Decolonial Brazil: other stories

It consists of artistic and textual interventions in the long-term circuit of the MHN, with provocations and proposals for other readings on themes and objects related to the African Diaspora in the history of Brazil told by the MHN.

Seventeen interventions were carried out along the long-term exhibition circuit at the MHN, launching problematic perspectives and creating new possibilities for reading. 

Among them, we chose Maria Cambinda as the mark of this exhibition, due to her journey inside the Museum: from an allegorical illustration of the African continent, it now occupies its proper place, representing black protagonisms in Brazil.

Object of the aphrodiasporic culture of the Minas Gerais city of Ouro Preto, it lost space and identity in the institution to the point where we believed that it was no longer in the MHN.

This exhibition aims to share with the public a little about the history of this doll, which is also a mask and became a sculpture. 

The room's name not only paid homage to the then mayor of the City of Rio de Janeiro, federal district, but above all to his father, Antônio da Silva Prado, an abolitionist politician from the Empire, who worked in the drafting of abolitionist laws.

Maria Cambinda appears in the photo of the room, which was actually a small passage hall, but is not mentioned in the report. Maria Cambinda is seen in profile, to the right of the image, on the living room floor.

In the Tourist Guide Rio de Janeiro and surroundings, published in 1939, this room appears under the name of “Luís Gama Room”, a black abolitionist intellectual, who as a lawyer freed more than 500 slaves.

There is a detailed description of the objects displayed in this “small hall”,  but the described doll does not appear identified as Maria Cambinda.

Maria Cambinda was in this commemorative exhibition, according to the image reproduced in the article of the newspaper Diário de Notícias, on September 29, 1971. 

However, she seems invisible since the headline only talks about the instruments of torture and the image's caption tries to deny racism existing in Brazil: “The black race has been so mixed up in Brazil that almost everyone has a little of it in their blood.This contribution certainly avoided racial discrimination in our country”. 

Nothing was said about Maria Cambinda in the article.

With 110cm in height and 21cm in width, the mask has a hole below the waist, which must have been made to better fit the face of the wearer.

After all, the doll probably went out to the street accompanied by players and dancers passing from door to door, begging for alms and talking about the feast of the Reign of Our Lady of the Rosary of the Blacks at Ouro Preto.

The bust of the mask was painted a lighter color than the wood, making a slight contrast with the underside.

This is an indication that the underside of the mask was hidden behind a cloth or straw garment that decorated the doll and also concealed the player's face.

And so, we place ourselves in front of the sacred and the profane that can be present in the uses of Maria Cambinda in the festivities of the Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary of the Blacks of Ouro Preto.

More than an allegory to the African continent, Maria Cambinda is a vestige of the history of resistance to slavery, solidarity and sociability of the black people of Ouro Preto, who worked in the Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary of the Blacks of Ouro Preto.  

There, they found health care and funerals, as well as the chance of liberation through mutual help to buy manumissions.