1 “The Professional Bahiano”: Herskovits Internationalising Brazilian Scholars⁵

Mel and Ramos started corresponding in December 1935. Mel reacted enthusiastically to the publications he had received from Ramos: he could recognize in the pictures of the Candomblé altar several objects almost identical to those he had seen in Haiti. There followed a nearly frantic exchange of books. Mel quoted Ramos and Carneiro extensively in his paper to the second Afro-Brazilian Congress. In 1936, MJH teased out to Ramos what would be the core of his future fieldwork in Brazil:

… have wondered if it might not be worthwhile to pay some attention to other than the religious aspects of Brazilian Negro culture. I realize that isolating African elements in such phases of New World Negro behaviour is more difficult than it is in religious life. However, I found both in Haiti and Guiana, as students of mine have recently found in the Virgin Islands, Martinique and Jamaica, that there are many phases of the economic and social life which are as African as their religious beliefs.⁶

Later in 1936, Ramos introduced Édison Carneiro’s work to MJH as the work of his disciple. Books were exchanged regularly. Among them were Suriname Folklore, Life in a Haitian Valley, Dahomey, Acculturation, Economic Life of Primitive People and the paper “The Significance of West Africa for Negro Research” for O Negro Brasileiro, Estudos Afro-Brasileiros I and II and the paper “As Culturas Negras no Novo Mundo”. Both scholars pledged to promote one another in the US and Brazil. Ramos lent MJH several images from his O Negro Brasileiro for a new publication in French.⁷ MJH also asked Ramos to provide questions relevant to Brazilians for his student William Bascom, who was going to Oyo and Ife for research.⁸ On August 17, 1937, Ramos sent Mel a list of ten questions about the Yoruba for Bascom, who he called “your disciple”. The questions are revealing of Ramos’ curiosity and preference for Yoruba over elements of what was then called Bantu cultural survivals:

1. What is the percentage of people who speak Yoruba in Nigeria?

2. Has Yoruba remained pure or deformed by cultural contact (with other neighbouring languages)?

3. What is the extent of the written literature (e.g., in Lagos)? Are there any reading books in the Nagô language?

4. To what extent have religious cultures remained pure up to the present day?

5. Have the Yoruba myths been preserved in oral tradition to the present day?

6. Is it possible to assess whether there has been secondary contamination in religion and folklore due to commercial activities?

7. Do the famous tales of the tortoise cycle (awon) have a totemic origin?

8. Is Brazil still in the memories of the black people in Nigeria?

9. If so, does it survive in oral tradition?

10. I would like to have information about collections of tales, proverbs, and epigrams that survive today between the blacks of Nigeria.⁹

Soon Ramos would start asking for support from MJH: “I would like to spend one year close to your work, but alas, our cultural institution provides no funds for long travels”.¹⁰ MJH would try to have this arranged for Ramos and would eventually succeed. In turn, on April 11, 1939, MJH wrote to Ramos about a student of his, Joseph Greenberg, then in Northern Nigeria, who had plans to research the Male sect or what was left of it in Bahia. In January 1940, MJH inquired of Ramos about Landes’ behaviour in the field.¹¹

By the end of March 1940, Ramos and Mel shared the same wrong impressions regarding Landes’ work in Bahia and her report for the Carnegie-Myrdal project. Ramos was asked by Carnegie to review Landes’ report, entitled “The Ethos of the Negro of the New World”. After pointing to long rows of (significant) mistakes and inaccurate interpretations, Ramos’ review was caustic:

The work of Dr. Ruth Landes is affected by errors resulting from observing wrongly, sweeping statements, false conclusions concerning the magic and religious life of the Negro in Brazil. It is a pity that certain conclusions, such as over matriarchy and the control of religion by women in Bahia, and ritual homosexualism among Brazilian blacks are already circulating in the academic world and are even announced as part and parcel of future publications in technical journals. When published as the result of long-lasting observation and “fieldwork”, these statements can cause trouble and confusion for the honest and carefully controlled studies of the Negro personality in the New World.¹²

MJH helped Ramos to get a Rockefeller Grant to spend time in the US: “I think I have the man for you to try initiating the programme for Brazilian fellowship. It is Arthur Ramos”.¹³ On August 24, 1940, Ramos and his wife travelled to New Orleans for a one-year stay in the US. Until January 31, they would be based at Louisiana State University. For this, he received USD 4,000, high pay by any standard, according to MJH.¹⁴ The rest of the stay was covered by a relatively small Guggenheim Grant. It was a good deal, according to Herskovits, but in two letters Ramos asked for more support from Melville to be able to spend three months at Northwestern. Seemingly annoyed with this attitude by Ramos, who had also tried to get additional funds to travel to the North of the US from Louisiana, MJH wrote to Moe of the Guggenheim Foundation: “It would seem that either Ramos has the Uncle-Sam-the-millionaire stereotype pretty firmly in his mind, or he has been made a bit panicky by the cost of living in this country – even Louisiana – as compared to what he knows in Rio”.¹⁵ Furthermore, despite being altogether quite helpful, MJH, at some point, in a letter to the magazine Time, complained of being overwhelmed with requests for speakers and stated: “I am not a lecture bureau handling speakers on Latin America”.¹⁶

In 1941, before going to Brazil, Mel helped to organize a Ramos lecture tour through the US; Ramos would travel with his wife after spending a semester at Louisiana State. Ralph Linton had asked Ramos to give a lecture at Columbia. There Mel introduced him, among others, to Klineberg, Boas, Du Bois, Mead, Benedict, Elsie Clews Parsons, Ralph Linton, Carter Woodson and Kardiner. Not bad! Richard Pattee of the Department of State, who Ramos already knew and had just translated his O Negro no Brasil into English, would also help.¹⁷ Ramos would lecture at Howard University, too, where he met the historian Carter Woodson. Ramos acknowledged the lavish attention and wrote from Brazil, saying that he and his wife would welcome the Herskovitses on their arrival in Rio on September 10.¹⁸ Mel would keep corresponding with Ramos until his sudden death in 1949.

Antonio Sergio Guimarães’ scrutiny of this correspondence (2008a) adds a few interesting details – for instance, on the change of focus to cultures in Africa rather than African cultures in the Americas in the latter part of Mel’s career. Was this related to a certain lack of interest in pursuing his studies about black culture in Bahia, provoked by some inexplicable idiosyncrasy? Jerry Gershenhorn suggested, based on the information provided by Herskovits’ daughter, Jean, that some sort of superstition or fear of black magic played a key role.¹⁹ My interviews with Jean indicate something close to that (see Appendix 3).

Ramos’ sojourn in the US had a lasting effect on his professional identity. After he attended Herskovits’ seminar and familiarized himself with the North American anthropological scene, he felt he was an actual anthropologist. In turn, Herskovits’ meeting with Ramos opened doors to the Brazilian intellectual scene and Bahia’s “African” world (Guimarães 2008a:58). Guimarães maintains that, despite the equality established through each other’s expertise, this was an exchange between a medical doctor, who wrote (mostly in Portuguese) from his address using a typewriter, and an established professor, who replied (always in English)²⁰ from his university office, also using a typewriter but keeping carbon copies in his files. Looking at this exchange, the correspondence between these two scientists reveals Herskovits’ interest in obtaining data, information and knowledge about black people in Brazil, mainly through the books Ramos sent him. In contrast, if Ramos was at first motivated by a similar interest in North American black people, he quickly became interested in deepening his knowledge of the study of cultural anthropology by seeking a temporary position with Herskovits’ Northwestern University (Guimarães 2008a:60).

Melville’s relationship with José Valladares was of a different stock. The correspondence between the Herskovitses and José and Gizella Valladares is described earlier, in Chapter 1. Let me add here a few crucial details. Valladares dedicated to MJH his book, Museus Para o Povo, which was an edited version of his report for the RF for his thirteen-month grant. But Herskovits, even though supportive, did not seem much interested in museums: in his letters to Valladares, he was interested in Candomblé and the Brazilian social sciences community. In his writing to the RF in 1943–44, Mel showed great support for Valladares, even more than he did for Eduardo and Beltran. Valladares and Zezé were the principal connections to the world of Candomblé in Salvador (see Romo 2010:103). In their correspondence in 1943–54, as we have seen, Valladares repeatedly referred to Herskovits as “the babalorixá Mel”, a joking compliment. Valladares hung around Candomblé houses and was proud to introduce outsiders to cult-houses.²¹ Together with several other (non-black) intellectuals in Salvador, he was convinced of the cult-houses’ magical power and community function; they were not just a curiosity or an aspect of folklore. Still, he was not a believer.

