Saracura Vai-Vai fights for black memory in the subway and museum – 08/24/2023 – Guia Negro

It is not possible to excavate places of foundations (religious), without messing with the ancestors. This is what Linha Uni, the consortium led by Acciona and responsible for the construction and operation of the future Line 6-Orange of the São Paulo Metro, has learned the hard way. During the works in the Bixiga region, the company discovered traces of the Quilombo Saracura, which operated there in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The discovery was notified on the company’s website in April 2022, but was not known by society for two months. Until Guia Negro reported it and the residents of the neighborhood organized themselves into the Saracura Vai-Vai Movement, which has been meeting weekly for over a year around the agenda of preserving this history.

Among the demands are the change of name of the Metro Station, from 14 Bis to Saracura Vai-Vai; heritage education so that the stories are known by more people and museum with the pieces found in the work in the station itself or in its surroundings.

Mobiliza Saracura Vai-Vai is the meeting of several movements that already existed in the neighborhood, with reinforcement of the black movement. The members participated, for example, actively in the debate on the master plan, in which they managed to include the City Hall’s responsibility for protecting the quilombola areas demarcated by the Federal Government. “Today the only quilombola territory recognized in the urban area of ​​São Paulo is Saracura, but it also allows others to have that right in the future”, says Luciana Araujo, journalist, resident of Bixiga and member of the Saracura Vai-Vai Movement.

Bixiga was recognized as an urban quilombo territory, before and after the abolition of slavery in Brazil, by the National and Historical Heritage Institute (Iphan). Throughout the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, it housed the Vai-Vai samba school, the biggest winner of the São Paulo carnival, which brings black prominence in its sambas and parades and was founded in a terreiro, which had fundamentals of orixás.

The school was expropriated for the construction of the subway, after a long dispute with part of the neighborhood that was bothered by the sound of the rehearsals. It left the old headquarters with the promise of another block in the neighborhood, and today the new location is embargoed by the courts and Vai-Vai remains homeless in its original location. That is, the struggle of the movement is also for the permanence of Vai-Vai in the territory.

Excavations

The subway work, in turn, came across the archaeological site. “It messed with those who were quiet”, as the popular saying goes. “We understand that the subway is important, but it needs to respect our history. The excavation cannot destroy the memories of this black territory and we want to make this place a museum”, says Luciana Araujo.

Iphan also recognized the place as a consecrated territory of African origin. Last Friday (18/08), Ebomi Jennifer de Xangô, who is taking over the Ilè Asè Iyà Osun, after the death of Pai Francisco de Oxum, was at the site and identified several pieces of agate, such as a shallow dish and a sling – used in candomblé, in addition to the knife and horseshoe, which are symbols of the orixá Ogum.

The expectation of A Lasca, the company responsible for the archaeological site and which works together with Acciona, was that there would be a ritual for “liberation of territory” for excavations. There are employees who work on the site, who consider the place haunted and some are afraid of what can be found there.

More than 4,000 pieces have already been found at the excavation site. The proposition of the movements is that the station tells the story of the place (as Santa Cecília tells about modernism) and that above it there is the museum. Among the findings are religious images, pieces of tile cut in diamonds and triangles, crockery, clothing and shoes (which add up to about 500 of different types).

Lasca requested that the excavation depth be reduced from 6 to 3 meters, ignoring the materials that can still be found further down. Popular movements point out that the work continues without mitigating the impacts, archaeological and the surroundings. The company did not respond to these points raised and informs that there is still no forecast for the end of the archaeological excavations.

Actions

Among the mobilizations is bill 1047/2023 by state deputy Leci Brandão (PCdoB) which provides for the name change of the future station to Saracura Vai-Vai. The São Paulo government’s Secretariat for Investment Partnerships (SPI) informs that the request from the Saracura Vai-Vai movement “is still under evaluation”.

In the case of the heritage education project, the movement predicts that there will be permanent routes in the neighborhood, demarcation by means of plaques with the history of black experience and reference points, such as the headquarters of the Unified Black Movement (MNU), and heritage training. “We want there to be a permanent policy for disseminating this knowledge. The State and the concessionaire need to pay for this”, considers Luciana Araujo.

Other side

Linha Uni still calls, in a note, the future 14 Bis station and states that “the processes of rescue of archaeological sites will continue until the end of the archaeological soil” and guarantees that both the company and A Lasca “are committed to the technical procedures, legal norms for the protection of cultural heritage, respect and visibility of the ethnocultural segments that make up the identity of São Paulo”.

Unlike what the movement asks for, a museum in the neighborhood, the objects found, according to Linha Uni, should be part of the collection of the Archeology Center of São Paulo, linked to the Department of Historical Heritage of the Municipal Secretariat of Culture.

The company is also not committed to carrying out a continuous heritage education project and just says that it has a “dialogue and learning channel with the Central-South Education Board for the elaboration of pedagogical strategies aimed at the school community in the region of the Bixiga”. Finally, Linha Uni reinforces that the works on Metro Line 6-Orange follow the schedule established by the Secretariat for Partnerships and Investments. The expected date for completion of the subway was not informed.

past and future

According to oral reports from the elders of the neighborhood, the region was also home to a cemetery for enslaved people. So far there are no documents or evidence to prove the information. But there is no doubt that there are more narratives to be known.

The birth of Bixiga is celebrated on October 1st, the date in 1878 when the foundation stone was laid for the construction of a hospital in the region, which was never completed. There are, however, population records in the region since 1848. The site appeared on maps only as a slope and woods on the Saracura River, just as it appears today in official records as part of Bela Vista.

Bixiga’s struggle for visibility is an old one, but I am sure that the time has come to tell it properly and, just as the Saracura River, which was buffered, demands its presence when it rains, this is a story that will not go away. to be able to hide it more and put it underground along with the subway. Long live Bixiga Negro, long live Saracura, long live Vai-Vai.