"PIERRE VERGER: MESSENGER BETWEEN TWO WORLDS"
"I came to Bahia on August 5, 1946...
on a small steamship, the Comandante Capella.
It was an old, slow ship on her last voyage.
We left the ship early in the morning.
A traveling mate...
showed me the mysteries of the High City and the Low City.
We took the Lacerda Elevator...
and he showed me through the deserted streets...
the way to Hotel Chile.
Where I found the room of my dreams."
This is the first photograph I took.
You can see Santo Antônio and the Carmo Church.
- I took them from the ship. - From the ship?
Yes, the crane at the harbor.
In those days, we would come home at around 5 o'clock...
- Less cars. ...bathe from a washbowl...
because there was no running water...
sit in front of the house, and talk to our neighbors
Every now and then, we would clap our hands and sing a samba.
"I was seduced in Bahia...
by the presence of the numerous African descendants...
and their influence on the local lifestyle.
For a long time, I didn't even dream of pointing my Rolleiflex...
at people of more anemic coloring."
When I got here, I met people who were open, kind, friendly...
and all the excitement there is around here...
reminded me of a very pleasant time of my life, in France...
when I would go to Antillean balls.
"I was a playboy, I had cars...
and we would race around the Place Vendôme on rainy days...
with the exhaust open.
Then, we would drive under the arches of Rue du Rivoli."
Was he a playboy?
In the true sense of the word?
Maybe he would have liked to have been one!
He joined our group...
PHOTOGRAPHER We were all sportsmen...
...we enjoyed canoeing... - We enjoyed nudism.
VIOLINIST Diving, skiing...
And Pierre was nothing of a sportsman!
He would come with us, and we would tease him...
because... we would, for example...
turn somersaults in the air...
whenever he tried, he would fall like rock!
What was it like in the 30's and 40's?
In France, between 1930 and 1940, it was a time...
They were years of transition.
Starting in the 1920's, all of French artistic circles...
were fascinated by African art.
In 1932, when Pierre...
HISTORIAN turned 30...
he no longer had a father, a mother, brothers or sisters.
"At that time I started going, with my friends...
to the parties at Rue Blomet...
where the domestic servants...
and chauffeurs from the Antilles danced the 'beguine'...
drank punch and hid from the annoying French...
who humiliated them all the week long."
He decided to break away from that bourgeois environment...
which he felt very constrained.
VERGER FAMILY And Maurice Baquet told me...
that practically from one day to the next...
he exchanged suit for shorts.
After letting his black outfit go...
he just walked around in shorts and barefoot.
It was really the beginning of a new life!
Since I had taught Verger to develop photos...
he then traveled here and there, to Tahiti...
to Spain, to China, and so on.
He documented stories that were sold all over the world.
At the time, it was rare...
for a Parisian photographer to travel around so much.
1932, the beginning of Verger's trip around the world.
He leaves Paris and goes to Tahiti.
Next, he goes to the United States...
then to Japan...
and to China too. It is now 1934.
He returns to Europe: Italy and Spain, in 1935.
Then, he goes to Africa for the first time.
In 1939, he goes to Guatemala...
then to Ecuador, then to Dakar, and Guinea-Bissau.
In 1941, 1942, he comes to Argentina...
to Peru, to Bolivia. Then, finally, in 1946...
he comes to Salvador, Bahia, for the first time.
Why did you decide to stay in Brazil?
Until then, you had been to the Far East...
to Mexico, to Peru, had gone to Africa.
And then you simply decided to stay in Brazil.
What led to that decision?
Bahia has a certain charm...
which you may not notice, since you were born here.
Other places don't have that.
Much more then than now.
The city still had a special atmosphere...
in the late 1940's. The city still had a 19th Century atmosphere...
HISTORIAN it hadn't made its way into 20th Century.
WRITER The street...
that leads to the Low City... What's it called?
- Itaboão. - Itaboão was a beauty...
when I first saw it.
There were beautiful colonial houses, which disappeared.
Going down the hill, and turning...
there was an old house...
which Pierre Verger lived when he came to Bahia.
When he came over, he had seen the world.
WRITER He was hungry for new things.
He wanted to take pictures.
He was keen on details.
LAB TECHNICIAN So, he wanted everything...
in the right shades...
in his photographs, not too dark, not too light.
He wanted the right shades of gray.
PUBLISHER AND PHOTOGRAPHER He worked with the same camera...
and one lens. Verger never had lots of equipment, lenses, filters.
