European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 4, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse                                National to Orapha Tongue women of the fat tit cult called can domite carry Broom and Flower wed vases of water to Wah the we or a h0mn a cum. Frda item. Their Bright bed rear Neil sods and Good Eafrom nature. Each african up lilt he a parallel Catholic mint can domite was brought to Brazil by Olavea. Now fused with Catho Lelam the Faith he spread across Brazil. Brazil s african connection a special kind of interracial dynamics by prut j. Ves Hind National geographic in Salvador in lha brazilian state of  South America Sticks its nose eastward into the warm South Atlantic Ocean. Alrica is a mere2,000 Miles  is closet than Brazil s Western Amazon regions closer than its Southern Stales. In the dim geologic past when Africa and South America were connected As one landmass. Brazil rested in the hollow of Africa near today s Nigeria. Beginning in the ibid Century when portuguese explorers Lisl touched on the brazilian coast Brazil and Africa were linked by a grisly Commerce for 300 years merchants delivered human cargo african slaves to work the Cocoa and sugarcane plantations of european colonists. The racial mix has troubled Brazil Ever since. The portuguese who were already cohabiting Wilh the indians also mingled easily with the slaves. Over the centuries brazilians like to say color lines blurred to create a new society of Brown skinned citizens. Visitors see Beautiful mulattoes in carnival costume and Black sports stars Lake Pele and consider Brazil a land of racial Harmony. The reality is Mare Complex. A wave of european immigrants Al the turn of the Century gave Brazil a  brazilians of african descent and brazilians from Europe have hardly melted together in a giant pot As the outside world imagines. Indeed there is a special kind of interracial dynamics thai North american visitors find exotic and a Little puzzling. The City of Salvador also called Bahia after the state was the colonial capital of Brazil. It became the Center of a Strong afro brazilian culture that gradually spread into the rest of the nation. Most of the nation s symbols carnival Samba dancing bahian cooking Are Ballan and thus african. The african spiritism religion of Candom ble. Also called Macumba in some areas of Brazil thrives in Bahia and most of the coastal cities and has taken hold among european brazilians As Well in the evening Drums throb from the Hillside shantytowns and women dressed in flowing african Robes sing in the Tongue of the Yoruba. A people from what is now Southwest Nigeria. But Brazil is still an elitist society and ils african heritage has created a social predicament. In Many parts of Brazil Black culture is acc plod even glamorized but Black people Are not. The brazilian elite Are almost exclusively while and european. Non Whites of All shades remain overwhelmingly poor and people of pure negro background about 30 percent Ottha population remain a distinct underclass and therein is the social Paradox of Brazil the dominant social class is dominated culturally by Tho lower class. The nation s educational economic and governmental systems Are european but its culture is afro brazilian Brazil does not like to confess its  says bahian social anthropologist order Sera brazilians have always tried nol to be what they arc to arc a schizophrenic Sociol in Bahia a racist White Man s in a sorry slate because the main expressions of bahian identity Are negro we act like africans when we sing talk dance. When that Man goes to another state he saturday april 4. 19b7 has to show his feelings for Bahia. Whal will he do he will sing he will dance a  in tha past 20 years Brazil has been confronted Wilh a Black awareness movement not unlike the one that arose in the United slates in the 1960s. In the forefront is a 72-year-old professor and government Deputy from Rio de Janeiro Abdias Nascimento. Tha difference Between racism Here and in the United slates says Nascimento is thai in the United states it is spoken visible but in Brazil it is invisible and unspoken. Mere the question is treated As if it did t exist so even the discussion is killed Al the  in typical brazilian self contradict Ion the Black movement has been defused by a trendy embrace of african roots among the Well to do. But the trend has not penetrated very deeply people say they re proud of their african culture says Nascimento. "hah1 Only when ii helps bus Moss do they com6 along Wilh their african heritage. When the germans want to soil Volkswagen to Nigeria they do in through Brazil which has its Nice calling card an african  in Bahia. The pre lenten bacchanal called carnival has been largely usurped by the City s Pool Black neighbourhoods the original european flavor has Boon virtually wrung Oul of the Fosti Vitious carnival is a social  says  Juana Elbein who administers the society Tor the study of Black culture in Bahia ii is when Blacks Como out of their slums and Lake Over Iho town All year Tong they prepare and then come Oul into a social space. These people wore never just Earni Ual groups though. They wore alway seeking a Way to say we Are Here we Are here1 " the stars and stripes Page 17