For three long years, Vandeli Matos was an emperor in waiting. The symbolic coronation of the 33-year-old finally occurred this week when the Kalunga quilombo — as Brazilian communities descended from runaway slaves are known — gathered for the first time since the pandemic began. It was part of a festival that Kalunga’s 39 far-flung communities hold every August — or had held until the pandemic prevented the annual week of roaring festivities celebrating Our Lady of the Abbey. Thousands of pilgrims from all corners of the vast Kalunga territory flocked to the municipality Cavalcante, some 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of the capital, Brasilia, for this year’s coronations and other rituals. Families set up in small wattle and daub houses, inhabited only during the festival. The structures, decorated with balloons, paper flowers and brightly colored fabrics, form a half-moon around the town’s chapel, where religious ceremonies take place. “We tried to maintain the tradition the...
from ABC News: International
from ABC News: International