Just his old Rolleiflex and its 50-66 mm lens.
But he knew how to use light and framing.
It's hard to imagine that someone would use...
...this kind of framing in the '30s. - The head...
This Greek thing.
He taught me some things...
how to use mask on the photographs to block the spots...
you want to block.
So I would come here, on her face, take some out...
The 1950's and 1960's were...
a very bohemian period here, in Salvador.
And part of that bohemian lifestyle was belonging...
to a candomblé house, to a "terreiro".
I'm going to develop this.
The Opô Afonjá was the "terreiro"...
ANTHROPOLOGIST where the personalities of the Bahia society went.
He had a lot going with Mãe Senhora, and vice versa.
He had a lot of trust in her, and she, in him.
Mãe Senhora was daughter of Oxum...
and, when she wanted to win someone over, she did.
She fascinated Verger. Verger was fascinated.
He was Xangô, she was Oxum.
IALORIXÁ PRIESTESS So they developed a very strong personal relationship.
Mãe Senhora led the group for 30-something years...
IALORIXÁ PRIESTESS appointed by Xangô.
She was the best "mãe-de-santo" in the world, because she was mine.
- She made you. - She initiated me.
Everyone knows that the house of Xangô in Opô Afonjá...
is open until a certain time.
It was afternoon, no one was coming...
so Mãe Senhora decided to close up.
When she was leaving, who was coming up the hill?
FILE CLERK It was Fatumbi...
with Caribé on one side...
and Jorge Amado on the other.
- The first time he went there? - Yes. They took him there.
Jorge Amado...
- Exactly. ...and Caribé.
But it was Xangô, actually...
who put my father Fatumbi in their path...
because everything is our "odu", we can't run away from it.
I met Pierre Verger in the 40's...
when I was a child. He photographed everything.
- That was his greatest interest... - Just taking pictures.
- Taking pictures. - He photographed everything...
and Mãe Senhora was a bit wary, but then they developed a friendship.
He spent a lot of time talking to her.
Talking a lot.
Pai Agenor, what is an orixá?
BABAOLUÔ AND LITERATURE PROFESSOR To me, orixás are enchanted...
in fragments of Nature.
Xangô has become enchanted in fire...
Oiá, who is lansã, in the wind...
lemanjá in the ocean...
Oxum in the waterfalls, and rivers.
"I enjoyed living in the world of 'candomblé'...
and it wasn't just curiosity.
In addition to my liking for the descendants of Africans...
I was not insensitive to the power of this religion...
in maintaining their identity and their faith."
He was white, a Frenchman. He was from another culture...
but he was taken by his own fate. His career brought him there.
He had been forced, originally, by the circumstances, but...
if he didn't like it and hadn't been called to it by the orixá...
he would have given up the work and even the money...
but it was both useful and pleasant for him.
So, he began to enter the world of "candomblé".
If you want to know about something, you go straight to the source.
REPUBLIC OF BENIN WESTERN AFRICA
"Mãe Senhora was interested...
when I told her I would be spending a year in Africa.
She offered to place me under the protection of the orixás...
I would be visiting shortly.
Four days later, I would spend the night at the Opô Afonjá house...
where she offered my head to Xangô, god of thunder...
and handed me a string of red and white beads...
his symbolic colors.
I had become one of the spiritual children...
of that great mãe- de- santo, and could now speak in her name in Africa."
Great. Thank you. Bye.
KETO
ROYAL PALACE
Your Majesty, it is a great pleasure.
- Here. - Thank you.
Thank you, Your Majesty!
"Republic of Benin...
King's Council of Benin.
His Majesty...
Adiro Abetutu Alaketu of Keto.
Honorary President of the king's Council of Benin."
For how long has the Keto dynasty existed?
I am the 48th king.
The 49th king.
Doesn't have a specific date when it was founded, it is not precise.
What does the word "alaketu" mean?
Alaketu means "the lord of the land of Keto".
We have come to Keto...
to find out a bit about...
and to retrace Pierre Verger's path.
I met Verger, but I would like to speak Yoruba.
Fatumbi, or Pierre Verger, did you know him well?
Pierre Verger worked with a lfá...
to the point where he even became a babalaô.
He went back to Saketê to be initiated in Xangô.
BABALORIXÁ PRIEST
I am from Brazil. I was a friend of Pierre Verger's.
Did you know Pierre Verger well?
He was my friend.
When he was here, he would stay at my house.
