Rhythm, Ancestrality and Spirit in Maracatu de Nação and Candomblé

Book excerpt: Rhythm, Ancestrality and Spirit in Maracatu de Nação and Candomblé: Repercussions examines how the highly percussive carnival practice of Maracatu de nação – an Afro-Brazilian musical and spiritual tradition originating in the north- eastern state of Pernambuco – has evolved in relation to the cosmology of Candomblé Nagô in the urban centres of Recife and Olinda, Brazil. Offering one of the first detailed ethnographic explorations into maracatu de nação, Candomblé Nagô and the connections between them, this book is a collaborative enquiry into frequently negated sacred and ancestral knowledge systems central to Afro-Brazilian musical-spiritual practices. Using an innovative research framework which integrates musical and rhythmic practices with spiritual, ancestral and ecological knowledge systems, readers are provided with an intimate ethnography based on eight years of friendship and learning with the oldest continuously active maracatu group in the world, Nação Leão Coroado, and its most recent leader, Mestre Afonso Aguiar (1948– 2018). This is a valuable text for those interested in ethnomusicology, performance studies, religious and cultural anthropology, decolonial research methods and writing styles, eco- musicology and Afro-diasporic, Brazilian and Latin American studies.