René Ribeiro qualified as a doctor in 1936 and specialized in psychiatry. He was one of the first intellectuals in Recife to associate themselves with Gilberto Freyre (Motta 2007:39). His academic life was constructed with the help, and the limitations, of Freyre and Herskovits, in terms of funding for research and securing a teaching position. In the 1930s, Ribeiro became closely associated with the Recife School of Ulisses Pernambucano. In his first letter to MJH on March 15, 1944,²² he anticipated his future study on the amaziado. On April 15, MJH replied, stating his great interest in the research notes and asking permission to publish them in the American Journal of Sociology (Ribeiro 1945). Ribeiro, who wrote to him as amigo and signed his letters “your disciple and admirer”, supplemented information for Herskovits’ thesis on the organization of the black family: “I tested and the difference that Frazier sees between amaziado and viver maritalmente is entirely false”.²³ On August 21, Herskovits wrote back with some satisfaction: “It would be interesting to see what Frazier has to say about your findings” (Motta 2007; Hutzler 2014).

In 1949 Ribeiro obtained a Master’s in Social Sciences at Northwestern, with a dissertation on the Afro-Brazilian Cults in Recife, initially published in English and published in Portuguese in 1952. It was the first anthropological study of Xangô in Recife and, according to Roberto Motta (1978), is still the most thorough study of the subject. In his dissertation, Ribeiro focused on Xangô as a moment of acculturation, very much in line with Herskovits’ approach, and as a vital part of the pursuit of the psychological state of tranquillity in the mostly non-white lower classes of Recife (Motta 1978:xiii). Less focused on identifying supposedly pure African traits than his fellow psychiatrist Arthur Ramos would do in the same years in Bahia, Ribeiro’s study would heavily influence George Simpson’s study of Xangô in Trinidad (1965). Ribeiro would not pursue a PhD after that, the most likely reason being his heavy involvement in the creation and development of the Nabuco Foundation and Training Institute in Recife, where he tried hard, also with the support of Herskovits, to set up a project for the Institute to receive American PhD students in residence.²⁴ On December 12, 1954, the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation sent to MJH a project proposal for student and faculty exchange to the Institute of African Studies at Northwestern, offering visitors accommodation, a grant and local transportation for up to twelve months. MJH promptly responded that it would be challenging to get funding from their side for such exchange projects. As is detailed later, US institutions were more interested in Brazil as a “field station” than in establishing fertile exchange with Brazilian faculty and students that could empower Brazilian academia.²⁵

In November 1952, in concluding his collaboration with the Columbia/State of Bahia/UNESCO project, Ribeiro wrote a report on religion and race relations in Recife (1978 [1952]). Its primary conclusion, very much in line with Freyre’s views, was that racial prejudice existed in Brazil, but its harshness was softened by the intrinsic tolerance of Luso-Brazilian culture and the variant of Christianity that was dominant in Brazil.²⁶ In this publication, Ribeiro’s concept of racial etiquette appeared for the first time: a set of codes, the purpose of which was to weaken racial prejudice and sometimes turn it into euphemism (Motta 2014:172).²⁷

Ribeiro wrote to Mel giving detailed descriptions of the Brazilian academic context, Brazilian Anthropological Association meetings and concursos, as well as suggesting exchanges of books and projects to translate into Portuguese, such as Herskovits’ book, Cultural Anthropology (this was a suggestion first made by Darcy Ribeiro). This flow of information certainly added to Melville’s reputation among Brazilian academics.²⁸ On November 19, 1953, René Ribeiro reported positively on the first congress of the ABA. He also sent him information on São Paulo, the Museu Nacional and Thales de Azevedo. Ribeiro said that Thales had benefited a lot from his trip to the US but was quite sceptical of the methods of the (US) sociologists and anthropologists at work in Bahia.

In 1954, MJH was invited to the “Americanistas” conference in São Paulo and his expenses were paid for. He was then invited to give one or two lectures at the FUNDAJ (again, all costs were covered). On that occasion, he also gave a speech at the FFCH in Salvador, as a university guest. This was quite exceptional treatment, awarded only to critical scholars in those days.

In October 1954, René Ribeiro sent his paper “Problemática pessoal e interpretação divinatória dos cultos afro-brasileiro do Recife” (published in 1956) to MJH. Ribeiro was interested in psychological tests of spirit possession, especially the famous Rorschach test, to classify the stages of possession from more to less dissociation, liberation and functioning. It was a recurrent theme throughout the years. MJH passed the data collected by Ribeiro to psychiatrists from the Chicago area who were happy to interpret them. As Roberto Motta shows (2007), Ribeiro was very closely connected to Freyre and was one of the leading cadres of the FUNDAJ, as was Freyre.²⁹ Ribeiro was the only collaborator of the UNESCO research project in 1950–53 who did not adhere to the new, more conflictual paradigm sacramental in that project (Maio 2017). It must have been hard for Ribeiro to read the harsh reaction of Freyre to Herskovits’ review of his Um Brasileiro em Terras Portuguesas (Freyre 1953a) and Aventura e Rotina (Freyre 1953) in the Hispanic American Historical Review. Herskovits had written the review just after coming back from Portuguese East Africa, where he had had quite a bad impression of the Portuguese presence in what is today Mozambique. In “Um escritor se defende de um crîtico talvez injusto”, Freyre (1955) labelled Herskovits a romantic liberal.³⁰ The next week, MJH wrote to Ribeiro, saying that he was sorry that Freyre got so angry. My impression is that Herskovits was not fond of arguments with colleagues in public. Ribeiro and MJH continued to be friends until the end. In his last letter to René on record, Mel wrote: “I envy you being in Recife at carnival time and wish I were there too. One of these days I am determined to get back”.³¹

Another Brazilian who obtained his PhD in anthropology under Herskovits’ supervision was Ruy Coelho, who did fieldwork in Honduras among the Black Caribs and was possibly the first Brazilian to spend one solid year doing fieldwork for his PhD, as was normal in the US. Coelho published his thesis as a book and, later, his field diary (Coelho 2000). While studying for his PhD, he took on a teaching assistantship at the University of Puerto Rico, where he spent one year, and then secured a one-year contract with the social sciences department of UNESCO. He enjoyed this position very much. As he wrote to Herskovits, “I find it difficult to uproot myself from this exciting and dangerous city that is Paris. In São Paulo one must work since there is not much else to do”.³² Mel went out of his way to make it possible for Ruy to defend his thesis in São Paulo, benefiting from his presence at the International Americanists Congress in 1954. Mel invited Wagley, William Bascom and Fernando de Azevedo, head of the sociology department at USP, to participate in the examining committee. As Mel said in a letter to Bascom, it would be a reunion of good colleagues and, in some cases, friends.³³

Although Pierre Verger was never a student of Herskovits, when he settled in Salvador in the 1940s he established a working relationship with him similar to that of the young Brazilian scholars mentioned above. If Verger thus was not a disciple of Herskovits, he shared the same interest in African survivals in the New World and a particular predilection for Yoruba culture in the search for such survivals. Moreover, both scholars were convinced of the power of photography. Presenting African or Afro-Brazilian pictures and playing recordings of African or Afro-Brazilian music to informants and asking them to recognize images and tunes similar to their own was a powerful tool, used by the Herskovitses first and later by Verger. Both were important in consolidating the Bahia–Ketu/Yoruba connection. On December 25, 1948, Verger wrote from Dahomey to MJH, saying that “legends and proverbs I caught in Brazil are well known here. Rituals rather similar in certain cases.” “Similar” to Verger was “identical”.

On February 8, 1949, Verger added:

Some of the songs I brought to them from Brazil, especially from Recife, were well-known to them … I got in return a good stock of songs for the Babalorixás and Yalorixás of Brazil (…) In Ketou they were glad to see pictures of their “cousins” of Bahia and by the way, in Porto Novo, I found the descendant of the Gantois family back from Bahia last century.