We'd like to know...
what Fatumbi's daily life was like...
among the people here.
When Pierre Verger arrived...
everyone would rejoice...
because everyone knew that he would buy them drinks...
and give the children money.
And the babalorixá would get money, too.
So everyone knew that they would have fun...
whenever Pierre Verger got here.
Pierre Verger lived in this house...
which belongs to the Bangbosé.
How did he get this house?
He got it because when he came here...
to carry out his activities, this house was given...
to him to live in. In honor of Pierre Verger...
who lived in this house, home of Koukpossi Lassissi.
I got there with a Xangô necklace, which Mãe Senhora had made me...
because I made a borí with her, before I left.
The people realized that I knew a few things...
because, when I was in front of Xangô's altar...
I yelled, "Kawó kabiyesilè"!
There was an altar to Oxum, and I yelled, "Ore yèyè o"!
There was something to Oxalá, "Epa babá"!
How was Fatumbi's initiation?
- His initiation? - Fatumbi's initiation.
He would come here...
practically every day...
observe the celebrations for Xangô...
and then he would get informed about the rituals.
"When I got to Africa...
I introduce myself and said I was son of Xangô.
They told me that, in three weeks...
there would be a yam harvest for Xangô...
and invited me to come along.
That day, they placed a huge yam on my head...
and I went with them to the market, where the altar to Xangô is located.
On one hand, I had my Rolleiflex...
on the other, the yam."
My name is Tchabassi Amadossi, babalorixá.
I live here, in Zogbedji. I am 75 years old.
I have 16 wives...
and almost 60 children.
Anyone who sees me knows right away that I am Tchabassi...
and I carry 4 Xangô symbols.
If you are a bad person for society...
and you come around here...
confess all your crimes and Xangô will purify you.
If Xangô kills you, pieces of you and your belongings...
will be placed in that stable.
Only kind-hearted people may come near that stable.
This ladder is here to take the pieces of all...
the bad people that Xangô has eliminated...
from the community up to the stable.
The ladder symbolizes the lightning rod...
that is used to hunt down evil persons.
Whenever you want something good...
you come here ask Xangô for it with faith and he will grant it.
Xangô is one of the most powerful deities.
He dictates the tone of voice up above.
The creator of the world created orixás...
to protect the various life forms that exist in Nature.
I am not only an empirical babalorixá.
I am the fruit of a long selective process for the right person.
Because, in Africa, initiation is a serious and complex event...
which must be hereditary, coming from the most ancient ancestors.
This is the room where...
Pierre Verger was initiated in lfá.
For how long did he stay here...
according to the rite?
BABALAÔ PRIEST In general, the rites last...
at least three months.
You have to learn the 16 odus.
First, you have to know the odus to perfection...
and the babalaô who is the teacher, the one called Odjougbewa babalaô...
he is the one who does the initiating...
he teaches the novice...
...the 16 odus, first of all. - The 16 meanings.
The 16 odus with their meanings...
their composition, all that.
Only afterwards do we set the date for him to go the Holy Forest.
lfá is a gift from God...
and comes from Saudi Arabia...
BABALAÔ PRIEST from the followers of Allah...
as the divine messenger on Earth to guide his children.
My parents and grandparents have told me that...
lfá said he was going to roam around the world...
to decide where he make his home...
because he had none...
because the Arabs had thrown him out of Saudi Arabia.
Finally, he went down to Egypt...
to the south of the Sahara...
and ended up in the old Dahomey.
For all the peoples with whom lfá was in contact...
he left his trademark for divination.
The difference lies in the way of consulting, or Dou...
which is how you throw the amulets.
The Gun and Fon peoples throw them forward...
while the Nago throw them backward, and the Arabs them up.
They say lfá was left-handed.
He used to consult both ways, but since he was left-handed...
his throwing them forward like this.
He was a man who didn't have a skeleton.
He was born without one.
So it took a lot of effort for him to move around.
I have noticed that, when people come to consult with lfá...
the combinations that appear may tell them:
"Such and such a thing is going to happen". And it does.
I used to know Pierre Verger, Fatumbi.
I met him through my grandfather.
We told him who the real...
lfá men were in each village.
Verger went to them and realized that was something...
that he himself could do.
And that is what opened the path to everything...
he carried out in his research on the orixás.
His grandfather initiated Verger.
How was his name?
Oluowo! Oluowo!
"In Keto, I was initiated in divination...
as a babalaô, father- of- the- secret...
and was given a new name, Fatumbi...
which means 'born again thanks to lfá'.
