Whereas the head crusher, the heretics’ fork, the rack etc. represent a few of the rather nasty things inspired by religion, Carnaval is an altogether more pleasant manifestation of ‘religious’ fervor. Although Carnaval may have been co-opted from heretical Roman festivals such as Saturnalia and Bacchanalia, the Catholic Church thankfully decided to incorporate a little pagan hedonism into traditional dogma. I guess you can’t burn them all. Or perhaps, the church agreed with the Brazilian author Jorge Amado who described Carnaval as “a month and a half of frolicking and merrymaking, of endless celebration because no one should have to tolerate the harshness of life uninterrupted for a whole year.” Either way, Carnaval arrived in the New World, and then got mixed up with the Indian and the African and transformed into something very Latin American.
... read more