The excitement of having found in Benin the real Aguda (descendants of returnees from Brazil) was mixed with the sense of a mission not unlike that of the Herskovitses. Verger started to see himself as the messenger of both shores of the Black Atlantic – through his pictures. There is more evidence of such feeling in the correspondence:

The approach with an exhibition of pictures of Brazil and West Indies African ceremonies gave excellent results and helped a lot to create a climate of confidence with the people visited. I believe the first time in this country that somebody came to give them information on their people sent abroad in the past and the little knowledge I acquired in the terreiros of Bahia was proof of my goodwill. … I got presents for the babalorixás of Bahia.³⁴

Additionally:

I am back now at Bahia, giving fresh news from Africa here around to our friends from Candomblé. I am rather well received and admitted among them due to the prestige of the pilgrimage in their fatherland. I hope that it will help get more accurate information and permit me to go deeper inside the questions in Africa where I intend to return within a year or two.³⁵

The possibility that both his whiteness and his status as a foreigner in Brazil and as a French citizen in colonial Africa added something special to his ethnographic authority and photographic gaze was not an issue Verger questioned in his writing. During his long and creative life, Verger managed to stay away from these often-acrimonious debates (Souty 2007).

In Brazil, Herskovits’ influences were most evident in Afro-Brazilian studies but they were not limited to this field. Some of his more academic books were read quite early, such as Acculturation: The study of culture contact (1938), and chapters such as “The processes of cultural change”, in Ralph Linton’s edited collection, The science of man in the world crisis (1945). Other works were translated early into Portuguese and were quite influential in the sixties and seventies. They were among the most consulted books in the UFBA library, which was relatively poor and received foreign books mostly when foreign donations were available, mainly from the RF and Fulbright.

The influence of MJH on the Brazilian social sciences and even on important intellectuals in the government, such as Darcy Ribeiro and Celso Furtado, in the 1960s and 1970s, was due to the popularity of two of his notions among Brazilian anthropologists such as Roberto Cardoso de Oliveira and Galvão: “acculturation” and “cultural focus”.³⁶ Of course, these two notions were pliable and open to local interpretation, if not “creolization”. Julio Campos Simões has analyzed this reinterpetation and here are some excerpts. “Acculturation”, for Darcy Ribeiro’s dependency theory:

The exchange produced by contacts and interactions between peoples has been designated in anthropology by the concept of acculturation (Herskovits 1938) (…) Herskovits (1938) says that when contact occurs spontaneously, people can exchange culture privileged by the freedom to choose what to adopt from the patrimony of others and the ability to produce by themselves the new elements adopted. When this contact occurs under different conditions of power or degree of technical development, the two conditions mentioned above are not satisfied, neither the freedom to choose what to adopt nor autonomy in the creative process. Darcy Ribeiro (1972) thus defines the configuration of a dependency process.

Simões 2019:13–14

“Cultural focus”, for Celso Furtado’s critique of development theory:

The acceleration of the development of material culture brings Furtado closer to the work of Herskovits (1945), an anthropologist who defends the idea that societies are moved by a dominant field of culture, a “cultural focus” that tends to be the dynamic core of changes, having repercussions on the whole. In Furtado’s words: “Studies of social change (…) have almost always led to the same conclusion that cultural dynamics derive from the particular behaviour of certain sectors. When we examine different cultures, says Prof. M. J. Herskovits, we realize that they differ not only with respect to their external form but also concerning the dominant concerns of their bearers.” This dominant field, Herskovits calls “cultural focus”, to state that “there is little doubt that the cultural focus in our modern society resides in the field of technology” (Furtado 1964:19). During his academic travels, Furtado personally met the anthropologist Melville Herskovits, during a visit to Northwestern University, who brought him closer to the study of cultural diffusion and would influence this phase of his work. He recorded: “Like other anthropologists of his generation, he was inclined to superimpose a ‘logic of culture’ on history, which led him to see innovation (and discovery) more as a response than a mutation. He was far from sliding into cultural determinism, but he emphasized the pre-existence of a ‘cultural base’, without which innovation would not be absorbed, nor would cultural change present itself in an orderly fashion” (Furtado 1985: 92).

Simões 2019: 26

2 The State of Bahia-Columbia University-UNESCO Project: The Beginning of a New Stage

Bahia has always and will continue to attract scholars in the social sciences for it is a natural laboratory for the study of human society … Today with its multiracial society which co-exists, in relative harmony, it has a lesson to teach the world (…) Bahia should be the home of one of the most vigorous schools and research institutes for the study of man in the New World.

Wagley and Wagley 1970:37–38

The social network and web of emotions, affection, enmities, saudade and, for many, ritual devotion to Candomblé described above paved the way for a set of successive stages in the representation, and in many ways construction, of Bahia as one of the ideal places to carry out ethnographic research in the New World, especially in the field of African survivals, racial hierarchies and African-Catholic religiosity. This also led to Salvador being revered as a somewhat magical place for anthropologists. Each of these successive stages was associated with a particular student exchange project which involved mostly anthropology and sociology departments in top-ranking US universities. I have singled out three such projects: the so-called UNESCO Brazil project (in reality the result of cooperation between the State of Bahia and Columbia University, which was soon joined and supported by the Social Sciences Division of UNESCO), which lasted from 1950 to 1953; the Columbia, Harvard, Illinois, Cornell Fieldwork project (1956–59); and the Undergraduate Interchange Project (1965–67).

All these projects were influential in cementing the status of Bahia as an ideal fieldwork location and in establishing new opportunities for the production of knowledge among the small but growing number of Bahia-based social scientists. Some scholars have analyzed the first project (Maio 1997, 1999, 2000 and 2009; Pereira and Sansone 2007) even though part of its documentation still deserves scrutiny. The other two projects would require a proper in-depth analysis, which I plan to do shortly, based on archival research in 2019 at the Rockefeller Archive Center and the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Columbia. In the following text, I render a general picture of these projects, measuring the effects of the relationship developed by the Herskovitses with Brazil and Brazilian scholars to develop the social sciences in Brazil, and foremost in Bahia.

The Director-General is authorized to organize in Brazil a pilot investigation of contacts between races or ethnic groups to determine the economic, political, cultural and psychological factors whether favourable or unfavorable to harmonious relations between races or ethnic groups.

Resolution of the 1951 General Assembly of the UN

Between 1947 and 1950, UNESCO developed several initiatives on race/racism, intolerance and cultural diversity, such as the Committee on Slavery of the Economic and Social Council, the plan to publish a series of books on humanity’s scientific and cultural history, and the Committee for the Statement on Race. Some of the best social scientists participated in these committees, some of whom circulated through Brazil: Métraux, Frazier, Herskovits and Bastide. This engagement shows the prestige enjoyed by UNESCO and the political momentum, which heightened the civic motivation of social scientists. Brazilians were quite present in these events – Paulo Carneiro, Arthur Ramos, Ruy Coelho, Luis Costa Pinto – which is why Brazil played a primary role in the first years of UNESCO, directly or indirectly.

Anisio Teixeira, Secretary of Education and Health of the State of Bahia (who had obtained a Master’s in education at Columbia in the 1920s)³⁷ asked Gizella Valladares (who in 1945 had received a MA in anthropology at Columbia, on Bahia folktales) to contact the University of Columbia to identify professors who were interested in joining the project he had in mind. Gizella suggested that Charles Wagley, who had been her professor, participate actively in the project. Wagley promptly accepted (Wagley and Wagley 1970). Gizella, who played a central place in preparing the project (Romo 2010:137), was a promising young scholar, as René Ribeiro had found out in 1945. She was still learning Portuguese but had great plans in terms of research and teaching and was already interested in expanding her research on folklore and collaborating with Ribeiro.³⁸ MJH also spoke highly of her.³⁹

The primary aim of the State of Bahia-Columbia University research programme in its initial stage was to identify cultural change, and factors and opportunities for modernization and industrialization, in the State of Bahia. The objectives were as follows:

1. To acquire a knowledge of rural society and culture in three ecological-cultural zones of Bahia; 2. To determine the effect of three different ecological settings on the similar Luso-Brazilian culture patterns which have developed within this one are of rural Brazil during the last 400 years; 3. To determine the changes in society and culture that have occurred in each zone within the last few years under the impact of new forms of economy, new technology, new ideology, and more modern transportation facilities; 4. To determine the dynamics of such changes in each zone and the differences and similarities in the process from one zone to another; 5. To determine what aspects of the present society and culture and the tendencies of change must be considered to plan and to efficiently administer educational and health programmes in the region.

Wagley, De Azevedo and Costa Pinto 1950: 37

The question of race relations was almost absent from the original research plan, with the partial exception of Harris’ project, in which the racial question was one of the central issues right from the start. That question would be added to each subproject after UNESCO joined the programme. Before the programme began, Métraux, a friend of Wagley’s, had read the project draft and travelled to Bahia. The couple of weeks he spent in Bahia, being assisted by Verger, convinced him that it was the right place for research on race relations (see Métraux 1978). He decided that it would be a good opportunity for the social sciences division of UNESCO to join and support the State of Bahia-Columbia University project. Large-scale research to support the antiracism action of UNESCO itself was, after all, part of the mission of the General Assembly declaration of 1950 (see above). It would be the beginning of a new stage in international exchange between the US and Bahia, a more advanced and complex one but still unequal.

