Cinema against Fascism
Cinema in defense of the forests
Transversal Training in Traditional Knowledge - UFMG
presents
Makota Valdina
Terreiro Nzo Onimboya, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil
In the second semester of 2018 we received Makota Valdina ...
... as one of the masters in the course "Politics of the Land'.
We expected her to come back in 2019 to call the forest back again.
While visiting the forest of the Ecological Station, she returns in the images,
with her teachings and songs.
Candeia is like this ...
Oh my god!
My father!
Look ...
Give the love ...
We are all children of a great Being of the forest.
Therefore, the mixture of all of us brings peace.
Onimboya House.
House of Strengths .
Meeting of the holy waters.
Onimboya House.
House of Strengths.
Meeting of the holy waters.
"Lying on a matting
Empty of material things,
In the silence, quiet.
In a total true commitment,
Feeling the strength that penetrates me.
Strength,
Gunzo,
Ngolo
That comes from above And mysteries and life contains
And enters in the holy ground
And reappears from the ground
And infiltrates my body
Leading me to great mysteries
From a very old and new world
Me on the Sacred Ground
Being totally immersed in the mystery
From Nzambi and the Nkisi
Meditating on the revealed
Thinking about what the Ground told me
I'm so big and so small
Accepting without understanding,
Receiving without realizing,
The strength that comes from above
And rises from the earth,
And it becomes the reason of my life."
This is "Getting the Gunzo"
And I...
Afterwards I was thinking about ...
...this strength that comes from above ...
But this strength that comes from above,
it is because it has already risen,
it has already arrived at a plan...
and it's from above ...
But deep down, deep down...
The strength comes from below.
Because all of our ancestry is placed underground.
We live in this world...
... that we see, that we play,
but the invisible world...
...is like this immersed world,
that we don't see, that is placed underground.
Our ancestral world ...
... of our ancestors.
And of all ancestry,
because what are the Nkisi?
What are all the elements of nature?
That arrived before us?
So, it's our ancestry.
I really want to thank...
...first my Nkisi who gave me this gift ...
... of being able to be here.
Something that...
... they plan there,
they plan,
and we're just in.
But I really wanted to thank you,
and ask all this energy, which is surrounding us here,
to bless us, to bless you,
your work,
to enlighten the mind,
the thinking, the wanting,
the action, your mission.
Ntondele! N'zambi uá Kuatesa!
Thank you!
Tira Quizanga.
Jeez!
It's the forest!
It's true Alice!
Look!
This is Pitanga.
But what is there?
A relative of Pindaiba?
They call it "Tira Quizanga"
-Tira Quizanga?
Yes.
In fact, the ...
... Pindaíba,
in the language of Candomble's people,
it's called "The Spell Breaker".
This one looks like "Lightning Rod".
And this one, what is it?
Beautiful like that?
My childhood, I'm from the 1940s,
I was born in 1943,
(in the neighborhood) of Engenho Velho da Federação,
in Salvador, Bahia.
And looking at an environment like this,
it reminds me a lot my childhood.
Because, at that time, we had a lot of forest.
In that community which is a neighborhood nowadays.
forest, water fountains, little streams ...
... that ended at Vasco da Gama, and went to Rio Vermelho.
I mean... It was the setting of the place.
And...
We ...
My childhood ...
I was very happy in my childhood.
In my youth, very happy...
I had a child's life ...
I had space ...
The "forest space" in the backyard ...
Ahead, in the yard ...
And the yards ... Some was in front of others ...
And...
We played there, and learned.
We learned by playing, interacting ...
... with this forest.
In the late afternoon, in the evening,
especially when it was a full moon,
we went to the front of the house...
...To do... To listen to stories,
to play...
But the forest space...
... is very strong in my memory...
... of childhood.
And...
In that time, we didn't have...
The drugstore was the forest.
I don't remember we buying medicine at the drugstore.
I remember two medicines ...
... from my childhood, my mother used to buy at the drugstore:
Biotonic Fontoura and Scott's Emulsion.
And we used a lot...
And we learned.
Because the plant grew up spontaneously.
And we made the syrup with that plant,
like Cambará, the root Cambará syrup.
The teas we made ...
... when you had a stomachache, headache,
when you had a flu,
nobody went to the drugstore,
we went to the forest.
The forest was our drugstore.
The prayers, the blessers, sometimes...
... you had a "broken eye". Oh, you have a broken eye!
One needs to make a pray for "broken eye", for "evil eye"
and then,
the person went there ...
... in front of a house that had a plant ...
