colorful candomble religious dances brought over from Africa, have been put on exhibition at Sao Paulo's Bienal. More than 40,000 visitors throng the exhibition weekly; visiting critics, discovering a new folk art they never knew existed, have told Brazilians: "This is your great art."

Gods into Saints. Bahia's African folk tradition has survived over the centuries through adaptation, absorbing lesser cultures when possible, going underground when necessary. South American Indian pottery skills and myths were taken over wholesale by the Negro slaves. But to protect their African tribal gods, they resorted to subterfuge. They gave them Christian cover names (Oxossi, the god of hunters, became St. George), then told their masters that they were worshiping the saints, but in their own way. This African subculture still claims 10 million followers for its religious dance rites, has permeated Brazilian culture with its music (the samba), superstitions, folkways and art.

Most characteristic of Bahian art were wrought-iron figures of the dread god Exu, pronounced eh-shoe (see color page). As with other Bahian folk figures, Exu suffered a sea change in being transplanted from Africa. Among other things, he acquired the horns and trident of the Christian devil, and a wife (to keep him more content). Exu's power for death and destruction is unquestioned by thousands of believers, who rarely refer to him by name. They call him simply O Compadre (The Companion).

The Devilmaker. In general, Bahian art is the product of humble and nameless artisans. But so potent is Exu that even making his image is rarely undertaken except by direct appointment by the Orixas (gods). Top Bahian devilmaker today is Reginaldo Andrade Costa, 28, a part-time garage mechanic who agreed to make them only when a regal candomble priestess known as a mae do santo (mother of the saint) explained that the iron figures were harmless until "blessed." His raw material is scrap iron, but Costa's crudely formed statuettes are striking embodiments of evil, have the authority of images born of the terror of unquestioning belief.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.