Hence, several forces were at work in conceiving the State of Bahia-Columbia University-UNESCO project in Brazil: Anisio Teixeira’s modernizing project for the State of Bahia – in association with the creation of UFBA;⁴⁰ the Columbia department of anthropology project for fieldwork in Latin America; and, a little later, Métraux’s agenda for research on race relations in Brazil. In Métraux’s plans, the project was meant to empirically support the famous UNESCO Statement on Race which came out in 1950⁴¹ as a reaction to the Holocaust and the declaration of apartheid in 1948.⁴² Even though, as said before, the initial research plan was not focused on race relations but on community studies with an emphasis on factors for continuity or change (Wagley et al 1950), one of the driving ideas behind the research project ended up producing evidence that race relations could be harmonious (at least in Brazil). Central to this project were Alfred Métraux’s activities at UNESCO, which aimed at developing a global antiracist agenda. Eventually, the UNESCO effort proved to be a significant boost to Afro-Brazilian studies and, more generally, to the development and institutionalization of the social sciences in Brazil⁴³ in the 1950s (Maio 1999), which had started to consolidate only in the 1940s. For Columbia, it was a golden opportunity to develop fieldwork-sustained anthropology in the largest country in Latin America – a move in the direction of internationalization stimulated by the CCNY, the SSRC and, less directly, the US State Department. This move would later be broadened, incorporating senior undergraduate and graduate students in diverse projects. For Anisio Teixeira, it was part of a modernizing educational agenda and adjustment to social change and innovation.

To understand the complex and tripartite political agenda behind the State of Bahia-Columbia University project, the lengthy report sent by Métraux to Alva Myrdal on January 22, 1951 is helpful. The 1950 UNESCO Conference on Race, which generated the Committee that edited the Statement on Race, had suggested research on race relations in Brazil. Métraux worked hard to join the effort with Charles Wagley’s and Anisio Teixeira’s projects. He established the need for research on social mobility among people of colour in the city of Bahia (Salvador), while the rest of the research would result from fieldwork in the interior of Bahia. Rio de Janeiro would be included, for which Costa Pinto was indicated as the responsible researcher, and São Paulo, where Bastide and Florestan were indicated. Adding São Paulo to the whole project was necessary but increased tensions, as Métraux wrote:

I know that including São Paulo, with its racial tensions, in a research plan can take us to conclusions that are different from those mentioned [would say, wished!] in the 1950 UNESCO Resolution on Race, but it would be betraying the scientific character of the research leaving out SP.

Recife was added as yet one more location, mostly to appease Freyre, and René Ribeiro would take care of the fieldwork there focusing on race relations and Afro-Brazilian religion, and produce a report (Ribeiro 1956).

From the correspondence, especially that in the UNESCO archives in Paris, it is evident that UNESCO in the years 1948 to 1953 had embarked on an absolute frenzy in terms of initiatives, statements and plans for advancing ethnic-racial and cultural tolerance. It was certainly a period of great hope and excitement for the wave of decolonization that was on the horizon. Such frenetic activity was also the cause and result of a massive transnational network of connections, camaraderie and even friendship between scholars. Most of them were connected with Brazil, Bahia, and often with the Bahia Candomblé. They included Paulo Carneiro, Arthur Ramos, Ruy Coelho, René Ribeiro, Otto Klineberg, Roger Bastide, Pierre Verger, Melville Herskovits, Franklin Frazier, Charles Wagley, Thales de Azevedo, Anisio Teixeira and Alfred Métraux. Two were the most critical scholars in Bahia – the American Charles Wagley, who became the general coordinator, and the Bahian anthropologist Thales de Azevedo, the local coordinator and administrator. Wagley and De Azevedo would work together for about twenty years, from 1950 to 1970 (Wagley and Wagley 1970). It was meant to be a so-called win-win relationship, and it certainly was for those years, but it was also unequal.⁴⁴

Here are some examples of how the network functioned and how central and influential the scholars based in NY and Paris were compared to those based in Bahia:

My trip to Brazil was interesting and successful. I spent three weeks in Bahia, during which I visited many terreiros, attended several ceremonies and even found the time to visit the “sertao”, where young American anthropologists, under Wagley’s direction, are studying rural communities. Contrary to my previous plans, Bahia will no longer be the focus of our project. We shall study race relations as they appear in four rural communities and concentrate on social mobility in the city of Salvador. On the other hand, we shall concentrate on the rapidly deteriorating racial situation of São Paulo. Dr. Costa Pinto will undertake a similar study, but on a lesser scale, in Rio de Janeiro. At the end of the year, I expect to get a picture of the racial situation in Brazil, which will be close to reality and cover both the bright and dark sides. In Brazil, I met many of your friends and often you were remembered in our conversations. I had, in my friend Verger, the very best guide. He has taken in recent months sensational photographs, in particular of the secret sect of the Egun. He is trying now, using photographs, to show the persistence of Africanisms in Bahia (…) Poor Verger is still faced with the difficulty of publishing his photographs. Perhaps you will be in a position to help him?⁴⁵

I have just returned from Brazil. As you may well think, it was a pleasant and fruitful journey. René Ribeiro, who is now working for us, was especially helpful and thanks to him I spent three interesting weeks in the religious field, and by religious field, I mean of course the xangos … I have witnessed a few interesting ceremonies and, on my birthday, I made a big sacrifice to Exu, which is paying off …⁴⁶

I am glad you had so good a trip to Brazil. Ribeiro is really tops, and I am expecting fine things from him as his work develops. I am glad you had an opportunity to see some of the cult ceremonies, and am sure that Eshu will take good care of you. He tends to repay those who look after him!”⁴⁷

Even though De Azevedo was the administrator and local coordinator,⁴⁸ he would soon also be one of the key researchers when he embarked on his project on the coloured elites in Salvador (De Azevedo 1953). In June 1950, Wagley arrived in Bahia with three PhD candidates from Columbia University. They would work in cooperation with Brazilian students of the social sciences (Wagley and Wagley 1970:30). The first was William Harry Hutchinson, doing fieldwork in the sugarcane region of São Francisco do Conde (with the assistance of student Carmelita Ayres Junqueira, to whom Hutchinson would soon get married). The second was Marvin Harris, working in the former mining region around Rio de Conta (with the assistance of students Josildeth Gomes and Maria Guerra). And the third was Benjamin Zimmerman, who worked in the arid sertão (with the aid of junior lecturer Gizella Valladares).⁴⁹

The participants in this network were bright, cosmopolitan, multilingual, travelled, committed, politically liberal, passionate about Brazil and keen on Candomblé. Except for Frazier and perhaps De Azevedo – who would have been viewed almost certainly as white in those days, although by today’s standards could be a moreno – all of them were white. Incidentally, Frazier and De Azevedo were the only ones who never made remarks about the magical power of Candomblé in their correspondence. Thales was traditionally Catholic and closely related to the Ação Catolica (Sangiovanni 2018; Guimarães 2021); Frazier was atheistic and interested in Candomblé as a phenomenon but not as possible protection. Some of these scholars had more resources, especially those based in the US and Paris.

3 Columbia Undergraduate and Graduate Exchange Programmes

The success of the State of Bahia-Columbia University project made the continuation of the partnership easier. It occurred through two relatively large-scale initiatives in the successive decade: the interinstitutional Columbia, Harvard, Cornell, Illinois Summer Graduate Field Training Program 1962–1965, and the Undergraduate Exchange Project (De Azevedo 1984:74).

There was a crescendo of commitment to fieldwork in Latin America and especially Brazil from the Department of Anthropology of the University of Columbia – often associated with a number of other select US universities. It was part of a more general trend. There was a great degree of institution-building in the US concerning the development of Latin American studies within North American universities in the late fifties and early sixties. In 1958 there was a big plan to develop a general American library. From 1958 the Ford Foundation invested in Latin America, diverting to that region parts of the funds that were intended for research in Africa thus far. In 1960, through the Institute of International Education (IIE), the FF launched a worldwide Travel Abroad Award. The IIE is an independent organization that is funded by the FF, and was created almost at the same time as Aliança para o Progresso and the Peace Corps, both established in 1961 by the Kennedy government, as part of a general effort to improve and strengthen the exchange with Latin America.