... or in the backyard,
went there and took the plant to pray for us, to bless us,
that was a kind of medicine,
and later I found out...
... in Candomblé, isn't it? You heal yourself,
also with the leaves,
it's the bath of leaves, the bath...
The bath of leaves,
The tea you drink ...
So...
The natural environment,
it was very strong in my childhood.
And we... It's like I say:
We learned ...
...as a learning that still happens in the traditional terreiros.
Where there is no book or handout but it is the experience that teaches you.
It is living with others.
And, at that time, it was like that.
We learned what we saw Mom doing, grandma doing, aunt doing.
And we had many grandmas, many aunts,
without being aunts and without being grandmas,
but it was the oldest: it's so-so grandpa, so-so grandma,
my grandmother, my grandfather, my aunt, my uncle.
Even a cousin...
...that was older,
as it's usual in my family to this day,
so they are called uncles,
because they are older.
So, my childhood,
it was a childhood where I learned...
... from the oldest, living with the elders,
seeing what the elders used to do,
and what the oldest women used to do.
But also...
... of that thing of being there in the yard, being in the forest.
Plants, that are called nowadays "PANC" plants,
I say: look!
When I was a child I made so much food, playing doll.
Real food!
Because we learned cooking through play.
Playing with the doll, the food,
that we made,
using Bertalha, using ...
... the Ora Pro Nobis today, that we called Thorn Leaf,
we made the caruru of Thorn Leaf,
which is the Ora Pro Nobis.
Because further down the slope there was a lady,
Mrs Anjinha,
and she made palm oil.
And the oil sludge, we call Bambá.
I remember we used to buy a "tostão",
in the currency of that time,
500 Réis, 400 Réis,
a tostão of Bambá,
which was like olive oil to flavor the food,
the caruru of Leaf Thorn.
So all this ...
This experience, I had when I was a child.
Today, they are returning ...
They grew up spontaneously: Mustard, Bertalha the Bredo,
which they call Pig's Bredo, or St. Anthony's Bredo,
Taioba ...
All this, we knew ... Since I was a child I know.
I know it's good to eat.
I know which leaf to use to make a tea,
Capim Santo, there was a big bush of Capim Santo.
A big bush...
Tear of Our Lady, that we were...
... taking the seeds to make necklace.
Things we lost, precisely,
losing the backyard space.
With the invasions,
and also with the actions ...
Because the land...
...it wasn't really our property,
because, until today, we don't have a document ...
... of ownership of that land.
Nobody will take us away,
because there's the usucaption, there's a lot of law there...
... that assures us.
But at that time, they used to lease...
The "owners of the land" used to lease the land.
My parents rented this land,
they built our family's house there.
One of the houses, the main house, the first one,
where is the terreiro Nzo Onimboya nowadays.
So,
we ...
That territory ...
... it was like this, things happened like that.
And in this mine childhood too,
even without being in the religion,
in the Candomblé practice,
but my mother was,
and we experienced everything ...
All these things were part of living.
We didn't have that thing of... no.
You lived that.
And it marks.
We are impregnated with it.
That's you.
So I am the result of that.
I am the result of that.
I am the fruit of actions ...
...then today I say:
Yeah!
I learned to do politics, to be political,
non partisan politics,
but to really do politics,
collective thing,
there, there.
When we came together to ...
We didn't know what asphalt was, we had no transportation,
we had nothing, our transportation was the horse cart,
but when we brought people together,
to improve the steps,
the slope stairs,
that was all clay,
and when it rained came the flood,
there were those days of...
... joining everybody to make those joint efforts.
Or when...
It was so different from today.
The houses were like one here, another there, another there,
house made of pug, house of...
Lined with zinc tile.
Afterwards we got adobe houses,
we used to make the adobe to build...
...the walls.
Then come brick house, block house,
and today the slab houses,
But...
I mean...
That was something that I experienced in my childhood.
This is not... no...
What you must see is this.
It is not...
You must see this.
It is.
It is this color.
Look how different it is.
This is from here.
It's it! Look!
Oh my gosh!
Great!
It's the soil!
It's it!
Look!
It's it!
It is because of the soil.
Here, the weather here, everything ...
Is different...
It seems that there is more there, look ...
It really gets like that.
It's it! I knew by the stem.
And its stem,
it gives embira strings,
you can take something like that and use it to tie.
It's it!
Pindaiba.
They also call it Pindaiba, Pindaiva.
It is very big, but it's it!
I said: here, this forest will give Pindaíba!
It's Pindaiba!
It's it! For sure!
Early!
Because of that too, we know it.
Look, its stem, see?
