ttp://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2004/03/26/brazils_ka lunga_honor_dead_slave_ancestors/
Brazil's Kalunga Honor Dead Slave Ancestors = March 26, 2004
By Axel Bugue
Kalunga, Brazil (Reuters) - Cut-off from the outside world for centuries, the Kalunga community of descendants of runaway slaves living on the high plains of central Brazil have honored their dead like few can claim to have done.
The story of the 4,000-strong Kalunga community begins with the brutal transport of their ancestors on slave ships to Brazil from their native Angola and Congo.
In their old language, Kalunga was the name of the God of the dead or the God of the sea -- an association linked to the sea as a place of the dead over which the slaves were taken, never to return home.
But the Kalunga did not die.
Instead, some three centuries ago they began to flee the gold mines of central Brazil where they worked as slaves, hiding in the caves and valleys in the mountainous brushland 250 miles north of where the capital Brasilia was founded 43 years ago.
There, on the dry scrubland not unlike the African interior their ancestors left behind, they built mud huts and began subsistence farming and developed unique traditions, mixing African ceremonies and Catholicism.
They also confronted the region's Canoeiro Indians, who with time they befriended and even married.
Now the Kalunga are Brazil's largest community of runaway slave descendants, or Quilombos, in this country that imported more African slaves than any other. More than 700 such communities exist in Brazil.
"We have a human debt which we can't pay off," said Eduardo Coimbra Passos, mayor of Cavalcante, the municipality where the Kalunga live. "In Cavalcante there are thousands of Kalunga waiting to enter the 21st century."
The isolation of the Kalunga was such that when an anthropologist first entered the region in 1982 there were people there who still thought Brazil had slavery. Brazil abolished slavery in 1888 -- the last country in the Americas to do so.
Repaying some of Brazil's debts to its African descendants, who still suffer gross discrimination and exclusion, is what President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva hoped to do when he became Brazil's first head of state to visit the Kalunga this month.
About half of Brazil's 175 million people are black, but they are at the bottom of most of the country's social statistics.
In a ceremony filled with symbolism, Lula handed the Kalunga the title to their land and announced the extension of electricity to the region, improved medical services and the opening of schools.
'TIME OF SEGREGATION IS OVER'
The dirt track, which along with the region's rivers was the only point of access to the Kalunga, was repaired.
"The time that descendants of Quilombos were segregated is over," said Lula. "I feel honored with the dignity that you already gained."
But accustomed to the hardship and isolation of living off the land in an area infested with snakes, the Kalunga may not be in a hurry to change their way of life.
And, contrary to the beliefs of some, the Kalunga have had a taste of the outside world through trading with nearby farming settlements, according to Ivana Leal, who works for a local black rights group.
Some, such as the family of Sebastiao Junior, have even moved from the outback to the town of Cavalcante, allowing the 15-year-old boy to go to school.
Junior traveled in the rear of a truck back to his village on the day that Lula visited and it was clear what he wanted to do when he finishes school.
"We are used to this place, that's why I want to return," he said under the blistering sun. "I do not know the city, things will improve here, Lula is helping us a lot."
Their biggest struggle in recent years has been winning the right to their land. When Lula handed over the title, they won the right to expel encroaching farmers and to push out illegal miners in the mineral-rich region.
As descendants of slaves, formal ownership of the land meant everything.
"This land was always ours," said Jose dos Santos Rosa, 50.
Even as the rudimentary elements of modernity come with electricity, schools and the road, the rich, original traditions of the Kalunga harking back to their ancestors are still alive and well.
The respect for the dead is among the strongest. For instance, many in the community say they have seen what they call a 'suffering spirit' of the dead, which will only depart if you light a fire.
Another practice is the giving of a child to the moon. This ritual is carried out seven days after a baby is born and involves the raising of the child over a fire in the direction of the moon, protecting it from snake bites and other threats.
But the Kalunga are Catholic, mixing folklore traced to Africa with Christianity at feasts honoring local saints, where prayers are still sung in Latin or old Portuguese.
The traditions form a rich, unique thread of history through Brazil's dark slavery times and the Kalunga seem intent on keeping them alive, honoring their ancestors in their struggle for freedom.
"Quilombos are symbols of the resistance to slavery in Brazil," said Matilda Ribeiro, the government's secretary of racial equality, who herself is black. "We cannot continue neglecting this part of Brazil's history."
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