The songpoems within the Congado

an oral literature of black identity and resistance

Abstract

This article intends to analyze the expressitvity of the songpoems within the congados, specifically in the Mozambique area in Oliveira, Minas Gerais; given the importance of preserving the black ancestrality coming from the transatlantic experience and of reconstructing the Afro-Brazilian identity. It is (and was) through the singing and the story telling of the congado that the blacks manage to preserve the ancestrality with the interaction of the living and the dead, as occurs in the African culture. The bodies in movement in the rituals of the Rosary Festivity take on performance movements since they are part of the congado, which are dances at Sunrise, raising of masts, crowning of kings and queens, procession of the congos and all the rituals with regard to the sacred.