In June 1955, Wagley handed into the FF a project proposal titled “A Research Training Programme for the Study of Man in the Tropics”,⁵⁰ the tropics being from northern Brazil to the Caribbean and Central America. Vera Rubin would come to direct it. Six grants per year would be given to graduate students. It was hoped that the programme would also motivate students and faculty from the region to study in the US in exchange.

In 1959, Sidney Mintz and other colleagues wrote a lengthy report to the FF concerning programme possibilities in Latin America. The information was followed by an assessment of the situation in Brazil by Bill Hutchinson, then visiting the ELS. Soon afterwards, Mintz wrote a series of quite detailed reports for the FF. He planned to make the FF sensitive to Latin America: it had twice the population of the US and Canada, was part of the undeveloped world, its anti-Americanism was less extreme than in Egypt and Indonesia, the US needed to know more about Latin America, and, last but not least, the region was different from India and Indonesia, where independence mostly meant the return to an ancient order.⁵¹

The same year, on August 30, the Draft Proposal for an Undergraduate Summer Field Programme was drawn up, to introduce upper college students to a foreign culture under the guidance of professional anthropologists. Each team would consist of six students plus the coordinating anthropologist. The programme would be integrated into each of the participating universities’ academic structures and would offer credits – also to be distinguished from less selective summer school programmes.⁵² Among the fifty-eight undergraduate students who took part in the programme from 1961 to 1962, several became well-known anthropologists. For example, two of the students of the 1961 exchange were Renato Rosaldo and Richard Price, and David Epstein and Conrad Kottak were part of the cohort in 1962. The programme involved a cluster of universities. As part of the related interuniversity agreement, Harvard made available the use of its “field station” in San Cristobal de las Casas, in Chiapas, Mexico, Cornell sent its group to Vicos Hacienda in Peru, and Columbia sent its students to Bahia, where the cooperative social science programme was eventually extended (Wagley and Wagley 1970:33). In 1962, under the leadership of Marvin Harris and the “advice and council” of Thales de Azevedo (Wagley and Wagley 1970:34), a group of six North American students⁵³ came to study the northern part of the Bahia coastal region. In 1966 the same training programme sent a new group of students, probably senior undergraduates, to Bahia for three months, from June to August, under the leadership of Daniel Gross. Their aim was to do preliminary research on religious movements in the shrine of Bom Jesus da Lapa, 800km away from the capital Salvador.

From 1964 to 1967 another Columbia University programme in the training of graduate students in various disciplines – the Metropolitan Graduate Summer Field Training Programme – focused on Bahia, with a financial grant from the Ford Foundation. Again, De Azevedo served as advisor and coordinator of the field research, orienting the students during their residence in Brazil. The students were Anne Morton, Daniel Gross, Maxine Margolis (who did a follow-up study in the sugar-growing region where Hutchinson had done fieldwork), Leonore Veit, Nan Pendrell and Barbara Trosko. Wagley and Wagley reported, “the Programme was not limited to Brazil but functioned to send pre-doctoral candidates to various parts of Latin America to begin their research for their doctoral dissertation” (1970:35). Wagley and Wagley (1970) continued to stress the importance of this long-standing programme for Bahia. Also, Thales de Azevedo lent weight to it by compiling a bibliography (1984) of articles and books produced in Bahia and elsewhere in Brazil that had resulted from this research. About ten students from Bahia and Rio were given an opportunity for advanced training, which was later completed in Rio, São Paulo, the US and France. Many of the North American participants became essential professional academics and Brazil or Latin America specialists, such as Marvin Harris, William Hutchinson, Rollie Poppino, Conrad Kottak,⁵⁴ Daniel Gross, Maxine Margolis, David Epstein, Nan Pendrell, Renato Rosaldo, Janice Perlman and Richard Price.

Perhaps the largest foreign student exchange programme in the field of social sciences in Brazil was the Carnegie Corporation (CCNY) project funded from 1959 to 1964. It involved a greater number of (senior) undergraduate students. The CCNY insisted that it focus on undergraduate students as part of a general effort to internationalize US universities and, more generally, the new generations of students. To unlock the United States and stimulate international engagement was an essential part of the Corporation’s mission (Rosenfield 2014).

Throughout this period, the language of area studies is present in the documents, especially in those of the CCNY. The CCNY, as well as Columbia University, supported the development of new area studies, to make undergraduates familiar with other cultures (in Latin America) under the leadership of anthropologists. The Corporation supported other such programmes in different regions of the world in that period, for instance for Princeton students. The Board of Trustees of the CCNY voted in December 1959 to support undergrad experience abroad – in the light of the fact that in those years too few young Americans had passports⁵⁵ – but it was concerned that there were many Summer Abroad programmes of low academic standing at US universities. There was a need for better-qualified programmes that could issue good credits to their participants.

The exchange programme that was devised was led by Columbia but included participation from Cornell and Harvard as well. It would focus on a few field stations – in Chiapas (Harvard), Guatemala (Cornell), Ecuador (Columbia), Peru and Brazil (Columbia).⁵⁶ Eighteen students would be selected per year, to be dispersed across the five field stations. Marvin Harris was appointed as secretary of the programme, which was under the supervision of Charles Wagley.⁵⁷ The CCNY issued a one-year grant in 1959 and in 1960. Following the success of the summer 1960 session, the programme applied for a three-year extension from 1961 to 1963.⁵⁸ The project impressed the CCNY Board, which approved the USD 160,000 grant without discussion in their meeting on November 15, 1960.⁵⁹

On February 17 and 18, 1961, with the support of the CCNY, the Oberlin Conference on Summer Study Abroad took place. Marvin Harris was present, together with representatives from about twenty other programmes. The theme was “experiencing the foreign country and discussing US society intelligently when abroad”. In the meeting report, there is no mention of any connection with foreign universities.⁶⁰ In 1963, the Management Committee of the US-Latin America Faculty Interchange Programme established an Interdisciplinary Summer Course in Latin American Studies and Experimental Summer Training in Latin American Area Studies, this time with the University of Illinois participating as well.

This summer training was based in the same field stations in Latin America, but the undergrads spent only three months in the field, being housed in the same (poor and rural) community they studied. Harris led the programme, of course, with the backing of Wagley. The aim was to induce curiosity and an understanding of the living conditions of rural Latin American communities. It was not exclusive to PhD candidates in anthropology, but the field coordinators were anthropologists and basic training in anthropology was required, together with language.⁶¹

The first report on the visit to the field stations by Joe Casagrande reveals:

The programme was a sort of small-scale goodwill mission. There was obvious reciprocal warmth in the friendships many students established with people in their communities. From the villagers’ point of view, they also had a significant cross-cultural experience. Through the students, in addition to the opportunity to know interesting and sympathetic North Americans, they at least glimpsed another way of life, other alternatives and gained new knowledge. In Huaylas, I am sure, incidents in the “Year of the Gringo” will become legendary. Not all was sweetness and light, but certainly, far more goodwill than bad was generated.⁶²

The Summer Training programme would continue after 1964, the military coup in Brazil notwithstanding, as did the Undergraduate Interchange Programme, at least until 1969. It was decided to drop Cali as a field station to focus on Bahia. Harris became the director of both programmes.⁶³ The programme received a USD 125,000 grant from the Ford Foundation, which was used to train sixty-four graduate students. Among them were several of the most qualified Brazilianists today, such as Maxine Margolis, Kenneth Maxwell and Diana Brown, who were part of the 1965 group.⁶⁴

There is a clear continuity between the Undergraduate Interchange Programme (CCNY) from 1959 to 1963 and the Summer Field Studies Programme (FF) of 1965–67 for first- and second-year graduates. However, in 1968 the FF turned down the application to fund the programme again, not because of its lack of merit but because its funding priorities regarding Latin America had changed. Most of these funds for field studies seemed to dry up around 1966. From 1965 to 1968, there was no mention of a study abroad programme by the Board of Trustees of either the FF or the CCNY. The golden period of fieldwork exchange was over by about 1965. But whereas the CCNY scaled down its funding for studies in Latin America, the much larger FF remained engaged. Columbia University applied to the FF, RF and SSRC to create a Latin America Institute at Columbia, which requested funds for the period 1960–63 under the leadership of Frank Tannenbaum and Richard Morse and, from 1963, under Wagley. In 1962 the FF gave the SSRC USD 1 million for the development of Latin American studies, and especially for a Faculty Exchange Programme, at six US universities: Columbia, Texas at Austin, UC Berkeley, UC Los Angeles, Harvard and Minnesota. This large donation was followed by meetings between directors of Latin American language and area centres.⁶⁵

