We know that one of the functions of art is to re-signify what has already been created, and to establish new dialogues between the past and the present, engendering a new reading where the structural elements of a text become the structural elements of the other, in the intricate network of narrative threads and poetic. The novel Tenda dos miracles by Jorge Amado, published in 1969, offers us a range of reading possibilities, among which we highlight the dialogue established between the popular culture practiced in Salvador and the scientific discourse developed.
Tent of miracles is, basically, the narrative of the feats and loves of Pedro Arcanjo, poor mestizo, beadle of the Faculty of Medicine from Bahia, who becomes a passionate scholar of his people, publishing books on the genetic and cultural syncretism of the people Bahia. From reader and self-taught Pedro Arcanjo rises to the position of an author whose books are a reference in the fight against racism and the repression of Afro-Brazilian culture. By pioneering and frankly dealing with such themes, Arcanjo falls under the gaze of the “whitened” elite of Bahia. It is chased. He loses his job. And a curtain of silence forms around his work, eclipsing it. Only after the author's death will it assert itself, triumphing over provincial racism, thanks to the interest it arouses in a foreign scientist. The figure of Archangel is then reborn from the ashes, in a process of revision that moves from the erudite field to the popular, reaching its peak with the tribute paid to it, at the Bahia carnival, by the Escola de Samba Filhos do Tororo.
In the city of Salvador presented in the novel, we can see the strong changes undertaken in order to generate the idea of progress from the installation of industries and urban development. The period presented as the "time" of the novel would comprise the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, when in Brazil, in order to modernize, the so-called theories are applied hygienists as the basis for the creation of a national project: race differences and their evolutionism became the key point for the creation of the ideal type national. In this context, the theories presented and defended by Silvio Romero, Oliveira Viana, Manoel Querino, Arthur Ramos, Count de Gobineau and Nina Rodrigues, among others, would foster the ideology developed in national teaching centers such as the Faculty of Medicine of Bahia.
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In the book, this ideological struggle between popular culture and European science is noticeable here adapted through the various clashes between Pedro Arcanjo, police chief Pedro Gordilho and the teacher Nile Argolo; or even in the fight carried out by the state apparatus through the newspapers and the police, in an attempt to minimize, or even exterminate the cultural practices developed in the Candomblé terreiros, in the capoeira circles and in the afoxé groups during the carnival. And, mainly, in the resistance undertaken by the organized population in the person of the "Rable of the people", the defender of the poor and of this culture that would be considered ghettos but would be disseminated in all spheres of society .
The importance of the dialogues between the so-called popular culture and science in the text leads the reader to the great national project revised in the words of Archanjo that he believes he has when the Brazilian ideal type was discovered in the figure of the mestizo, this would represent the meeting of all ethnic groups, generating the idea that would be preached by Gilberto Freyre of democracy racial. Therefore, in defending the mestizo culture Archanjo prophesies the future where “...everything will have already been completely mixed and what today is mystery and struggle of poor people, circle of blacks and mestizos, prohibited music, illegal dancing, candomblé, samba, capoeira, all of this will be a celebration of the Brazilian people, music, ballet, our color, our laughter, understand?” (Tent of miracles...p.317-8).
Marysther Oliveira do Nascimento
Master's student at the Graduate Program
in Literature and Cultural Diversity - UEFS
Columnist - Brazil Escola.com
Literature - Brazil School
