LITTLE AFRICAS

“The Macumba was being held out in the Mangue area in that big ol’ rowdy house run by Tia Ciata, a sorceress like no other, a renowned mãe-de santo and guitar-picking songstress,” writes Macunaíma’s narrator. In one of modernism’s canonical books, published in 1928, Mário de Andrade’s affection for popular culture does not escape the stereotypical view of terreiros. In Chapter 7, “Macumba”, the narrator imagines, in vivid hues, a ceremony officiated by Tia Ciata in front of intellectuals such as Manuel Bandeira, Jayme Ovalle and the French-Swiss poet Blaise Cendrars.