The Faculty Exchange Programme would be the next “frontier” in the institutionalization of Latin American studies in the US and the making of Latin-Americanists. In a letter of August 21, 1962, from Schuyler Wallace to Wagley, the critical question was raised: should invitations to Latin American scholars be on an individual basis, or should the committee plan to collaborate continuously with indigenous institutions or such institutions like the Inter-American Institute of Political Education located in São Jose, Costa Rica? Seemingly, most invitations would end up being on an individual basis. In a report of May 27, 1963, Wagley stated that “The programme will allow us to keep in continuous contact with the intellectual trends and cross-currents of Latin America by having Latin Americans with us and our professors frequently visiting their university”.⁶⁶

For the period of 1961 to 1965, Columbia University received a five-year grant from the Rockefeller Foundation for the Visiting Scholar Programme in Latin America Studies. The main motives for applying were the need to develop Latin American studies, as had been done for African and Middle Eastern Studies, and to bring the best minds together at the Latin American Seminar.⁶⁷ In 1965–66 Columbia applied to the SSRC for the Faculty Exchange Programme. Florestan Fernandes from Brazil and Gino Germani from Argentina would be the first scholars invited. They would be hosted by Harris and Magnus Morner.⁶⁸

There is evidence that, after the 1964 coup in Brazil, rather than sending relatively large groups of students to Brazil the priority (certainly for Columbia University) changed to hosting top-notch Brazilian scholars, especially those whose research had been made difficult by the Brazilian military government.⁶⁹ They invited influential Brazilians, such as Anisio Teixeira, who had already studied at Columbia in the twenties. His report on his stay at what he called his alma mater shows how much it was appreciated and how pleasant such a period of his life was. Indeed, especially in the days of the dictatorship, a few months’ stay in New York and at Columbia could mean a pleasant break from the tension back home.

This is a short list of scholars invited from Brazil, mostly for a semester, to Columbia or Harvard: Levi Cruz in 1962; Eduardo Galvão, Glaucio Soares, Carolina Bori, Anisio Teixeira in 1964; Helio Jaguaribe (to teach in the Department of Government at Harvard); in 1966, Octavio Ianni; in 1965, Florestan Fernandes, Gilberto Freyre, Celso Furtado, Mario Simonsen, Anisio Teixeira and Helio Jaguaribe. In 1966 Candido Mendes and Afranio Coutinho. In 1967 José Antonio Gonçalves de Mello was invited but eventually could not come; in exchange, Ronald Schneider was sent to the UFMG. From February to June 1965, several US professors visited the UNB with the support of the programme. In 1965 Thomas Skidmore was sent to Latin America, for the third time, with the support of the programme, and in 1966 Samuel Huntington was sent for a tour.

These particular exchange programmes produced important documents – in a way, a scholarship of their own. It started with a lengthy report to the FF by Wagley and Harris (1959) and was followed by two fieldwork guides by Hutchinson (1960) and Levine (1966), which are worth scrutinizing. Browsing Levine’s Brazil Field Research Guide (1965), one perceives that both the programme officers and field trainees needed condensed reports and field guides!

The larger the number of students – and the more the programme was condensed into shorter periods, like three to six months – the fewer were the efforts made to establish contacts with local scholars or universities. It was not the empowerment of the social sciences in Latin America that mattered, but anthropology in the US. Latin America was regarded as good for fieldwork and field stations, but anthropological reflection and archiving remained in the US. Brazil and especially Bahia had played a crucial role in the creation of contemporary anthropology, especially Afro-American anthropology. Now they became a test case for a broader internationalization plan and as a “field station”.

From the 1970s, Bahia would be promoted as an ideal place for (undergraduate) summer schools and graduate fieldwork for students at US universities – which allowed many of us at UFBA, especially those who could teach in English, to earn some welcome Yankee dollars.⁷⁰ However, involvement with local intellectuals or groups of students was piecemeal if not altogether avoided. In their fieldwork they were meant to communicate directly with the povo, the people. But the often-used argument for not doing this was that the povo were black and the local scholars were primarily white, which was generally true. Most of these summer schools concerned US departments or black and/or Africana studies programmes. The merit was that many more black US students could visit Bahia than in earlier times. The question this raises is twofold. First, how was (black) Bahia and its “magic” represented in these short summer courses? Second, to what extent did this increase in information exchange contribute, as much as it could, to improving the conditions for the production of knowledge in Bahia, where there was also a steady increase in the number of black students, especially from the mid-2000s because of various forms of affirmative action?

4 Frances’ Comeback

A few years after Melville Herskovits’ death, his wife and fellow traveller Frances (1897–1972) went back to Bahia in 1967, intending to do additional fieldwork to finalize the manuscript for THE book on their research in Brazil. She was then teaching at Northwestern, but she had been playing with the idea for quite some time.⁷¹ After completing Herkovits’ edited volume, The New World Negro, she made concrete plans to go back to the Brazil material, which was, as she wrote, “in the lap of the gods”.⁷² Despite the extensive fieldwork she carried out, in which she demonstrated yet again what a first-rate anthropologist she was, and her detailed interviews of a cluster of informants for their research done in the forties, this second attempt to publish a book on the Herskovits’ research in Brazil also failed. Evidence of this effort can be found in the Schomburg Center Archives, where Frances’ fieldnotes are kept in a notepad containing 135 pages. Her work was also documented by the Brazilian press, which reported on her activities and the assistance she received from several colleagues from the Centro de Estudos Afro-Orientais (CEAO) of the Federal University of Bahia.⁷³ They helped her as fieldwork assistants as well as key informants.

Before Frances set off for Brazil, she started corresponding with Waldir Oliveira, director of the CEAO:

I have been going through my husband’s unpublished notes from Brasil [she spelled it with an s] for some time, and find that some comparative materials on what has happened in the twenty-five-year interval are essential for the analysis and documentation of the theoretical points which we wish to see elaborated. I am very anxious to discuss this with you. Our stay in the Congo and Angola [in 1952–53] also raised questions that bear on Bahian materials. There is always, in addition, the saudades evoked by memories of Bahia, and I look forward to visiting the places and, hopefully, some, at least, of the men and women who had given us their friendship and confidence. It will be a great pleasure to visit your Center. My husband was both deeply touched and proud of his appointment as Honorary Professor of your University. My daughter and I are planning to see to it that your library has as full a collection as it is possible to assemble of his publications.⁷⁴

Frances arrived in Salvador on a Cruzeiro flight on January 25, 1967⁷⁵ and stayed until March 6.⁷⁶ As she and her husband had done in 1941, Frances registered with the US Consulate to receive her mail. She booked a room at the Plaza Hotel: “This is a return to Bahia after a twenty-five-year interval to do some comparative checking of fieldnotes gathered by my late husband and myself in 1941–42. I am very much looking forward to meeting old and new friends and only regret that I cannot stay longer …”.⁷⁷ She received USD 2,500 from the Programme of African Studies at Northwestern, for which she was grateful since it recognized her crucial contribution to Melville’s oeuvre.⁷⁸ However, Gwendolen Carter, Director of African Studies, informed her that Vernon McKay of the State Department could not offer her a grant this time, despite his efforts.⁷⁹

Over a period of seven weeks, Frances would do extensive fieldwork and visit the Candomblé houses and many of the informants she had got to know in 1941 and 1942. The style of the notes is reminiscent of the fieldnotes collected twenty-five years earlier: reports of the genealogy lines of specific houses, the death and succession of Mãe Aninha and Mãe Senhora, detailed descriptions of ceremonies and of (certain) rituals with their “obligations” (offerings), transcription of what could be called gossip (fuxico), a little analytical observation.⁸⁰ She visited most of the cult-houses in the company of Vivaldo, Julio and sometimes Waldir. It was a whirlwind of feasts, visits and events. Almost every day, there was an activity, often two or even three in a single day and until late at night or dawn. Frances also visited the Valladares family, Thales de Azevedo (then professor at the UFB), Waldir Oliveira at CEAO, and went to book launches by Jorge Amado.⁸¹

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A newspaper article covering Frances Herskovits’ visit to Salvador. From left to right: Vivaldo da Costa Lima, Thales de Azevedo, Frances Herskovits and Waldir Freitas de Oliveira at the Centro de Estudos Afro-Orientais of the Universidade Federal da Bahia

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She also became aware that gossip was part and parcel of Candomblé talk and that gossip united and divided the diverse Candomblé houses, especially the orthodox ones. For insiders, being aware of the gossip, which revealed moral codes and the constant process of fission and fusion among the cult-houses, was an essential element of social life in the Candomblé community (Braga 1998). Frances also became aware of the strong sexism that had existed in the field of Afro-Brazilian studies since its inception and had meant that women could be given a hard time when they ventured as scholars into Afro-Brazilian religion. The love affair between Mestre Didi and the young Argentinian social psychologist, Juanita Elbein, was the cause of much gossip. He was an older black man, married to a black woman close to the cult-house, with two children. Juanita was a foreigner, white, a psychology student, and thus far unrelated to Candomblé. Nonetheless, Juanita would eventually establish herself as a specialist, emphasizing the necessity to study Candomblé from within rather than without (Elbein dos Santos 1986), and to be recognized and accepted as such in what was usually called the Candomblé community (a comunidade). That occurrence was reminiscent of the rather sexist uproar generated by Ruth Landes’ relationship with Édison Carneiro almost three decades earlier.

