Fatumbi, The Island of All Saints / Fatumbi, A Ilha de Todos os Santos - John Ryle

Fatumbi, A Ilha De Todos Os Santos

Marco André, Almir da Ilha e Mauricio 100

Vem brilhar, um dom divino
Na regência de Ifá, nasce o filho do destino
E com a ilha atravessa o mar
O navio é negreiro, ô ô ô
E na vinda vêm os orixás
Pra surgir nossos terreiros
Na cultura Yorubá Nagô, ô ô
Se entrega por inteiro
E se sagrou babalaô
Homem branco feiticeiro

Negro chora, negro ri,
Amor, amor
Negro é raça, negro é grito
Negro é tão bonito
Fatumbi fotografou

E com Jubiabá na memória
Muda sua trajetória, vem-se embora
E da Bahia faz o seu canto
Se torna filho de santo, de Mãe Senhora
E sua obra no Candomblé
Mostra a força do nosso axé
E a grandeza dessa nação
Iluminado pela paz de Oxalá
É luz que brilha com seu encanto
É ilha de todos os santos

Vem ver, vem ver a bateria arrepiar
Xirê, Sapucaí vai tremer
Pra Fatumbi Ojuobá

Fatumbi, the Island of All Saints

Marco André, Almir da Ilha and Mauricio 100

Translated by John Ryle and Peter Fry

Shine down on us, divine gift!
This child of destiny, in thrall to Ifá
Crossing the sea with our island.
The vessel a slave ship
With orixás on board
Come to inhabit our sacred spaces
In the Yoruba tradition, the tradition of Nagô.
He gives himself to them completely,
And is consecrated a diviner.
The white man becomes a magician.

Black people lament, black people laugh
Love, oh love
Black is the race and black the cry
Black people are so handsome
And Fatumbi1 was their photographer.

Like Jubiabá of blessed memory,
He changes course and comes away,
And makes his home in Bahia.
Becomes a son-of-saint of Mãe Senhora
And his work in Candomblé
Reveals the power of ouraxé
And the greatness of this nation,
Illuminated by the peace of Oxalá,
A light that shines with enchantment
This is the Island of All Saints.

Come—the drums will make you tremble.
Xirê—Sapucaí resounds
For Fatumbi Ojuobá

Notes

Fatumbi was the Yoruba name given to Pierre Verger (d.1996), a French photographer and ethnographer who was one of the leading chroniclers of West African and Afro-Brazilian history and culture. The song is a samba de enredo (“story-samba”, ie samba with a narrative), composed in honour of Pierre Verger and performed by the Grêmio Escola de Samba União da Ilha do Governador in Rio Carnaval 1998. The Ilha de Governador samba school, founded in 1953, is based on Governor’s Island in Rio de Janeiro.
A Ilha de Todos os Santos is a conflation of the name of the school with that of Salvador da Bahia de Todos os Santos, the city on the north-east coast of Brazil where Pierre Verger lived for the last forty years of his life. The city of Salvador—also known as Bahia, the name of the state it is part of—is the heartland of Candomblé, best-documented of the African-derived religions of Brazil.
The Yoruba spirit of divination.
The União da Ilha samba school and its members—or their African forebears.
Candomblé divinities, mostly from the Yoruba-derived pantheon.
In Bahian Candomblé, a “father-of-saint”, religious leader, priest.
A filho de santo of the late Mãe Senhora—a son-of-saint, or initiate in Candomblé. A leading dignitary of Bahian Candomblé until her death in the 1970s, Mãe Senhora Iyá Nassô (Dona Maria Bibiana do Espirito Santo) was the māe de santo—mother-of-saint, or priestess—at the most celebrated terreiro in Bahia, Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá. Pierre Verger was not, in fact, her son-of-saint in the strict sense, having been initiated earlier, in Benin. Rather, he held a position in her temple, Obá of Xangó (the Eye of Xangó)—the Yoruba divinity Şòngó (Xangó) being the presiding deity there.
Yoruba term for spiritual power.
Father of the gods in the Yoruba pantheon; one of Pierre Verger’s personal orishas (orixás, or divinities).
Yoruba salutation in a Candomblé canticle.
Avenida Marquês de Sapucaí in Rio de Janeiro, where samba schools parade during carnival.
The Eye of the King (ie of Xangó), a reference to Pierre Verger’s honorific post at Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá