Traditional June festivals celebrate bountiful harvests in Brazil

Traditional dishes, bonfires, fireworks, and the colorful, flapping flags hanging overhead out on the street are some of the elements making up the festivities collectively known throughout Brazil as Festas Juninas. Be it in a major city event, a fair next to a church, or a thatched tent outside a family's house, the celebration is often part of the festivities typically held in June, which have their roots in harvest rituals. The millennia-old festivity, however, was transformed over the course of the centuries, but remained a cultural manifestation of the ties between man and field.

“The Festa Junina is a celebration deeply rooted in Brazilian culture, with food as a key element of identity,” says historian Morelli Abrahão, of the State University of Campinas (Unicamp). She notes that a number of such parties are no longer associated with the saints from the Catholic Church, but have become a symbol of collective memory. The typical dishes represent this collective memory of our people,” Abrahão said.

The festivities are more prominent in the North and Northeast of the country. Professor Lourdes Macena, a scholar on popular traditions from the Federal Institute of Technological Education of Ceará (IFCE), maintains that the cultural expressions take up different forms from place to place.

“Much of the music and the writings are about the quentão, we don't drink it here [in Ceará]. We take the aluá,” she said.

Wine-based and heavily spiced, the quentão brings warmth to June, when winter begins in the southern hemisphere. The aluá, in turn, is indigenous in its origin and is often prepared with pineapple.

Origins

According to Abrahão, the Festas Juninas date back to the 12th century and originated from pagan festivities. “The ancients believed that celebrating goddess Juno, seen as the protector of marriages, births, and women, would bring bountiful harvests,” she remarked. The Roman Church, however, did not think well of these popular celebrations and started a process of assimilation, connecting them with the liturgical calendar. “It's the summer solstice period in Europe, so it's strongly linked to sowing and harvesting,” she added.

In Brazil, the June celebrations are once again associated with a process of assimilation by the Catholic Church. “When colonizers from Portugal and Jesuit priests landed here, they were confronted by indigenous traditions surrounding the preparation of the soil for agriculture, which was also aimed at bringing bumper harvests. The Indians were also accustomed to holding festivals in this period,” she went on to say. The indigenous celebration gives way to the Christian one, centered on the figure of Saint John the Baptist.

Diversity

Professor Macena explains some of the regional differences. In the Northeast, for instance, cultural roots are part and parcel with traditional cuisine. “Potato, cassava, yam—we use them all a lot. We eat them cooked, roasted over a fire,” she noted.

There are also linguistic differences related to how corn—the key ingredient in many typical Festa Junina recipes—is prepared. The pudding called “canjica” in the Northeast is known as “curau” in the Southeast. The dessert referred to as “canjica” in the Southeast is the “mungunzá” in the northeastern states. There is also the “pamonha,” a dumpling that may be salty or sweet, usually wrapped in corn husks. They are easily found across the country.

In Maranhão, despite the common quadrilha—an amusing dance performance that usually tells the story of a wedding in the countryside—the so-called brincadeiras de boi (literally "ox games") are the most popular activities. “There are a number of varieties. The “matraca,” the “zambumba, the “ilha,” which are different ways to play these games musically, with a range of different characters who also take particular forms in Maranhão,” Macena explained.

In the state of Amazonas, the great Parintins festival takes place between the oxen Caprichoso and Garantido. “There, the ox games turn into a unique party, the Festa Junina itself is all about the ox,” the professor noted. The celebrations are held on the last weekend of June.

In Ceará, the professor's birthplace, as is the case in other northeastern states, chintz is a common fabric in traditional costumes as well as decoration. “We like colorful elements a lot, so we're always wearing strips with strong, vivid colors. We wear our outfits in a lot of different, playful ways. Sticking to the traditional style doesn't keep us from using these aesthetic standards to make something new out of it, and that's made possible by the fabric, the colors, the checkered patterns,” she explained. Local charms and spells to “find yourself a husband” are also part of the festivities in the state.

Translated by Fabrício Ferreira