From: Sherman Rootberg
Date: Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 4:48 PM
Subject: Saturday, February 23, 2008
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Parantins, Brazil
Just another weird little town on the river. Less population then three million does not get you city status in Brazil. This place is just considered a town. About one hundred thirty thousand. But just because it is small by Brazilian standards, does not mean it is short on weird.
Its big claim is a huge carnival like festival they have here. During carnival the population doubles but no one has thought to build a hotel yet. All the visitors must camp out.
You think the carnival in Rio is a little nutz? It is almost reasonable
compared to this nut fest. I don’t know if you want to read about the history of this thing, nor do I care much, but here it is anyhow. Pay attention, there will be a quiz later.
First off you must remember, these folks are a mixture of Portuguese, Spanish, Indian and African Slave. The Indian and African part is still not completely sure or comfortable with the
Catholic religion or customs. They still have shaman (witch doctors). In Manaus, the shaman was the guy that knew all about all the plants and which ones to use for which ailment. Even in the big cities, they have not given up old beliefs.
So here is the story of how it began. Many, Many moons ago there was this queen. She was really prego and about to burst. She had a terrible craving for ox tongue, but only the tongue of the king’s prize bull. Being a wimp, El Kingo says, okay, kill the sucker so Queeny can have the tongue.
This was a very beloved bull and it’s death made the people very sad. So they went to the shaman and asked what they could do to get back their beloved bull.
Okay, so it sounds like a bull story. It sounds like a bunch of bull to me too, but I didn’t write the bull story this time. I am just repeating it. Wait. It gets worse.
The shaman says that the only way to bring back their beloved
bull is to have a very happy festival and do happy dances with smiling faces. They had a very large festival with many dancers and sure enough the bull came back to life. And the bull was so happy to be alive and so happy the people had resurrected him, he danced along with them. That’s about all the bull I can take but it goes on.
These festivals got bigger and bigger and soon the Church had to stick their noses in. All the people including the police were joining
in and there was no order. Actually, the Church decided the people were having too good a time and that had to be stopped. Of course it was also considered too pagan and uncontrolled by the church. So the church came up with new rules. This festival would take place in front of the church and it would become a competition. There would be two groups of dancers. The white bull dancers and the black bull dancers. I know. More bull. Today, that is what is happening. It is a huge carnival held in a stadium that holds 80,000. The costumes, dancers, and floats rival the carnival in Rio even though on a smaller scale. At the end of the dances, now the people vote for who was the best. No longer the Church.
There was a much smaller, much shorter version of this carnival, preformed for us today. I was feeling crappy but Bobbi went. She says it was really amazing. The costumes were not be believed. The dancing was terrific. The girls were all beautiful and let it all hang out. I guess I will have to make due with her pictures. She did buy a DVD in Portuguese of the real carnival, called Boi Bumba. I looked at it but it was mostly a fat guy sweating and looking like a pig while singing. He must have been a very important sweating pig type person because he wore very dark cool dude sun glasses. There were very few shots of scantily
dressed womens, so it lost my interest quickly even though there were some really nice costumes and huge caricatures of many of the Amazon animals. The DVD was not a total waste though. It did put me right to sleep.
Date: Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 4:48 PM
Subject: Saturday, February 23, 2008
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Parantins, Brazil
Just another weird little town on the river. Less population then three million does not get you city status in Brazil. This place is just considered a town. About one hundred thirty thousand. But just because it is small by Brazilian standards, does not mean it is short on weird.Its big claim is a huge carnival like festival they have here. During carnival the population doubles but no one has thought to build a hotel yet. All the visitors must camp out.
You think the carnival in Rio is a little nutz? It is almost reasonable
compared to this nut fest. I don’t know if you want to read about the history of this thing, nor do I care much, but here it is anyhow. Pay attention, there will be a quiz later.First off you must remember, these folks are a mixture of Portuguese, Spanish, Indian and African Slave. The Indian and African part is still not completely sure or comfortable with the
Catholic religion or customs. They still have shaman (witch doctors). In Manaus, the shaman was the guy that knew all about all the plants and which ones to use for which ailment. Even in the big cities, they have not given up old beliefs.So here is the story of how it began. Many, Many moons ago there was this queen. She was really prego and about to burst. She had a terrible craving for ox tongue, but only the tongue of the king’s prize bull. Being a wimp, El Kingo says, okay, kill the sucker so Queeny can have the tongue.
This was a very beloved bull and it’s death made the people very sad. So they went to the shaman and asked what they could do to get back their beloved bull.Okay, so it sounds like a bull story. It sounds like a bunch of bull to me too, but I didn’t write the bull story this time. I am just repeating it. Wait. It gets worse.
The shaman says that the only way to bring back their beloved
bull is to have a very happy festival and do happy dances with smiling faces. They had a very large festival with many dancers and sure enough the bull came back to life. And the bull was so happy to be alive and so happy the people had resurrected him, he danced along with them. That’s about all the bull I can take but it goes on.These festivals got bigger and bigger and soon the Church had to stick their noses in. All the people including the police were joining
in and there was no order. Actually, the Church decided the people were having too good a time and that had to be stopped. Of course it was also considered too pagan and uncontrolled by the church. So the church came up with new rules. This festival would take place in front of the church and it would become a competition. There would be two groups of dancers. The white bull dancers and the black bull dancers. I know. More bull. Today, that is what is happening. It is a huge carnival held in a stadium that holds 80,000. The costumes, dancers, and floats rival the carnival in Rio even though on a smaller scale. At the end of the dances, now the people vote for who was the best. No longer the Church.There was a much smaller, much shorter version of this carnival, preformed for us today. I was feeling crappy but Bobbi went. She says it was really amazing. The costumes were not be believed. The dancing was terrific. The girls were all beautiful and let it all hang out. I guess I will have to make due with her pictures. She did buy a DVD in Portuguese of the real carnival, called Boi Bumba. I looked at it but it was mostly a fat guy sweating and looking like a pig while singing. He must have been a very important sweating pig type person because he wore very dark cool dude sun glasses. There were very few shots of scantily
dressed womens, so it lost my interest quickly even though there were some really nice costumes and huge caricatures of many of the Amazon animals. The DVD was not a total waste though. It did put me right to sleep. 
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