When it gets bigger,
it gives some curls ...
But there's a lot, look!
This area here ...
... is the area where we will find it.
There is more there.
Want to see?
Bandagira, Bandagira, Bandagira, Bandagira.
It's no longer...
I'm looking from far...
It looks like it, but it is not...
It is not.
You see, you ... Yeah ... You must see...
You know this thing here ...
The color of the stem,
of the twigs,
it has a branch,
it is like that but it will spread ...
And it's like that... I thought it was, but it's not ...
But it's it.
Yeah, my daddy has already shown that there is it here.
If there is it here you should be there in another corner too.
It is not the only one.
Right here like this to say: "Look at me here!"
"Are you looking for me?"
Yeah! But it's it!
I will take it...
Bandagira, I know that this is not the best time,
but it's just for showing to Deise,
for her to know.
Well, Mrs Pindaíba!
-And why were you looking for Pindaiba?
-Me... because it's a leaf ...
...very important, which we use,
it looks like Mucumbe, look ...
But the smell is not the same.
Saw? But gives...
Saw? Because...
It is a leaf that we use a lot.
Use to... Suddenly this may even be ...
We use for blessing,
we use for bath ...
It...
Pindaiba is the popular name,
it has a scientific name that I've forgotten now,
I have already researched it.
But it, in the Candomble's people language,
in the language of the traditional herbalists,
it is known as "Spellbreaker" or "Spell Strip".
And I think that this leaf ...
... it's a bit like my name,
my religious name,
my name in Candomblé is "Zimewanga".
"Zimewanga" comes from "Zima-Wanga".
"Zima" is to erase, to remove.
"Wanga" is suffering,
magic, and some also call it spell.
So...
If it's to break the spell, to take the spell away,
it has to do with my religious name, with my name.
To take away the suffering ...
When we take the spell away, the magic thing ...
... in the sense of the bad spell,
we take away the suffering, right?
And i'm looking for it because there,
I was reading about it and I've heard that it's a leaf, a species ...
... in extinction.
And then I'm worried about taking a seedling ...
... for us to have it there in the terreiro,
even if it's in a vase, in one thing,
we are pruning,
but we'll have the species there.
And so.
The Nkisi have the songs ...
But a song ...
... which is a song of a public ritual,
it's not an internal thing,
It's an nkosi song ...
Nkosi is the equivalent ...
Nkosi Mocumbe or Roxi Mocumbe ...
... is the equivalent of Ogun.
It is the equivalent of Gu.
To the Jeje cult, Gu.
To the Keto cult, Ogun.
And in our language it is ...
Nkosi Mocumbe or Roxi Mocumbe.
So there is a song I use a lot and I like it a lot,
because it's a song that ...
... it's for Roxi, it's for Nkosi,
that opens the way, go but ...
... that says: "don't go alone".
We are there, in the woods, within the concrete jungles.
We are there, in the today's context,
because we can't be alone,
we must be tied up together...
...with the other,
because...
... if one wobbles, the other holds him, wait, don't fall.
Let's go!
Which is a song that I also sang ...
... on that day of the prize, of the awarding.
"Moko" is hand.
"Singuê" is one thing that ties up, that enlaces.
It is one of the ...
... of the terms that's for that.
Tie yourselves on each other.
It means: Go forward!
They go forward, it's like saying: Us too.
Go forward, "Landa", go forward.
It's...
Go forward, but this thing of being: "Singuê, Singuê".
Go forward, but like this, not to fall.
We do not "Baka", fall.
We will not fall.
Let's go together,
hitched, tied on each other,
not to fall.
Let's go, but ...
Calm, calm.
Let's go calmly.
So, in this prayer, I think that...
... it may have some indigenous word,
some indigenous terminology,
but I think there is something with the sound of Banto language.
This is a prayer that we pray to Caboclo.
But there are so many beautiful Caboclo songs.
Lots of songs ...
There is a song that mentions, including...
Because the Caboclos take the songs.
They take the songs.
We take it, but they arrive and sing their praises,
they sing their own songs,
then one learns and puts it in practice...
... using, singing.
But it is very common.
There is a song in which we ...
... also talk about our root of Santo,
of our Nkisi.
It's...
A song ...
... that we sing ...
Oh yeah, Junsara.
Tumba Junsara ...
It's like ...
The Caboclo arrives greeting and asking questions,
when there is someone from the root of Junsara,
they praise, and in this song ...
... who is from this root...
goes in to the circle to dance with Caboclo.
Oh yeah, Junsara,
Tumba Junsara, I came to see you.
Oh yeah, Junsara,
Tumba Junsara, how are you doing?
