MUSEAL IMAGINATION

Museum, Memory and Power in Gustavo Barroso, Gilberto Freyre and Darcy Ribeiro
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MÁRIO DE SOUZA CHAGAS

MUSEAL IMAGINATION

Museum, Memory and Power in Gustavo Barroso, Gilberto Freyre and Darcy Ribeiro

Doctoral thesis presented to the Graduate Program in

Social Sciences (PPCIS) of the State University of Rio de
January (UERJ) for obtaining the doctorate degree, in 1º of
December 2003.

Advisor: Professor Myrian Sepúlveda dos Santos

Rio de Janeiro
2003
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Examining Board

Professor Myrian Sepúlveda dos Santos

Advisor

Professor José Ribamar Bessa Freire (UERJ)

Professor José Reginaldo Santos Gonçalves (IFCS/UFRJ)

Professor Helena Bomeny (UERJ)

Professor Regina Maria do Rego Monteiro de Abreu (UNIRIO)

Professor Márcia Chuva (UNESA / IPHAN)

(Substitute)

Professor Rosane Manhães Prado (UERJ)

(Alternate)
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For my sons Viktor Henrique and Gabriel Lorenzo,

in memory of my father, João, and my mother, Sylvia.
For my sisters: Myriam, Márcia and Magda. For my
friends and friends. For the companion Leiza.
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SUMMARY

This research encompasses museums and cultural heritage as

narratives and social practices where a certain poetic imagination is present, without

loss of the political dimension. The examination of the museum imagination of Gustavo Barroso,

Gilberto Freyre and Darcy Ribeiro highlight that they are characters passionate about

certain causes, interested in the 'narrative kingdom' and literate in the language of

images and things. In appreciating the museal imagination of Gustavo Barroso, the study focuses on

three aspects: museum, history, and nation; in the case of Gilberto Freyre, the focus is on

in the following points: museum, tradition, and region, and in the case of Darcy Ribeiro, the following stand out

three other elements: museum, ethnicity, and culture.

It is remarkable that after the eighties, and especially after the nineties, there has been

there has been a renewal in the museum field. This renewal, having no single

political-cultural north and even less a single technical-scientific orientation contributed

for the complexification of the field and for the expansion of Brazilian museodiversity. The

the museological heritage of the 20th century presents itself as a challenge, for which there are

multiple answers.
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summary

MEMORIES and THANKS 8

INTRODUCTION or the enigma of the little black hat 13

I. MUSEUM & HERITAGE: socially adjectived narratives and practices

At the gates of the museum and heritage domains 30

Heritage & Museum: dangers, values, and doors 33

2. The heritage citadel and the museum bastion 50

3. Museums: from mythical imagination to museal imagination 60

II. MUSEUM IMAGINATION in Gustavo Barroso, Gilberto Freyre, and Darcy

Ribeiro

The modern tradition of museology in Brazil 70

2. Three modern narrators

2.1. Gustavo Barroso: museum, history and nation

From the old house to the museum 84
The pyramid of tradition 90
Between things and between words 94
When can a museum be a bridge 97
The museum of the finger pointing 107
Still with a pointed finger 115
Of the museum as a counterweight or the systematization of imagination 124

2.2. Gilberto Freyre: museum, tradition, and region

I saw the world... it begins in Recife 135
From Pernambuco toys to the world and back to the toys 143
The region of the gaze and the gaze at the region 151
Adventure, exile, and routine 162
Around the Museum of the Man of the Northeast 173
Still around the Museum of the Man of the Northeast 182
Beyond imagination 187
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2.3. Darcy Ribeiro: museum, ethnicity and culture

Ci, the Mother of Things 190
From the skin of a motherfucker and other skins 197
Around the ethnographic museums in Brazil 208
A museum created on "Indian Day" 211
A museum fighting against prejudice 218
Around a museum of the man that was not realized 237

III. WITHIN THE LIMITS OF IMAGINATION

Interweaving the adventure of the three narrators 247

2. Borders and limits 256

3. From the necrology of museums to a radiant adventure 261

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS or leaving the doors open 276

BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES 287

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MEMORIES and THANKS

I remember an old Indian proverb that says: "Everything we can keep in

our dead and cold hands are what we have given.
insistence. Through your mediation, I understand that I have had, throughout my life, the privilege
of receiving many inheritances. Many of those who came before made me an heir: of some
I have never seen the faces nor have I even come to know their names; of others, images
without precise outline they fixed themselves on me, but as I move away from them in the
time flows, they enhance their clarity. I'm not talking about father and mother - even though
I want to thank those I meet around the world, for what I recognize in them as presence of
father and mother - I talk about some people who are anonymous to me, such as, for example, the
my mother's midwives; I speak and remember street kids: Tiziu, Isaías,
Paulinho, from Clóvis, from Roberto and from Jorge, who used to eat fried tanajura and was my greatest

my partner is my greatest rival in the marble game. I remember: my grandmother

maternal, Albertina (illiterate), who knew how to pray for fallen spine, swelling, and stye, knew
to call the wind with whistles and prescribe herbs for many ailments; of her husband,
Graciliano, my grandfather and army recruit, whom I never met personally, he died.
during the Second World War, without ever having left Brazil; from my paternal grandfather,
José (illiterate), a caboclo caiçara, and his wife, Rosa, my other grandmother (illiterate),
Portuguese woman with very large feet who taught me to husk corn in the countryside, to take care of

chickens, spoon potatoes, cassavas, oranges etc; from my maternal aunts with whom I
I was able to live with: Arlete (my godmother), Ilza, and Zilda, who used to take me to the barber and

I liked to sing; about the old man Seu Brasil; about the bandit Adauto and his partner, Pé de
Angel; of teacher Clarisse who taught me to read; of teacher Alda who encouraged the
my love for poetry; of Professor Corinto who devalued my writings and the
Professor Berenice who didn't teach me English, but told me about her travels and
adventures through India. I am grateful to everyone and many others for what they contributed to
my multiple deaths and rebirths. As an heir, I survive. I remember-
me too: from Marli - who trained me in the pebble game - and from the whole group of
Rocha Miranda: from Cássia, from Cau, from Rico, from Bel, from Dangó, from the other Marli, from Regina

and Betinho, a football star and my great chess partner; from the Mandacaru group:
 9

Krek, Toinzinho, Kalu, Caê, Big, Renato, Angélica, Marisa, Malu, Profeta, João Bem-
welcome, Atom, Kátia Brown, Tilde and Elisa; and from the Pressure Cooker group (poetasaurs)
survivors): Aljor, Gênesis, Lúcio, Marko Andrade and many others. I have had the
privilege of being friends with Simões, Isabel, Aluysio, Teresa, Fernando,
Márcia, from Alberto, from Maurício, from Carla, from Raul, from Sandi, from Beth, and from Rui, who

recently died. It's amazing how all these people are important in my life. Good
part of the research I did, perhaps this is an obvious thing, took place in the field of
subjectivities. Friendship is an asset. When I look at this land I find
people like Solange Godoy and Luís Antonelli, like Maria Célia Teixeira Moura
Santos, Marília Duarte, Ecyla Brandão, Cícero Antônio, Aécio de Oliveira, Regina
Baptista, Vânia Dolores, Marilene Leal, Liana O'Campo, and the late Waldisa Russio.
At the National Historical Museum, at the Museum of the Northeast Man, at the Museum of the Indian, at the

At the Darcy Ribeiro Foundation and at the Gilberto Freyre Foundation, I conducted interviews, I did

observations and documentary research. At all these institutions, I was well attended and
I found dedicated professionals and teams. At the Museum of the Republic, I received support from

work colleagues and, especially, in the final writing phase of the thesis, the understanding
by Ricardo Vieiralves. At UNIRIO, I counted on the support of colleagues from the Department of
Studies and Museological Processes. Many students and former students mark and have marked the

my journey as a teacher. I am grateful to everyone. During my research time I did

two trips abroad to visit and observe museums: one to the United States
United and another to Europe. These two trips would not be possible without the determined
collaboration of VITAE - Support for Culture, Education, and Social Promotion, and, in a way

especially to the cultural projects manager Gina Machado. I would like to express my gratitude here to

VITAE to all its workers. The trip through the United States was shared with
Marcelo Araújo, Cláudia Márcia, Cristina Bruno, Marcelo Cunha, Zita Possamai, Tadeu
Chiarelli, Antônio and Teresa Martins. Some conversations and observations made by
group of travelers still germinate. During the trip to Europe I met new
people, I made new friendships and reaffirmed previous friendships. In Portugal, I was
welcomed by Mário Moutinho and Judite Primo. I used their files, their libraries, I did
interviews and exchanged many ideas. Together, and accompanied by Fernando João and Isabel,
we traveled through Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam visiting many museums. I would like to
 10

to register the generosity with which I was (and have always been) welcomed by friends
Portuguese. But I recognize that these records say little about the friendship that overflows
out of the frame of a thank you. In France, I was received at the Center of
Research on Social Links (CERLIS), associated with CNRS-University of Rennes
Descartes (Paris 5). There I met and was mentored by Jacqueline Eidelman and Angela Xavier.
de Brito. The generous collaboration and the attention that these two professors and researchers
they dismissed me was fundamental. I had access to their libraries and received many
bibliographic suggestions. The material and intellectual support from Professor Ângela was
priceless. I hereby register, in their name, my deepest gratitude. Still in
France, I was with Cécilia de Varine, Hugues de Varine, François Hubert, Jean Paul
From Caudrec, Anne Monjaret, and Josete Bossard, I received support and valuable information.
and that is why I am grateful. On one of the most difficult days of my stay in Paris, I was aided by the

