They were culturally superior not only to the natives, but to the great majority of the white colonists.įreyre does an excellent job in explaining the impact the African culture had in Brazil. He also mentions the Mohammedan Negroes that were brought to Brazil from the African area which had been most deeply penetrated by Islamism. There is a focus on the prayers, child marriage, taunting rhymes and lullabies. Sexuality was a prevalent theme in this reading, he talks about the odor of certain kinds of bodies, the “lushness” of women’s diets, sexual diseases, the heat and the importance of Big House in Brazilian culture. There was a deeper analysis of food, clothing, religious rituals and dance, which was linked from the African slaves to the Brazil’s culture that is seen today. He emphasizes that the negative qualities considered characteristic of African slaves in Brazil were in fact produced by slavery, not by African heritage. He traces numerous separate lines from African civilization to Brazil, noting in considerable detail the importance of the vastly varying African populations, religions, languages, and cultures that were brought. Freyre believes that the anthropology-culture and historical social aspects of African life indicate that Brazil benefited from a better type of colonists from the “dark continent”, than did the countries of the Americas. In this particular chapter, he focused mostly on African cultural anthropology and its social history rather than the physical anthropology. He wrote this reading to explain that the strength of Brazil lies in its racial diversity.įreyre elaborates on the living conditions of Portuguese settlers, the indigenous peoples of Brazil, and African slaves. It is a secondary source because it incorporates and explains in detail the different types of resources. The Masters and the Slaves, was written by Gilberto de Mello Freyre, which was first published in 1933.
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