It's a song ...
And there is...
... a song, as I said before,
that sometimes...
praises the catholic saints as well.
A song that says: "Jesus Mary Joseph".
God? Save...
Not...
That we say: "Jesus, Mary, Joseph".
It will be the God's will.
Who can do more ...
...is God,
Jesus, Mary, Joseph.
It will be the God's will.
Usually,
as...
When we have the healing meetings,
in the end,
we usually sing ...
... to finish, to close.
Only God, only God.
Hail Mary, my God.
Only God, only God,
as there is only one God.
Only God, only God.
Then we finish it, closing:
A hug given with a good heart ...
And we hug each other, they hug each other.
Caboclo, the people there, hug themselves.
Is like a blessing, a blessing, a blessing.
A hug given with a good heart ...
... is like a blessing, a blessing, a blessing.
This is why I say:
We have to reverence the Caboclo.
Because it was ...
Caboclo is the owner of the land.
Caboclo was here before.
Portuguese is not the owner of the land.
The African was not the owner of the land.
The owner of the land is the indigenous.
And the Caboclo, for us, is the indigenous ancestor,
the spirits of the indigenous.
And these indigenous who mixed themselves with the blacks,
that is Caboclo.
For us, Caboclo is that.
So that's why there is ...
... the feathered indigenous, but there is the Cowboy's Caboclo
There is the Sailor's,
which shows a little ...
... of the Portuguese influence.
Sailor coming from Lisbon,
what a beauty in the waves of the sea.
I come from faraway seas,
Above the land Two royal dove.
Above the land, no... Over the sail ...
Over the sail, Two royal dove.
So...
And Caboclo is that! Caboclo is the ...
... is what gives the cure,
is who has the knowledge of the earth,
of the root,
of plants ...
And he mixed it a lot ...
... with the black that came from Congo,
who is nature. We ...
Look, there is no legend there, There is no myth there.
Nkisi is everything that is there!
The Nkisi's energy is there!
and also the Orixá's and Vodum's to me.
Understood?
It doesn't have one form, this is given by us.
This thing of legend, myth, history ...
... was created by us ...
This was not created by us!
We can create it again, replant ...
... but who planted it first ...
... was the creator, it was God, was Nzambi, Olorum
Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah ...
It doesn't matter the name.
Only one!
There are no two gods.
There are no gods ...
Ah, the African "gods". There are no African gods!
There is Orixá, there is Nkisi,
Vodum and who knows, in other cultures,
the name it's given.
But there is only one creator.
Or female creator.
So that's it, the energy ...
And we...
The Caboclo, the Indigenous is very important for us because...
Because he... How can you ...
... talk about indigenous ...
... in a building environment?
You must talk about indigenous in the forest environment.
That's where his life is,
that's his place, that's his house.
Demarcate place for indigenous?
You don't have to demarcate!
He has to have freedom.
He has to have land.
He has to be able to walk.
Indigenous is not of captivity, as they say.
Captivity, I am not of captivity.
As that sometimes they say that we,
the african part,
of the African Santo is of captivity, because we stay inside ...
He no, he does not need captivity,
He has no captivity.
He is not captive,
He needs freedom.
Like us as well, but we worship ...
... the Orixá in the room, he doesn't, he is in the forest.
See how they show, right?
That's right...
Thanks, "N'zambi uá Kuatesa"!
"Ntondele".
Ah, Kavungo ...
Kavungo is everything, Kavungo is the land!
It's this land ...
We are...
... this chemistry present in the soil.
Chemistry that is medicine, chemistry that is nourishment,
Chemistry needed by all terrains.
We need to live.
There is a traditional saying ...
... that I think is very interesting.
I learned from Fu-Kiau.
And when they talk about: what is the Earth?
Then they say: "The earth is ...
... "Futu dia n'kisi diakânga Kalunga ...
... mu diambu dia moyo ".
It means: The Earth, this planet,
which is our common house,
... we are earthly beings, human beings,
it's a package,
a "futu" is like a sachet, a package.
"Futu dia n'kisi".
And what is Nkisi?
Nkisi is synonymous with "Bilongo".
Nkisi is the healing essence.
Nkisi is the medicine. Not this medicine ...
... of the modern science which calls itself traditional.
Traditional is ours!
The Nkisi ...
... is everything given by the earth,
that is this healing essence.
Because food is medicine and medicine is food,
we separate things.
But what we eat, It comes from the earth.
It comes as a medicine.
It's the cure for us.
It's our food.
It is what feeds the body.
So Nkisi.
