{"id":25826,"date":"2015-12-14T11:56:45","date_gmt":"2015-12-14T14:56:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=25826"},"modified":"2015-12-18T08:54:39","modified_gmt":"2015-12-18T11:54:39","slug":"pedra-do-sal-quilombo-celebrates-ten-years-with-procession-and-bid-at-world-heritage-status","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=25826","title":{"rendered":"Pedra do Sal Quilombo Celebrates Ten Years with Procession and Bid at World Heritage Status"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas\"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

A ceremony was held on Saturday, December 12 at Pedra do Sal<\/a> in the Port Region<\/a> to celebrate ten years since the site was recognized<\/a> for its historic importance as a quilombo<\/a>, home to the descendants of enslaved Africans brought to Brazil.<\/p>\n

The ceremony, known as the Balaio das Yab\u00e1s and held by the Association of the Remaining Quilombo Community of Pedra do Sal (ARQPEDRA)<\/a>, simply known as the Pedra do Sal Quilombo<\/a>, began with a breakfast and a Candombl\u00e9<\/a> ritual\u00a0at the historic site.\u00a0Drummers from the Filhos de Gandhi<\/a> group then led a procession of residents and supporters around the Cais do Valongo<\/a> and finally to Pra\u00e7a Mau\u00e1<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Filhos<\/a><\/p>\n

The festivities came at a symbolic\u00a0time for Pedra do Sal. As well as the formal recognition of the Pedra do Sal Quilombo ten years ago by the Palmares Cultural Foundation<\/a>, the federal government institution charged with the preservation of Afro-Brazilian culture<\/a>, the group was celebrating the 31st anniversary of Pedra do Sal\u2019s recognition as a historic and religious monument by the Rio de Janeiro State Institute of Cultural Heritage (INEPAC)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The area is where enslaved Africans\u00a0disembarked in Rio de Janeiro before being traded. In Rio alone, two million slaves were brought into the country.\u00a0Pedra do Sal means “Salt Stone,” and is the site where salt and Africans\u00a0were traded during Brazil’s brutal slave trade<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The area is also widely recognized as\u00a0the birthplace of samba<\/a>.\u00a0Early\u00a0figures in the history of samba such as Pixinguinha<\/a>, Jo\u00e3o de Baiana<\/a>, Donga<\/a> and Sinh\u00f4<\/a>\u00a0composed and played there, a fact which is recognized by the Sal do Samba<\/em> project of the Pedra do Sal Quilombo, in homage to the area’s afro-cultural\u00a0history. Also in recognition of this history, a weekly\u00a0samba circle<\/a>\u00a0focusing on traditional sambas still plays there on Monday and Friday nights.<\/p>\n

\"Pedra<\/a><\/p>\n

The\u00a0Pedra do Sal Quilombo jointly with the nearby Cais do Valongo<\/a> slave market and the New Blacks Cemetery<\/a>, site of the largest slave cemetery in the Americas, have together applied to have the region\u00a0listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The candidacy has been presented to UNESCO by IPHAN. The application’s outcome will be announced in 2016.<\/p>\n

The importance of this area in the Port Zone of downtown Rio\u00a0is increasingly being recognized<\/a> by the authorities and the international community alike. Just during the hours of Saturday\u2019s ceremony, Pedra do Sal was visited by four\u00a0different tour groups totaling some 100 people, a\u00a0combination of foreign and local tour groups.<\/p>\n

Yet for the community who lives there, more could be done as the Port Zone undergoes an ambitious regeneration program<\/a> ahead of the Olympics<\/a> next year, which has included the reopening of Praca Mau\u00e1 itself and the investment of big companies in the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are demanding a public policy from the Brazilian state,\u201d said Dami\u00e3o Braga, President of ARQPEDRA.\u00a0\u201cThe law says it is the responsibility of the state to preserve the area’s\u00a0heritage, but they haven\u2019t done anything, other than putting a plaque to say\u00a0\u2018Pedra do Sal.\u2019 We see it as institutional racism<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s event was a testament to how strongly the community and its sense of identity have survived despite a history of\u00a0negligible\u00a0official support.<\/p>\n

\"Procession<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas A ceremony was held on Saturday, December 12 at Pedra do Sal in the Port Region to celebrate ten years since the site was recognized for its historic importance as a […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":25850,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1267,1290,1333,329,1329],"tags":[662,772,1500,170,188,5,1036,148,146,1899,1347,450,1189,571,279,194,541,540],"writer":[1185],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-25826","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gentrificationwatch","8":"category-civilsociety","9":"category-event-reports","10":"category-solutions","11":"category-by-international-observers","12":"tag-afro-brazilian-culture","13":"tag-cais-do-valongo","14":"tag-candomble","15":"tag-historic-preservation","16":"tag-history","17":"tag-olympics","18":"tag-pedra-do-sal-quilombo","19":"tag-port-region","20":"tag-porto-maravilha","21":"tag-praca-maua","22":"tag-pretos-novos","23":"tag-quilombo","24":"tag-racism","25":"tag-samba","26":"tag-slavery","27":"tag-tourism","28":"tag-unesco","29":"tag-world-heritage","30":"writer-beth-mcloughlin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25826"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=25826"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=25826"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=25826"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=25826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}