The town of Keto was particularly important for me...
because the first candomblé houses in Bahia...
had been founded by people from there."
When Verger was here...
how did he behave? What did he do?
RESEARCHER He didn't force his will,
he negotiated...
he became integrated with the group.
He stopped, waited, listened... And then?
Then, he did what we are doing here.
We always start with the initiation.
Pierre Verger went to all the candomblé houses.
If I didn't go inside, he wouldn't have a translator.
BABALAÔ PRIEST If he went in alone,
he'd watch, but wouldn't understand a thing.
He paid my expenses so that...
I could go inside with him.
I was his translator and guide in the "terreiro".
If he wanted to go to one...
he had to pay the expenses.
He had to pay for the lamb...
pay the drinks...
pay all the expenses...
He had to buy everything.
First, we cover his face...
he goes through the first door...
and we do the first door ceremony.
Then, he goes through the second door...
we do that ceremony, and the last door...
leads to the candomblé house. He saw it himself.
In Africa, I lived among them...
and never asked any questions.
I lived among the people...
as if it were natural, which it was...
because I knew how to behave.
- It was a statement. - I never asked...
"Why do you do this?"
- That is how you show your ignorance. - Of course.
In general, you ask questions that don't mean anything.
There are many things we do, but we don't know why.
If a foreigner comes along and ask us why we do it...
we don't know, we never thought about it.
- You are dumbfounded. - Of course.
The "bamboo dance" has existed ever since my ancestors.
It is a dance of joy.
Man can't exist without joy, without fun.
A real man has no worth on the ground...
which is why he climbed up there.
But, if a man wants to go up and challenge him...
to prove his manhood, he may.
They say that, when he went to Africa...
Mãe Senhora gave him something...
- Yes. No. ...to take.
He went to Africa, and...
when he came back, he brought her a commendation.
She was very happy, because it was unheard of...
that kind of affectionate gesture.
He told Senhora that he had been to Africa...
to Oshogbo...
and had met the king of Oshogbo.
Mãe Senhora is daughter of Oxum...
so Oshogbo was a Mecca to her.
- So she... - She went crazy.
So she asked, "When you go back...
can you take a message to the king of Oshogbo?"
And she chanted for the king of Oshogbo.
She then told Verger of her dynastic roots.
So, the king gave her...
the title which had been her great-grandmother's: lanassô.
You see?
That title was returned from Africa?
Yes, it came with Senhora's predecessors...
and that is why the king sent her the title of lanassô.
Then she sent him a very nice lamp...
made of a shell, as a present.
- When he went back there? - When he went back.
- She sent a present. - To thank him for his gift.
So that is why...
Once in a while he would bring a letter...
take another one back... He was a kind of messenger.
I went to Bahia with Verger.
When I got there I saw all of the orixás from Keto.
There was Xangô, Oiá, Oxóssi, lemanjá, Oxum.
All of them alive in Bahia.
That is our heritage from slavery...
from when one person had to give the other support...
in order to endure it.
So, since religion was our point of resistance...
all those who are in candomblé, the religion of the orixás...
have this brotherly love inside themselves this protectiveness.
Much protection, much fraternity.
You can enslave people in many ways...
you can incarcerate them, but you can't incarcerate their faith...
their faith, religion and tradition.
I appreciate what this religion can do...
for the descendants of Africans.
Take Balbino, for example.
When I met him...
he sold okra in the open market.
He couldn't even read. But he was the same as today...
perfectly content with himself.
He didn't feel humiliated by anyone.
He felt he was on the same level as anyone else...
because he was son of Xangô.
Were you in Africa for 15 years?
Longer. I was there for 17 years.
I would stay a year, come back...
and then go back there again.
It was better, because people didn't have time to get used to it.
You disappear, when you come back, "Oh, you're back!"
"I went and came between Bahia and Africa several times.
I love both shores of the Atlantic almost equally...
with a little more affection for the good land of Bahia."
When my father Fatumbi traveled he would take...
PIERRE VERGER'S HOUSE his orixás in his luggage.
But he would leave Exu. You see? Exu.
Tell me that story, please.
He would leave Exu here...
and tell it to take care of things.
And this was full of money.
Then, one day, the boys found out...
that my father Fatumbi had an Exu full of money.
They waited until no one was around...
took a thin bamboo rod, like that one...
and stuck it under here to pull the money out.
Out of nowhere, they got slapped!
They got slapped in the face...
and ran off, terrified!
No one ever bothered Exu here again!
And no one knows who slapped them, either?
He did it!
Because my father Fatumbi had his things all prepared.
I think nobody...
ever went inside the core of it, inside the bambá...
as we say, as much as he did...
because he had a lot of access, and he also swapped recipes...
with the Africans. He was a very dear man...
a very intelligent man...
so he made the best of everything he learned.
You know that has to do with a superior power.
It isn't a matter of being white of black, because...
it is Olorum's wish.
"I had never thought of describing...
the strange customs and beliefs of an African people.
My research was for myself and for my friends in Bahia.
The idea of publishing my findings for a wider public...
had not occurred to me.
Monod, who financed my trips...
through the French Institute for Black Africa...
who made me write them out."
MUSEUM OF MAN PARIS
Did you meet Mr. Verger?
DOCUMENTARIST Yes, I met Verger here, in Paris...
because in all of these exhibits...
most of the photos were taken by him.
He belonged to the group of Paul Rivet, Georges-Henri Rivière...
and all the ethnographers of that period.
Since he took many photographs...
we used them in many of the exhibits.
In this one, that photograph, over there...
shows a hunter with his bow and arrow.
It is a Pierre Verger photograph.
We have the corresponding objects.
They were purchased.
Here, we created a wire character...
representing the silhouette of the hunter, with his bow and arrow.
Around his arm...
is a bracelet which makes him invisible.
So, if there is a dangerous animal, like a lion...
he won't be seen, as long as he has this bracelet.
His arrow cannot miss.
- The universe of magic. - Exactly.
Verger was a great photographer.
And his major occupation, in the beginning...
afterwards, he began doing research...
but, in the beginning, he was basically photographing
- Yes. - When you met him, did he?
He took pictures.
Did he ask the saint's permission?
BABALORIXÁ PRIEST It is quite amazing.
He photographed many Eguns, souls of the dead. I was impressed.
He showed them to me, and you could really see them.
They say you can't photograph an Egun, that it won't show up.
But he wasn't interested in photography. He always used to say...
"Is the photo good?" "Verger, what a beautiful photo!"
And he'd say, "It was really that beautiful. It was there".
- Things were already... - Do you understand?
As if he hadn't done it. It looked beautiful because it was.
He compared photographs of Africa and Brazil.
This is an iaô in the Aganju, of Obaluaê.
And this is one in Africa.
I can say he was the first to show the similarities...
to put, for example, an Axé Xangô, in the hands...
of an African priest and show an Axé Xangô here, in Bahia.
He was very important in showing...
that there was a strong element of continuity between Africa and Brazil.
Acaçá:
white corn...
let it soak for 3 days, then grind it...
add water and cook.
It is for all the orixás, to go with the Axés.
In our community...
the offers to the saint...
always start with beans...
black pepper...
chicken, goat...
sometimes banana, and palm oil.
We're missing olive oil.
These are black-eyed peas...
that is chicken, a "xinxim" we call it.
It is meant to be eaten and offered to the saint.
He wasn't really just an anthropologist, but an ethnologist.
And he was a "file-digger".
So, he would compile the documents, so to speak.
From a certain time on, he would only take photographs...
to illustrate his work.
They were a work tool for his writing...
and research.
There is "Orixás"...
then "News from Bahia"...
then... I think it was "50 years".
Then came "Fluxo e Refluxo", in 1987.
He was very happy when that book was published...
He knew how important that work was.
Verger's book "Fluxo e Refluxo"...
is a story about the illegal slave trade.
It deals, basically, with the illegal comings and goings.
Legally, Brazil could not have imported...
any slaves after the Eusébio Law was passed...
which forbade the trade.
But the prohibition of the slave trade was not real.
"Fluxo e Refluxo" is a basic...
ANTHROPOLOGIST AND PHOTOGRAPHER fundamental, definitive book...
on this illegal trade.
It is a very competent historical compilation.
All of the documents are there.
You can now spend 100 years studying...
what Verger merely hinted at.
Verger researchedto know which nations came to Brazil and when.
But one very important period for Bahia...
was when the people from the kingdom of Keto were brought over.
There was a very bloody war.
My brother, we were on opposite sides because of war...
conquest wars.
At first, the Yoruba-Nago...
RESEARCHER dominated the Fon from
the kingdom of Dahomey.
Later, the Fon from Abomey...
conquered the Nago territory all the way to Keto.
They brought the captives and sold them to the slave traders.
When colonizers began to trade...
they needed slaves.
So the king of Abomey, a Fon nation...
took the opportunity and began to wage war...
on the Yoruba nation.
And that is what started the war.
He would take people and sell them to the Europeans...
and the Europeans took them and sold them, as slaves...
to countries like Brazil...
Haiti, Cuba and so on.
The slave trade here, in Dahomey...
was an African State development project.
- I mean, the Dahomey kingdom... - An African project...
for development as a regional power.
That is one of the issues...
another taboo concerning the slavery issue:
the project of slavery was, initially, an African project!
ABOMEY
KING AGOLIAGBO BEDJAGNI
When the "baianos" came here to trade slaves...
they took over Dahomey's economy, with a concept...
of developing and opening the country for international exchange.
Many great Bahian fortunes...
were made on the profits of the illegal slave trade.
Renowned slave traders, who had trading posts...
had representatives in Africa, like Xaxá de Souza.
OUIDAH He became famous as did his...
successors: Xaxá I, Xaxá II...
The Souza family...
that of Dom Francisco Félix de Souza...
is the most representative of the illegal traders.
He may even have been...
the biggest illegal slave trader in History.
All of the trade in Ouidah was done with Dom Francisco Félix de Souza...
better know as Xaxá.
He had the privilege of monopolizing...
illegal slave trade in Dahomey...
8th XAXÁ and was the fuel for all of the region's wars.
The "washing" rite.
He is the eighth Xaxá...
in the Souza family.
His Excellency...
Mr. Honoré Feliciano de Souza, the Xaxá the 8th.
As I said to the people who came here this morning...
the first Xaxá to come to Benin, formerly Dahomey...
was 34 years old.
He came as the official representative of the Portuguese fort in Ouidah.
At that time, Brazil was a Portuguese colony.
From there, he would conduct the trade with the Dahomey kings.
"Ladies and gentlemen, both here and in Brazil.
I am very happy to meet again...
today, with my fellow...
Brazilians here, at this residence...
called Zigbomey in Ouidah.
This was the home of my grandfather Dom Francisco Félix de Souza.
Long live Brazil! Long live the Souza family!"
Glory to the Leader Supreme!
Long may he live, with power and satisfaction!
May he be successful in his mandate!
The Door of No Return. You are right...
it does not celebrate those who did return...
but those who didn't.
- Precisely. - When you are sold as a slave...
THE GATE OF NO RETURN you are truly excluded. That is total exclusion.
It is a monument to tragedy.
You see the orixás...
then you cross the Door of No Return...
and you see, on the other side, the Egungun.
Those who have crossed it...
...have become spirits. - They have gone on.
That's right. But they have not been forgotten.
MONTEIRO FAMILY
There was also the return...
of the freed slaves and their children...
to the Gulf of Benin. There, in the African Coast...
they have recreated aspects of the customs...
and ways of life of Bahia.
Today, those who are known as "Brazilians", here...
are of diverse origins.
There are the descendants of the slave smuggler from Bahia...
who settled here for the slave trade...
and their descendants.
There are the descendants of these smugglers' slaves...
who took the smugglers' names...
just like the slaves in Brazil...
took on their masters' names.
The first Brazilian family to come here...
was the Gonçalo family.
Then came the Monteiros...
and, next, the Almeidas.
Next, came the de Souzas...
and, finally, the Domingos.
I feel like a Brazilian from Benin...
because I have a Brazilian predecessor.
My sisters and cousins try to dress Brazilian...
wearing lace dresses, slips...
They say the women there, if they are single, wear skirts...
down to their knees.
They are beaded skirts, covered with beads.
They're colorful, because she is single. And the back is naked!
We are practically African. We are very much like them.
By wearing dresses, putting up your hair...
wearing lots of ribbons, a band on your hat.
That is how you dress Brazilian, with pearls on your neck!
That is what we do on festive occasions!
The African-Brazilians who are here, in Africa...
don't really know what Brazil is like.
They have a vague memory of the whole thing.
I would even say they miss that old Brazil.
ILÊ AIYÊ'S PRESIDENT Today, you can observe...
that the children being born...
are being given African names.
People want to know what nation...
they come from: malê, banto.
An African who goes to Bahia feels like he is in Africa...
and asks, "Where am I?"
Africa?
It is a poor country, my son.
A poor country. Do you know what poor means?
Africa must be a good place. I've never been there...
but my roots are there. A black man has to like Africa.