Nkisi is a word that comes from the verb "kinsa".
"Kinsa" means to take care of, to heal,
to cherish, among other meanings.
Then: What is Nkisi?
The Nkisi, for us in Candomblé,
is what heals, what takes care of us,
what is careful, what cherishes us.
The Nkisi, then ...
"Futu dia N'kisi" It is the Nkisi package.
"Diakânga Kalunga".
"Kanga" is to tie.
"Kanga", we have it, right?
The thing that ties, "Kanga".
To tie, to enlace, to knot...
But also to encode.
It means that everything that we have here...
They try nowadays to encode the human being,
"scientifically"...
It was encoded by Kalunga,
by N'Zambi.
By the Being, male or female, the engender, the creator.
"Diakânga Kalunga".
"Kanga": Sealed, tied,
enlaced, encoded...
... by Kalunga, by God.
"Mu diambo dia".
"Mu diambo dia" is an expression that exists in Kikongo,
which means: with the intention of, to...
For the purpose of...
"Mu diambo dia moyo".
"Moyo" is life.
With the intention of life, for the life.
For the purpose of giving life.
Then,
everything that is available in the nature,
and along with the natural phenomena,
but this nature that is palpable, touchable,
that was left there. The plants...
Today there are...
... ornamental plants, yes ...
We are saying that it is ornamental,
but everything that was placed,
wasn't placed with no reason.
Every little bush that sometimes we don't plant,
but it's there!
The stone is there ...
... and it comes ...
... that little bush, that plant that you didn't plant.
Ah, it's the bush ...
We may not know the purpose of that plant,
we may not know.
But there is a day, will have a day,
that will have some disease,
and that plant will serve to cure that disease.
There is a giant tree!
Underneath are some little bushes.
Ah, we look and "the tree"!
But that little bush that is on its foot ...
... has something to do with that tree.
You see? So...
Everything that God has planted, that has been left...
We haven't known how to take care of it because ...
...in such a little time, we have destroyed so much!
Instead of working to make it go beyond ...
And the man is destroying ...
There is a hill, a hill is placed there,
Then they take the hill!
Hell! That hill had a purpose of being there!
And we take it out!
Sometimes to put a skyscraper, to do something else ...
And then...
Run land there, I don't know what there ...
Understood?
We are interfering ...
In so little time we've being on earth.
Because, how long did it take?
For our planet to form, to forge itself?
Then that's it.
This traditional saying ...
from Congo ...
... that he has left,
and that is so important. We need ...
... to pay attention to that.
We need to pay attention ...
And Kavungo is that.
Kavungo is earth, is this ...
Kavungo, Omolu, Obaluaê.
He is that.
He is this energy that wanders ...
... under the earth,
making the chemistry ...
to arise here, to arise there,
there is this climate, there is the other one,
but everything is there.
everything is there in the earth.
This is Kavungo.
And Kavungo, he has a lot ... I think he is ...
The energies, the Nkisi, the Orixás ...
Everything is interconnected.
But this interconnection ...
... of Kavungo with Katendê, which is Ossanha.
With...
... the Tata Muilo, which is the sun,
you also need, but with the water,
which is Dandalunda.
Everything is interconnected there.
In order to give life, to make it possible ...
... to life to be perpetuated ...
... and to cure us of diseases.
Kavungo is very profound.
That thing of ...
... of turning yourself to the earth,
of thinking.
Maybe Kavungo's people are ...
... this thing of thinking,
to think about the world, to think about everything ...
Because he takes us ...
... to think, to meditate.
"You may not even believe, but there are more people besides us here,
listening to us, looking at us, there are energies here, with us, interacting.
So all these interactions occur in this world, in our natural plan.
It is in this plane that we interact with the supernatural world.
We don't need to wait to have spiritual life, nor to be in contact ...
... with spiritual things only after death, no.
And Candomblé does nothing else other than keeping, working and acting ...
... for these interactions to occur.
Makota Valdina: "Meu caminhar, meu viver"
Sailor, sustain the rudder.
Do not let the boat turn over.
I already saved the artillery.
Disembark on the riverside.
Row the canoe in the seabed.
Ah rower!
Row the canoe in the seabed.
Ah, rower.
This is a Marujo's song.
There are so many Caboclo's songs.
In the forest,
In the Jurema,
In the forest,
In the Jurema, it's a severe law,
It's a law with no mercy.
It's a severe law, It's a law with no mercy.
Yeah, in the forest,
In the Jurema,
In the forest,
In the Jurema, it's a severe law,
It's a law with no mercy.
It's a severe law,
It's a law with no mercy.