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CULTURE-URUGUAY: Candombe, Llamadas Give Unique Touch to Carnival

Annalena Oeffner

MONTEVIDEO, Feb 9 2005 (IPS) - Once a year, hundreds of Uruguayans of mainly southern European descent paint their faces black and play the drums alongside their Afro-Uruguayan neighbours.

The crowd cheers for little girls and openly gay dancers in glittery costumes swaying to the Afro-Uruguayan rhythm of “candombe”, an offshoot of rhythms brought to this South American country by African slaves.

Socio-cultural integration is a central feature of the “llamadas” (or drum calls), the most important day of Montevideo’s carnival for the descendants of African slaves. But what attracts 40,000 people to watch the parade all night is mainly this: fun.

Carnival in Montevideo, the capital of a country of 3.2 million, lasts over a month, making it one of the world’s longest, and has distinct historical roots.

On the first Friday in February, the streets of Montevideo’s Sur and Palermo districts, the neighbourhoods that have traditionally been inhabited by black people, throb with the drum-beats of the three kinds of drums that are used by “tamborileros” to produce the candombe rhythm: piano, chico, and repique.

The groups move along the city streets past the rhythmically clapping spectators, many of whom are seated in temporary stands set up for the purpose.

Others pay high prices to local families to rent balconies and rooftop terraces along the street – with a traditional barbecue included in some cases, as well as an escape from the constant rain of confetti.

A sign on one wall protests the setting up of stands, calling for “authentic llamadas”, to allow the non-paying public more standing room.

Seats in the stands range in price from 50 to 125 pesos (around two to five dollars).

The llamadas follow a strict pattern. The 36 groups performing candombe – called “comparsas” – that competed this year comprised up to 150 members each, and most emerged from specific neighbourhoods. Their names, like Lumumba, Mi Morena, Biafra and Candombe Aduana, are announced on large banners.

Like all of the characters, the standard-bearers (“portabanderas”) are an obligatory part of every comparsa.

Carrying gigantic flags that are quite heavy together with the flagpoles, the men (and a few women) walk with some effort along the street, swinging the flags just above the heads of the applauding onlookers, giving the impression to the uninitiated that they are about to be beheaded, as the flags sometimes chop leaves and entire branches off nearby trees.

Some, like the portabanderas of the comparsa “C1080”, which originally emerged in a tenement mostly occupied by poor black families, even balance the flags on their chins, while the wheelchair-bound portabandera of “Los Chin Chin” waves his orange-red-black flag just as passionately as the ones who spin their bodies on the street, performing what looks sort of like a break dance even as they swing their flagpoles.

Next in line come sculptures of stars and the moon on poles, representing the animistic traditions of African ancestors, and the worship of nature and the elements. Meanwhile, the “escobillero” (broom man) dances and twirls a headless broomstick.

The owners used to give slaves their cast-off clothes, which were far better than their own, and were used on special occasions only. The “mama vieja” (old mama), still wears a wide colonial-era hoop dress and bonnet and carries a fan in the parade.

Despite the mama vieja’s large size, she dances enthusiastically with the “gramillero” (herb or medicine man), who is dressed in a top hat and tailcoat, wearing glasses and a long, white fake-looking beard.

Without bending his knees, this stiff-looking personification of the tribe’s elderly medicine man performs impressive dances, with his stick and bag in hand.

Even young children form part of a comparsa: little boys who timidly beat their drums, and small girls who do a great job of imitating the adult dancers: Rows of women in scanty sparkling costumes who move their bodies at great speed to the rhythm of the drums.

They are led by the vedettes, the main dancers, some of whom wear a metre-high feather headdress.

The dancers and vedettes are the only non-original characters in the group, having been incorporated in the 1950s.

The backbone of the comparsa is formed by the lines of forty to seventy “tamborileros” who hammer the drums, the streams of sweat running down their faces a testimonial to their hard work, while blood can be spotted on the odd hand or drum. This year, even Public Health Minister-designate María Julia Muñoz mistreated her hands as a member of “Al Toque Cardal”.

About 20,000 registered slaves were brought to Uruguay starting in 1750, with many more illegally smuggled across the borders. The majority were Bantus from West and equatorial Africa. Few of their rituals survived oppression by the dominant culture, and candombe became a way of keeping African traditions alive and channelling the values and cultural heritage of blacks in Uruguay.

Over time, slaves began to form comparsas, and these were gradually incorporated into the traditional carnival celebration.

The first written testimony of “lubolos” – white people who paint their faces black – participating in the comparsas dates back to 1872.

Many of the comparsas carry names of African countries, like Senegal, Cameroon and Rwanda.

The traditional dress of the first lubolos is still worn by the tamborileros: canvas sandals tied with white laces that wind up to the knees, black stockings, baggy knickerbocker-type trousers (“bombachín”) and a long vest.

In 1956, blacks and lubolos were given their own parade, the llamadas, during the month of carnival.

Slavery was banned in Uruguay in the mid-19th century.

In this country with practically no indigenous people and strong integration of the six percent of Uruguayans who are of African descent, what racial prejudice there may be is very subtle.

However, Romero Rodríguez of the organisation Mundo Afro (Afro World) says racism is clearly reflected by the 20 percent income gap between white and black families, the disproportionate prevalence of dark skin colour in Uruguay’s prisons and slums, and the absence of black business people, politicians, government officials and holders of decision-making positions in trade unions or civil society organisations.

By the end of this month, when the left-wing Broad Front alliance assumes power at a national level for the first time, led by President-elect Tabaré Vázquez, Edgardo Ortuño, the first-ever black lawmaker (although there have been black alternates) will have completed one parliamentary term.

In Rodríguez’s words, Ortuño “put some colour into parliament” for the first time in Uruguayan history.