Frances described an Oxóssi feast in Apo Afonja house, with Jorge Amado and the painter Carybé, then the feast of Agua de Oxala and the Monday feast of Apaoka Roko (two of the twenty-two orixás worshipped in the Apo Afonja house).⁸² Together with Julio Braga and Vivaldo, she also witnessed an Acheche (a ritual for the soul of a dead person and a significant occurrence in the Candomblé world) for Mãe Senhora, who died on February 22, 1967. The priestess in charge was Mãe Menininha: “Greetings in Yoruba all-around – more Yoruba spoken than had heard formerly. Explainable by courses of Yoruba at University, Yorubas studying and visiting and Bahians in Africa studying and visiting – also influence of Pierre Verger (?) …”.⁸³ In the following, Frances registered that two of the filhas de santo had common-law husbands (amaziados) who were either light-skinned or “all white”. Here is an example of a description of the rite:

First enters the Pade, executed by an old filha de santo from Gantois and S. Goncalo. Then two by two, one filha from each side, danced before the lighted candle and the water jar on the floor. Before each change of dancer, they prostrate themselves facing the entrance door and the improvised altar for the dead then went to prostrate before Menininha and Ogun Joba. Each was given a bill or coins by both, and this was an offering for the “assistencia”. A pile of bills a foot and more high, people coming forward, while the two danced.⁸⁴

Here, again, was an attempt to describe the world of Candomblé from the inside, through its myths, logic and rules. Frances was also constantly drawing connections between her work in Dahomey or Haiti and her observation on this second trip to Bahia. When not related to a specific myth (such as “Olga is definite about Oshun being the daughter of Yemanja”), details in a ritual and genealogy of saints/orixás or “familias de santo”, most of the questions in the fieldnotes are of the kind, “what kind of saint is Onile and what is its corresponding orixá in Dahomey or does it correspond with Met Bisabion in Haiti?”.

Frances was impressed by meeting Mãe Menininha again: “She knew all about the Professor (Mel), Ramos had talked about him, and she had seen the volumes on Dahomey. Perhaps Haitian Valley too. She talks about ‘books with pictures’. She remembered me from the moment she saw me.”⁸⁵ Frances, of course, was delighted when people, such as in the Bogum house, remembered her and Melville, the recording, the books and her young daughter Jean from their first visit.⁸⁶ However, in the same house, Vivaldo informed her that the terrain had shifted. During the visit, she met a team from a German TV station getting ready to film and heard comments that Jorge Amado and Carybé frequented the house a lot because they liked its feasts.⁸⁷ On the one hand, she was reminded of the past, while on the other hand, she perceived dramatic changes in the cult-house.

Over the previous twenty-five years, essential informants – the most prominent in the Candomblé community – had died: Joãozinho, Vidal, Tia Massi, Manoel de Ogun, Procopio, Bernardino, Emiliana and, during her fieldwork, Mãe Senhora.

With Senhora gone, Vivaldo considers Olga as the new star of the Candomblé world (…) Vivaldo and his brother Sinval are close to her, and Julio is of the house, surely Vivaldo’s influence (…) Engenho Velho (Casa Branca) house dismissed as not in the public eye – no initiation there to publicize. With their attitude against engaging in any ‘work’ for outsiders or divining, they would hardly attract important outsiders. Me, I am still as impressed with their knowledge and probity as Mel and I were in 1942.⁸⁸

Frances got along nicely with Vivaldo and Julio but also had her own opinions. The last eight pages of the fieldnotes are questions she wanted to double-check with her best key informant and friend, Zezé, who had moved to Rio, where she hoped to meet her on her way back to the States. On the day she left, around March 15, she was still able to enjoy an Amalá de Xangô (a dish) due to a delayed flight. She left Salvador with the feeling that all commitments had been met and Vivaldo would let her know the outcome of the divination session she had participated in: “The dependence upon the jogos (divination), and the faith in what is revealed, is impressive. Here is where the core of the entire complex of continuities [regarding African traditions] lies.”⁸⁹

Bahia had changed a lot since 1942: the city’s population had doubled; the oil industry and the two concrete industrial plants in Aratu and Camacari had meant, at long last, upward social mobility for a sizeable part of the black population; the founding and growth of the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) and the active role of its first president, Edgar Santos, in attracting scholars and intellectuals had made Salvador an essential hub for the avant-garde; in the media the acceptance of Candomblé and the African roots of Bahiana popular culture had become much more evident; and last but not least, by then several foreign scholars and artists had become regulars in the most significant and more renowned Candomblé houses. These included Alfred Métraux, Roger Bastide, Odorico Tavares, Jorge Amado, Carybé and especially Pierre Verger.⁹⁰ Indeed, in her fieldnotes Frances registered some changes compared to 1941–42: more Yoruba was spoken in the rituals, but less Yoruba was spoken in daily life. That is, knowledge of the Yoruba language was less part of daily life and used more than before to add a touch of tradition to rituals – and in general, knowledge of it was more superficial.

Another change had to do with outsiders, foreigners and scholars, who had become more conspicuous; there were more white people at the feasts than before. Some of these white people had become influential. Verger and his Yoruba-Nago ethnocentrism, or even “obsession”,⁹¹ played a role in making the Yoruba language more popular than before in certain orthodox cult-houses.⁹² Juanita Elbein, who had come to study the cult of Egungun for her thesis on mental illnesses, was accepted entirely by Mãe Senhora, who allowed her to record the music and introduced her to many of the secrets of the house. Juanita was also influential, even though the love affair between her and Didi dos Santos was a scandal for the older generation.⁹³ Some houses had flourished over the past twenty-five years and even showed “opulence”,⁹⁴ such as expensive furniture and massive TV sets. Others, like Bogum, had stayed poor – “obviously no affluence here”.⁹⁵ Moreover, Frances stated that besides Bogum there were no more houses of the Jeje nation in Salvador.⁹⁶ A further change, associated with the previous one, was the place of academics and academic centres, such as CEAO, which by then were channelling and generating discussion and study of the Candomblé cult.⁹⁷

Yet another difference was the degree of not just academic but also political recognition of certain Candomblé houses, especially those held to be more traditional and closer to African traditions – these were the cult-houses Frances visited (Axe Opo Afonja, Casa Branca, Gantois, Alaketo Batefolha, Oxumare, Bogum). More intellectuals and politicians were calling on the cults, especially during feasts.⁹⁸ Then there was the arrival of the “God of Tourism”,⁹⁹ in Frances’ words, with busloads of tourists being taken mainly to feasts in the less orthodox houses, but also to the Engenho Velho, and more and more proposals to allow recording and filming of rites in exchange for money.¹⁰⁰ Even mãe de santo Olga de Alaketo was tempted since she badly needed money, but eventually she turned down the offer. Frances commented that Julio Braga was happy that she had done so.

In many ways, Frances was nostalgic for the more straightforward and impoverished cult-houses of twenty-five years ago. Now she found that in certain places, such as in the house of Zezé‚ built on her large terrain (roca) in Amaralina, there was even opulence, with crystal glasses and expensive silver on display.

