Oral Tradition and Cultures in Dialogue: Ondjango Angolano and Jongo da Serrinha

Abstract

This chapter explores the origins of Ondjango Angolano as part of an oral and circle gathering tradition, the relocation of this cultural tradition by the estimated three and a half million enslaved Africans throughout the nearly 300-year period of the slave trade to Brazil, and the influence and legacy of the coffee plantations in the Paraíba Valley region of Brazil on the new form of battle poetry tradition, Jongo da Serrinha, which blossomed due to/despite the harsh reality of plantation life. Owing to a renewed interest in the cultural memory traditions of present-day Quilombos, former Brazilian maroon settlements, by academics in and outside of Brazil alike in recent years such as Pedro Meira Monteiro and Michael Stone with Congama Calling (2013) and Silvia Hunold Lara and Gustavo Pacheco with Memória do Jongo (Memory of Jongo) (2007), the resurfacing of wire recordings of enslaved Africans carried out by Stanley J. Stein in 1949 on the Vassouras coffee plantation in the Paraíba Valley of Brazil, and the decision of the Brazilian Institute of Historic and Artistic National Patrimony to name Jongo da Serrinha as a National Cultural Patrimony, this chapter aims to contribute to current research by taking a Trans-Atlantic and comparative approach to analyzing this rich oral, musical, and dance tradition of the African Diaspora.