The beginning of a prank
Carnival originated from the ancient Roman and Greek New Year ceremonies. In the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church wanted to suppress all pagan ideas but failed to cancel Carnival, so it included it in its calendar, known as Thanksgiving. In Europe, especially Portugal, people celebrate by throwing up their companions and wearing masks and dancing in the streets. Later Portugal brought the tradition to colonial Brazil. However, some people believe that the Brazilian Carnival is different from the traditional Carnival and may originate from the worship of native culture by black Africans in Brazil. Others believe that it may be a mixture of African and Iberian cultures.
Initially, in the three days before Ash Wednesday (equivalent to the last Wednesday in February in the Gregorian calendar), people wearing masks poured into the streets and threw rotten eggs, flour and disgusting smelling food at each other. water. The Portuguese liked this kind of prank, and the local black slaves in Brazil also participated. They painted their faces white with flour, borrowed old clothes and hair covers from their masters, and played crazily for three days. Many slave owners also gave slaves three days of freedom. They thank their masters for their kindness and generally do not take the opportunity to escape.
A woman changed Carnival
On January 22, 1840, the proprietress of this Italian restaurant distributed invitations, hired musicians, decorated the restaurant with ribbons, and prepared Confetti and a large group of people came here to dance the polka dance popular in the New World. This style of dance lasted until 1846. At that time, the artist CLARA DEL MASTRO, who had just returned from Europe, brought a group of theater actors, and they held a masquerade ball in a theater that was very popular in Italy at that time. Later, people liked this method very much and imitated it in other theaters. A few years later, the masquerade became more and more popular, and wealthy families who initially stood aside and watched also joined the ranks of masquerade dancers. The pranks on the streets disappeared. In 1879, a dance advertisement read: Morning dance from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., accompanied by symphony band, tickets 1,000 reais (REIS) per person, afternoon dance from 5 to 9 p.m., location in George Square (GEORGEOUS) SQUARE), evening performances from 9pm to dawn the next day.
Cross-racial and cross-class cultural fusion
At the costume party of NINICHES Club, people used African AGOGO drums and metal percussion instruments favored by black Brazilians for the first time. . Later, the costumed character image created by the local blacksmiths and quarrymen was a great success. This was a masked man playing a large African drum and a mustache. The most beloved image is the "Uncle ZE PEREIRA" that everyone knows. In fact, the uncle just represents the cheerful Brazilian mood during the festival. Zepereira's song quickly spread across the country and became the representative song of the Brazilian Carnival that year. The lyrics roughly mean: "You are a kind-hearted person, long live Zepereila! For today's carnival, we will get drunk and get off, long live!" Carnival was originally a major Catholic festival, usually in mid-to-late February every year Held for three days, it has now been changed to start on Saturday, Saturday, Sunday and next Monday and Tuesday, with a national holiday of 4 days. For more than a hundred years, Brazil's Carnival has absorbed black music and dance, and has gradually transformed from a farce and a luxurious masquerade of the upper class into an event where people from all walks of life participate and share together. A lively and lively celebration. Its original religious atmosphere has been diluted instead. It has become a unique traditional festival in Brazil, a folk festival. Today's Brazilians have divided the year into two time periods: "before the holiday" and "after the holiday", which is somewhat similar to the impact of the Chinese Lunar New Year on the Chinese.