solidarity of Hélène, an old Jewish woman, who carried the marks of immigration in her memory
and the horrors of persecution and war. To Hélène, my sincerest thanks. I have had
the joy of building a synergistic partnership with Regina Abreu: we exchanged a lot
ideas, we reflect with enthusiasm and produce some things that please me very much.
I also register my thanks to Helena Bomeny and Valter Sinder. The Course
What they taught about Brazilian Social Thought was inspiring and decisive.
In addition, I received constant encouragement from both to advance my studies. José Reginaldo
Santos Gonçalves read and discussed my research project attentively, made important
criticism and helped me to walk. Your work has been a reference for me. In
UERJ, I thank João Trajano Sento-Sé, Clarice Peixoto, and Márcia Contins, professors.
and the coordinators of PPCIS during the period when I started there; I thank, likewise, the
Christiane Raphael, secretary of the referred Program, who accompanied my drama
when, on the day of the first enrollment, my youngest son slipped under a
a divider of the secretary's room a card of affection that was given to me by my oldest son
Old. Last month, when I went to handle the defense of the thesis, Christiane said to me: 'Here
there is the card that your son slipped under the partition of the living room. When the living room of

"The program was rearranged and the dividers dismantled; the card reappeared." Throughout the entire

the time, I have relied on the friendly, inspiring, attentive, and stimulating presence of my
mentor Myrian Sepúlveda dos Santos. I have learned a lot from her. I have
 11

tasted new ways of seeing, hearing, reading and describing the world; I have shared
memorable experiences and conversations. I hope she sees herself in my work. A
your presence is there: clear; much clearer in the lines than in one or another
quotation. And for all of this, I am immensely grateful. I am not just an heir to a
in the past, I am also the heir of what I receive as a gift in the present through gestures,
words, feelings and caring thoughts from Leiza, my partner. Without her
presence, my task would have been more difficult. All the time she was by my side and
you joined forces with me. Finally, I want to thank my children: Viktor Henrique (the most
old) and Gabriel Lorenzo (the youngest), they inspired me and made me an heir to a
heritage that explodes in the now, like a new seed.
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I made a piece from each corner and then brought it all together into one.

how to learn the letters a and i o u. We learn one by one to

then join and make a word. The letters are easier to put together.
What the images. The figures are harder to connect. The letters we
It knows right away. The figures are never fully known.

Fernando Diniz
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INTRODUCTION or the riddle of the little black hat

I will keep my little black hat forever, so I never forget.

from the music school.” These simple words stirred up a whirlwind in me

ideas and images. Shaken by its subtle and strange power1, I feel like I fell off the back.

of a fierce horse and I was reminded of the blue saddle that I had thrown off

Irene Funes: the memorized, in the famous tale by Jorge Luis Borges2. These words were

said with a certain air of innocence, on a Sunday morning, by my youngest son,

what is being prepared to enter the first grade of elementary school, when I

I told him that at the end of the year he would go through his first graduation ritual - how is it

current practice of the so-called Literacy Classes - and then I tried to explain to you

What a graduation was. It was at that point that he retorted and said he already knew what it was.

a graduation and corrected me saying that this would be her second graduation.

Embarrassed, I asked you when your first graduation would have taken place. From

Immediately, he replied to me with a question: 'Don't you remember?' In front of my

negative, he added: "I already had a first graduation, it was in the little school of

music." With the memory of him, the memory of that and others lit up in me.

simple - and some not so simple - rites of passage. When we arrive

at home, back from the Sunday outing, he went to his room and soon after

reappeared bringing in his hands a handmade paper hat. "Look dad - he

1
Oh, words, oh, words, / what a strange power you have! / All the meaning of life / begins with you.
door (...)". Meireles (1958).
2
Borges (1979, p. 477-484).
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he told me - my graduation cap." And with that document in hand, with

that artifact-testimony, with that unquestionable image of your argument, he

I will keep my little black hat forever,

so I never forget the music school.

It's needless to say that my youngest son's words moved me.

