2024-02-29 15:25:14
The African presence in Lisbon goes back millennia. Part of this story was recently rescued and gained visibility on the streets of the Portuguese capital.
The cultural and youth association Our Portugal shipswhich works with children, young people and adults interested in African culture, placed 20 toponymic plaques and a bust (in honor of “Father Paulino”) that help tell the story of Portugal.
The plaques identify notable personalities and places in African Lisbon since the 15th century.
That that “is not learned in schools or is not seen frequently in the media” about African history is now more visible, more accessible.
The vice-president of Batoto Yetu, José Neves, who spoke to RFI about the association’s work in raising community awareness of African cultural issuesbegins by revealing to us that the initiative to place toponymic plaques arose from research for a show.
RFI: How did the initiative come about?
José Neves: It is a continuation of the work we already do with the Association to raise awareness among the majority Portuguese community about African cultural issues and try to convey to young people, children, and adults in the African community a little more about their history. Something that is not learned in schools, that we do not often see on television or in the media and, therefore, we, through traditional dance, which is our strong point, always learn a lot of history. And there came a time when we decided to study the existence of African dances in Portugal, this is research work. We went to several music conservatories. Talking to teachers, historians, brought us here the origins of fado to the fado danced in the background, which here had African Moorish influences, steeped in Lisbon’s Portuguese culture, a Lisbon product but which had percussion, a dance considered erotic and a song , a lament, a cry, fado is a kind of Portuguese blues. And when we collected information to create a danced fado show, we ended up learning about these places where people lived, danced, ate, in short, we learned about this African presence and then decided to do these ‘tours’ once again. to make people aware of this African culture, the influence on Portuguese culture. I already spoke about fado, but it exists in gastronomy, in the diseases we have, in architecture, in short, in many other areas. And therefore, it is a free way to provide access and spark interest. Making people want to go look for a little more information on their own, think about what we see in our public space, what we have learned and how much more there is to learn about African culture, the various African peoples. We tend to associate African history with colonialism or slavery, but there is much more to it than that. There is more behind. Therefore, we have other African presences, Carthaginians, Phoenicians, Egyptians, the Moorish period, even the Roman period or even the previous migrations from the African continent. We have mummies here in Portugal, we have some mummies there in the south of the country that are called with smells, with the smell of Sado and with the smell of muge and that also have some ancestral connection to these ancient migrations, 8000 years of human beings. Therefore, basically it shouldn’t be anything very innovative, because we are talking about the migrations of people leaving the African continent, which was where humanity was born and where it spent the longest time.
RFI: Speaking specifically about these toponymic signs, there are some personalities that are mentioned. What personalities are these?
José Neves: Focusing on this beginning of a project associated with the study of danced fado, I can make reference, for example, to Domingos Caldas Barbosa, who was a musician who played the lundu. Lundu is a kind of father of Cape Verdean fado and morna. And he was a lundu player from modinha, cute, musical and dance genres that existed here in Lisbon and that later ended up constituting a large part of what fado was. And it is the image that can be seen, for example, in the Fado Museum, associated with the beginning of the history of fado. He has a plaque here near the Mártires da Pátria field, which was a place where the Italian Embassy is now, where he met to socialize and socialize and, therefore, there is a plaque there giving this reminder of who he was. He was one of the pioneers of Brazilian popular music and, in essence, later became famous here, he also became adored by the Portuguese elite and this meant that the street music style that was fado moved a little into the halls. of the bourgeoisie and gained the dimension it has today. Another could be, for example, Dr. Sousa Martins, also in Campo Martins da Pátria, a doctor who had different characteristics in his way of working, in a slightly more spiritual way, so much so that he is a kind of cult which continues to this day. He was Portuguese from Alhandra, but of African origins as well. We can also talk here about Largo de São Domingos, the Church of Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Homens Pretos. A congregation where black people organized themselves to be part of Portuguese society, help with events, look for jobs, offer services as we still see today here in the Largo São Domingos area, the African presence, quite strong, has to do with this ancient legacy, therefore, has always been a place for this meeting and, therefore, we have placed a statue in relation to one of these people, Father Paulino. There, exactly in Largo de São Domingos, we can talk about areas of Rio’s riverside, Praça do Comércio, Cais do Sodré, all contact zones, areas where boats with some enslaved people arrived. Therefore, there is also this need to show that the African presence is not only linked to enslaved people. There were people hired to work on ships, building ships, working with iron. Therefore, the Africans in the Benin area, who had this very ancestral knowledge, or navigators who knew the orientation by the stars in the Equator area, below the Equator, the Southern Cross. But we rarely learn about these African navigators also existed. And we think that transmitting this to Portuguese society, not only to people of African origin, but to everyone, helps us to get to know each other a little better, the positive contributions we have already heard. This about other peoples, the Celts, the Romans, the Goths, the Visigoths, is just another complement to the issue of the African people.
RFI: The work of the Batoto Yetu Association is accessible digitally. Whoever is looking, where can they look and what will they find?
José Neves: In this continuation of trying to provide this information in the most comprehensive and free way possible. We have been collecting books, information, stories, testimonies and are adding them to our website, Batoto Yetu.pt, from Portugal. It is an African digital memory platform, therefore, basically, it wants to provide more information so that others can study, so that others can do academic work, artistic pieces, music, representations. Another type of “tours” in other areas of the country. Because there are a lot of people who ask us where we got this and other information from. So we ended up making a kind of compilation of these bibliographic sources of our own experience, because our own experience is also creative and is part of the platform itself as a moment of creation associated with this subject. We also cover other work from other associations, because we are not the only ones who do this type of work. There are other Afro-descendant associations that also work on these issues. And therefore, the digital platform is a way of accessing it. And ready. And through this intermediary we exchange information with academics. Let’s reinforce ours here, our history. Basically, it is about reinforcing Portuguese history with more information.
Lisbon’s streets also have an African presence. © rfi/Luís Guita
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