For me, it is a great honor...
to know that the traditions of the kingdom of Abomey...
have stayed alive to this date, in Brazil...
thanks to our faithful children...
who went there in the past.
I think it is only the language and the ocean...
that separate the peoples.
Let's get rid of the ocean and see what happens.
UNlÃO DA ILHA SAMBA SCHOOL RIO DE JANEIRO
"FATUMBl: ISLAND OF ALL SAINTS"
Hello, my dear União da Ilha!
Come see!
Come see the percussion do its thing
Xirê, the parade is going to shake for Fatumbi Ojuobá
And with Jubiabá
And with the memory of Jubiabá changes his path
And comes this way
To make his the culture of Bahia And become the son
of Mãe Senhora
ACTOR I think Pierre Verger is...
Europe, fascinated by Brazil...
by all the madness in this country...
by the African-Brazilian culture...
by the African rhythms...
that are part of us all.
CARNIVAL PARADE EXPERT one of the great examples of our century.
It is with great love that I stand for Fatumbi...
in the opening car.
Come see the percussion do its thing
Xirê, the parade is going to shake for Fatumbi Ojuobá
Come shine
You acquired all this knowledge...
in Bahia and in Africa, but mostly in Africa, right?
Mostly in Africa.
And I wasn't interested, which is why I managed.
In life, when you are with a lady...
if you run after her, she'll leave you.
If you look the other way, she'll run after you.
It is the same with this knowledge.
It was that way?
He lived like a hermit, alone...
and very reserved.
His live was very, very reserved.
But he was also fun.
When he was comfortable, alone with me...
he was a boy! He would tell me stories.
And, when my father Caribé came over, Lord have mercy!
It was a riot!
The two of them were like boys!
Verger was a complex man.
He had a complicated childhood...
and had a tense relationship with his family.
All of that made him emotionally unstable.
When he first got to our house...
he was especially sad about his own life...
complaining about his Ioneliness, about not having a family:
"I haven't even eaten anything in two days".
When he said that...
my wife said to him:
"Professor, don't say a thing like that in my house.
Let's have lunch and dinner, if we have to".
"No, I don't want to eat anything. I'm not feeling well.
I would only eat something my mother used to make".
My wife insisted: "And what was that?"
"Something called painpardieux". Painpardieux.
"Say no more, because I know what you are talking about.
Here, in Bahia, we call it 'slice of heaven'...
and you will be eating it very soon."
"Slice of heaven" is something like French toast...
made of bread.
He ate one, two slices with his hands...
and, soon, he was all dirty and crying.
It was a very emotional moment.
That man was crying like a baby...
- That old man... - That old man.
A baby's cry! It was a regression.
It was a very tense moment in Verger's life...
but a very beautiful one, too.
He would eat "painpardieux", talk about his mother and cry.
You call him "father". A lot of people did.
What is that? What was his family, in your opinion?
- Who was the "family"? - It was the candomblé people.
He used to say about my aunt Massi:
"Ceci, Mãe Massi was...
the nicest one in the Casa Branca.
She was the nicest one."
There, he was given the "Asáelémassó"...
an important title in the house of Oxaguiam...
and, in Opô Afonjá he was Ojuobá...
a position that had been unfilled for many years.
He was also Ojérendê in Africa, did you know that?
He was Ojérendê.
- And he... - What does that mean?
- Tell me. - How shall I explain?
- You don't know what Ojé is? - Ojé?
The one who commands Baba Egun...
and has the right to speak to Baba Egun...
...and to hold the inxam. - The small rod.
That's right, the inxam.
It isn't a "small rod", kid, it's the inxam.
A family must pay homage to its dead.
And the dead show themselves to their descendants...
through spirits called Egungun.
The most impressive thing about Verger...
ANTHROPOLOGIST AND WRITER was the peaceful way...
he interacted with his surroundings.
He was always teaching respect for candomblé.
The babalaôs said, "You can only be a babalaô...
if you can keep secrets. Can you?"
He said, "I can".
They trusted him, and like Nestor says...
"If he had access to all the secrets...
is because he knew how to keep them."
We had to keep quiet.
We took an oath...
which exist to this day, but is no longer kept.
We get very curious to find out about things...
and there were no white people there...
just him.
I asked why they had accepted a white man...
in a freemasonry?
I was told, "because he scraped the bowl clean".
- I can't... - Only they know what that means.
I know, but I'm not allowed to tell.
What do you think of the accusations that he had revealed...
things about candomblé that could not be revealed?
Verger was discreet. He wrote what could be written.
Today, there are books that teach iaô making...
how to shave her, how to paint her.
So, the value of the orixá is getting lost.
Mãe Stella, do you think Verger really believed in orixá?
I would say he did, towards the end.
He was a very rational man.
After having seen so many things...
he did believe a little.
Verger had a ritualistic relationship with candomblé.
He carried out all that, the rituals, all the tasks...
but he did not believe at all.
I didn't know there was a jackfruit tree here...
until, one day, Antônio came over to cut it.
He's a handyman.
He cut it, and asked:
"Ceci, do you know this leaf?" I said...
"It's jackfruit".
"And do you know why Fatumbi...
never let it grow?"
and I said, "Sure I do".
"And why is that?"
"Because he knows that when a jack fruit tree grows...
the lamins all stay underneath it."
- The lamins? - He knew that. Look: it never grew.
Look at the trunk.
He had it cut.
If he didn't believe, wouldn't he have let it grow?
I've heard that he didn't believe in orixá.
He believed most of all!
He really liked for us to believe.
He was always present at the celebrations.
He was always there...
even when he was very old, 90 years old.
But he always said that he didn't believe.
He said he didn't believe in anything, not even his own shadow.
He used to say, "I don't even believe in my own shaddow.
I don't believe in nothing whatsoever...
not even my shaddow."
What about the trance...
when an orixá enters a person's body?
To me, that does not really happen.
To me, that is a manifestation of a person's true nature...
a chance to forget everything...
that has nothing to do with you.
You become as you were before you learned all those stupid things...
about nationality and other behaviors.
Have you ever experienced that?
Unfortunately not, because I am a French rationalist fool.
No one has told me stories...
I am not a fool who believes in those things.
- It is very unpoetic and horrible. - I know, I know.
I've suffered greatly. I'd love to let myself go.
PIERRE FATUMBI VERGER DIED ON FEBRUARY 11, 1996
THE DAY AFTER THIS INTERVIEW
"The only conclusion I can come to...
Iooking at the years which I have lived...
is that, if I never knew exactly what I wanted...
I did, on the other hand, know what I did not want.
Therefore, by refusing to do whatever I did not like to do...
I somehow shaped my life...
without realizing it."
On the road from Lagos to Ibadan...
in Nigeria...
we suddenly ran into...
a lively procession...
with people singing, men, women, children singing...
playing drums...
And we drove through slowly...
getting people to open up a small passageway.
And we drove past the procession.
When we got to the front of it, we realized it was a funeral.
At the funerals of the "pais-de-santo" and "mães-de-santo"...
they sing the whole way.
The people walk along singing and, when the casket is lowered...
they sing some more.
After that, the whole homage ritual is done...
with song and dance. It is all very lively.
You must always give every deceased a minimum of attention
If the person is important Even more so
That is why we are here
To sing and celebrate the goodness of the deceased
Everything that happens in this life
Is fate's doing
Where is Verger's saint?
Fatumbi's?
When we die...
and leave this Earth...
there are certain rituals that must be carried out.
Which, as you know, is called axexê.
Then you know where the orixá is going...
if it wants to go with the person or not.
If it does, what happens?
You have to take it, along with the offerings.
- It goes along? - It goes along with the karma.
You can't keep what belongs to someone else, alive or dead.
- I offer you blood - Drink it!
It is blood! It is blood!
May the Lord receive the blood
Blood for the orixá.
My father died.
We will never see him again...
except when we die.
To know that a person has died and...
that his spirit has returned to Earth...
to bless you, to greet you...
to grant you your wishes and give you good advice...
if you are taking a wrong path, he will guide you to a better one.
That is beautiful and important.
What does lfá tell us about Fatumbi?
See if he is well.
If he still the same?
Fatumbi is dead.
How is he in the afterworld?
His soul rests in peace...
because he did what he was meant to do on Earth.
lfá says all is well.
They have met in the afterworld.
There, they get along as well as they did on Earth.
They have reached a new level.
The afterlife!
He's been seen. They have met him, there.
Sleep comes to the body
Death comes in sleep
Sleep comes to the body
Death comes in sleep
Hi! How are you? Are you okay?
- More or less. How are you? - I'm okay. Everything is fine.
I haven't to seen you in while!
DEDICATED TO LETíCIA MONTE
ADAPTED BY VIDEOLAR