The attitude toward Candomblé much changed. To belong is fashion. You speak of it openly. Name your Orisha. Gisella (American Jewish) is for Oshun, Licia Shango and the youngest Ogun. Both have “contas lavadas” (…) So everybody goes for a jogo de buzio (divination) and furnishes what is required by the mae de santo. It seems it is not that one really believes, but neither does one disbelieve.¹⁰¹

Frances compared both Bahia and West Africa in earlier years, such as in the Alaketo house “… Olga herself got possessed. As sharp a possession as I have seen in Dahomey, and how very Dahomean her dancing.” Frances played the discs she and Melville had produced for the Library of Congress and showed a couple of books, such as Dahomean Narrative. The first reconnected the past and present, whereas the books made the link with Africa more effective and more visually powerful on account of the illustrations.

Things had changed radically also within the US Consulate in Salvador. In the 1940s it had to find a way of dealing with the arrival of black scholars such as Frazier and Turner – the consul was known to be a racist. By 1967 an adequately edited and up-to-date list in English of (Afro)Bahian feasts and festivities was handed out by the same consulate to US visitors to the city. The “magic” of Salvador had already become one of its unique selling points for US visitors and tourists.

Upon her return to the US, Frances wrote to Vernon McKay who had since moved from the State Department and was at the Programme of African Studies, Johns Hopkins:

I am back from a most interesting six-week stay in Bahia, and delighted that I took this opportunity, thanks to your encouragement, to revisit the cult centers where we had done most of our work in 1941–42. The African orixás deserve their share of credit, for they granted privileges that brought me invitations to the shrines – the holy of holiest, that are not for casual visitors, not even initiates, except when they make offerings to their special deity. I was deeply touched. There were still some among the cult heads who remembered Mel and the Dahomey volumes which he showed them; our recording sessions; and even Jean dancing with the initiates during the less formal rites. … What struck me emphatically was what a superb base the Centro de Estudos Afro Orientais is for Afro-American studies – and comparative African studies as well. I am wondering if you were as impressed with Vivaldo as I am. There is no one more respected, more esteemed, or better informed in the Candomblé world than he. … I have also been struck by the meagerness of the resources at the disposal of the Center.¹⁰²

From the correspondence, we can deduce three key facts: Mel impressed people with his Dahomey books and the recording sessions; FSH was emotionally attached to Bahia and the Candomblé world; and she was very supportive of the CEAO and Vivaldo’s effort to visit African Studies programmes in the US during the three months for which he applied for funding with the FF, USIS, CNPq and the Brazilian Foreign Office.¹⁰³ Frances also suggested that Waldir apply to the FF in Rio for support for their library and the acquisition of recording equipment. She then wrote letters of recommendation for Vivaldo and the CEAO to William Bascom (Director, Lowie Museum Berkeley), George Eaton Simpson (Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Oberlin) and M.G. Smith (Deptartment of Anthropology, UCLA).¹⁰⁴ These scholars reacted positively to her appeal and sent copies of their books to the CEAO library. Frances also kept a long list of all the books and reprints she had sent to CEAO and Vivaldo, Waldir, Julio, Neide White Martins and Lícia Valladares (daughter of Gizella and José).¹⁰⁵ Her effort to raise funds for the CEAO excited its director: “I hope there will be very soon a programme of solid aid on the part of some North American university or foundation towards this Centro de Estudos, given that our financial conditions do not permit us to develop research other than with the resources at our disposal”.¹⁰⁶

There seemed to be high expectations for the publication of a book based on their unpublished fieldnotes. As George Simpson put it:

I am delighted to hear that you are writing up the unpublished fieldnotes that you and Mel collected in 1941–42 and that you were able to get so much new and valuable material in your recent stay in Bahia. Afro-Americanists will be fortunate to have a chance to read the work you are doing on Candomblé. The re-study and additional materials twenty-five years after the first work will be of great value.¹⁰⁷

Simpson was one of the professors whom Vivaldo had wanted to study with, had he received support for his plan to study in the US.¹⁰⁸ As soon as she was back in the US, Frances tried to arrange a grant with the FF and USIS for Vivaldo to study there. Gwendolin Carter would invite him for several (feed) lectures in and around Northwestern.¹⁰⁹ In this letter, besides informing Vivaldo about the grant possibilities, she also greeted Julio, Maninho, Vivaldo’s brother and Olga (De Alaketo), whom she said was quite like herself. Vivaldo wrote to her in a hilarious and clever mix of English and Portuguese.¹¹⁰ He showed his commitment to the CEAO and its library and research, and his interest in visiting the best African Studies centres in the US. Writing to Vernon McKay (May 15, 1967), Frances was enthusiastic about the CEAO and Vivaldo: she asked for support from Vernon with Vivaldo and CEAO’s application. The library and recording equipment were urgent: many speakers of Yoruba were old and ailing; recording their voices was now or never. Eventually, the CEAO never received the kind of support Frances was hoping for.

Why did the book, apparently titled “A Comparison of Bahia-Yoruba Cults”, not get published? Were the circumstances similar to those Turner faced – that modern Yoruba nationalism was not interested or had other priorities? Unlike Turner, FSH had institutional and financial support for the project. In September 1969, Gwendolin Carter, Head of the African studies programme at Northwestern, in the same letter in which she communicated that the Africana Library of the University had been named after Melville Herskovits, shared that the programme could provide USD 2,500 for a research and writing grant “to work on the Brazilian materials of which part at least came out of the travel grant from the Programme a couple of years ago. It would be perfectly appropriate, particularly concerning the earlier work you and Mel had done”.¹¹¹ On September 12, FSH replied to Carter:

I will get a draft for the grant to you before the beginning of term. The problem with writing up the Brazilian materials, much of it, which we call “sensitive” in terms of the political situation, is that things seem to be going from bad to worse. I have decided to follow the good advice of friends here and in Brazil and write up the unpublished material and let publication wait, or perhaps leave some things out. Which could be the politically sensitive parts in the fieldnotes? One day will talk about all this.¹¹²

Three weeks later, Frances sent in her research project, which focused on the Bahian family. The monograph – or a series of articles – would use extensive comparative materials from Africa, the Caribbean and the United States.¹¹³ My impression is that the book was not put together eventually because of Frances’ worsening health condition. She passed away in 1972.¹¹⁴

This chapter dealt with the aftermath of the extended field trip by Turner, Frazier and the Herskovitses for the construction of Bahia as an ideal fieldstation for young and upcoming social scientists, mainly from the US, in the period 1942 to 1967. When we compare the late thirties with the late sixties, significant qualitative and quantitative changes had taken place in the scholarly exchange between the US (mainly Northwestern and Columbia universities at first) and Brazil, more specifically Bahia. The trend was from experimental one-person fieldwork missions (Pierson, Landes, Frazier, Turner and Herskovits), supported by individual grants, to a collective tripartite agreement between the State of Bahia, Columbia University and UNESCO, and then a bipartite exchange (Columbia, Harvard, Cornell and Illinois on one hand, and Thales de Azevedo as the representative of the FFCH/UFBA, on the other). This last arrangement would be repeated in the graduate and later undergraduate exchange fieldwork programmes, which corresponded with the democratization of the access to the study of anthropology in the US and the ensuing growing demand for fieldwork locations, preferably and whenever possible, in exotic contexts.

Ironically, the individual fieldwork projects offered many more grant opportunities to Brazilian scholars to study in the US, mainly through Herskovits’ motivated and paternalistic efforts (for Ruy Coelho, Eduardo, René Ribeiro, José and Gizella Valladares, among others). With one exception, no Brazilian student-assistants involved in the UNESCO project were invited to complete their graduate studies in the US (De Azevedo 1968).¹¹⁵ This also applied to the graduate and undergraduate field programmes, which were much less focused on exchange with local faculties and students than the UNESCO-Columbia-State of Bahia project was. The standout scholar was Josildeth Gomes, a brilliant black student of De Azevedo. She had been an assistant first to Marvin Harris in 1952 and later to Anthony Leeds. With a twenty-four-month Brazilian Capes grant she managed to do a part of her doctorate at Columbia (Gomes 2009, 2014).

The fact that the State of Bahia itself largely financed the tripartite project I think explains why that project included a certain degree of reciprocity and the formal training of Brazilian student-assistants. Anthropologist Vivaldo da Costa Lima, then possibly the best-known scholar in the field of Afro-Brazilian studies in Bahia, and one of the more renowned in Brazil more generally, tried to obtain a grant to complete his studies in the US through his connection with Frances Herskovits, in 1967, but failed to get a grant after all. That is, despite the undeniable qualities of the several community studies carried out in those fieldwork projects, which reverberated positively throughout the Brazilian social sciences one way or another, these exchange projects were conceived of on an extremely unequal basis and did not contribute to consolidating and making Bahia-based anthropology less provincial as much as they should have done.