Without theoretical-academic support; without knowing Hugues de Varine, George Henri Rivière,

Waldisa Russio Camargo Guarnieri, Manuel de Barros, Walter Benjamin, Gaston

Bachelard, Pierre Nora, Maurice Halbwachs, Krzystof Pomian, Dominique Poulot, Jorge

Luis Borges, Hannah Arendt, Michel Foucault and so many others; without understanding my

adventures, fortunes and misfortunes through the territories and times of memory and power; without

to know that I have been focusing on the exam of what I call imagination

museal, particularly in relation to three Brazilian intellectuals of notable prominence

importance in the cultural field, namely: Gustavo Barroso, Gilberto Freyre, and Darcy

Ribeiro, he, who accelerated his literacy process while I was there

traveling through Europe for supplementary studies and observing some museums,

threw me out that sunny Sunday, supported only by his childlike imagination,

a beautiful enigma.

The simplicity and naturalness of my youngest son's words have gained in

with a strange power and an unforeseen centrality, which led me to

understand that very early, even before learning the first letters and the

first numbers, the notion consolidates in people that images and things

concrete objects can be instruments of mediation or anchors of memories, emotions,

sensations, thoughts, and intuitions.

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With its poetic accent, the imagination is a demiurgic power: capable of withdrawing or

giving souls to things, as Gustavo Barroso would say; capable of contributing to the expansion

or to the decline of the auratic power, as Walter Benjamin would say3Furthermore, a

the same artifact can be an evocative agent of memories, a support for information and

document-object of different historical discourses.

That little hat cut out of black cardboard, fixed with staples,

combining a square shape with a circular shape would effectively serve as

a memory support, like something capable of allowing forgetting not to

established? For the six-year-old boy, there was no doubt: that artifact was a

testimony and as such it should be kept (or preserved, I would like to say) for

that through you forgetfulness could be evaded. To keep it "forever" (which is

impossible in terms of preservationist practice) would be a kind of poetic gesture,

able to score heavily and overcome forgetfulness. Despite the certainty and the philosophical sentence of

Boy, I couldn't help but see a beautiful riddle there.

"The children – Gustavo Barroso would say in his first memoir –

they see life through a very different prism than adults, the prism of
imagination. They live in an ideal world. They get used to it from a very young age to
to give life to the imagined and to give soul to things. The imagination of children is greater

than the imagination of poets4.

I don't know if I fully understand the expression: 'to give soul to things', but in any case

she suggests to me the existence of a demiurgic power. A power that children,

3
Benjamin (1985, p.165-196).
4
Barroso (1939, p.32).
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through the means of creative imagination, they would be able to set in motion. Even so, I am

led to think that if things have a soul, that soul is given to them by some creative power.

Gilberto Freyre, in Recife, after receiving a letter from a friend

called Goldberg, was referred to the memory of David Pinski and Léon Kobrin who,

according to him, in 1923, the "two most advanced literary geniuses in the world

Israeli who expresses himself in Yiddish.” The memory of Léon Kobrin sparked in the young one.

Freyre recalled another memory, namely, the moment when Kobrin served him tea.

Russian fashion said to him: "from this cup in which we are going to serve you, you have often drunk tea,

"Right here, Leon Trotsky." Reflecting on the event, Gilberto Freyre commented:

I had an emotion easy to understand. After all, among the great men of action of

our time, who is greater than Trotsky?5.

What matters in this quote and at this moment is not Léon Trotsky, but his

charismatic memory, or still the power that your memory is capable of imprinting to

cup, to the memory of the cup's owner and to its current user. From some

the way, a simple reference that Trotsky drank tea from that cup, enhanced the power

did the tea ritual and transformed the object into a kind of relic, capable of evoking

memories and awakening emotions; how to place your lips and hands and eyes on that

an artifact that, in another time, was touched by the lips, hands, and eyes of

Trotsky was able to break the barriers of space and time and bring the user closer.

momentary of that 'great man of action'.

In his Confessions, Darcy Ribeiro, aware of the proximity of death,

he recapitulated life and constructed an expressionist self-portrait, anchored in memories.

5
Freyre (1975, p.133).
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At one point, recalling his childhood in the mining town of Montes Claros and the

your grandfather's nativity scene, "set up fifteen days before Christmas," with "wonderful figurines

of porcelain," he also recalled that the Christmas worship of the nativity was established in him of

indelibly and accompanied him throughout his life. 'Even when he was an atheist

professor – would confess later – before being as it is now, just aimlessly, wanted

images to set up my Christmas. I carried with me a little Jesus being born, wherever

I walked in this world6.

Also here, what matters is not the moving confession of a religiosity.

atavistic, but the presence of this image: 'a little Jesus Christ rising', which accompanied

the intellectual around the world. It is not difficult to understand its role as an anchor thrown into

past or as an instrument of mediation between times and spaces, as if by its

if presence were possible, a connection with another time, with the nativity of the boy

miner from Montes Claros.

The black hat combining a circular shape with a square shape,

in a kind of reminiscence of the famous 'squaring of the circle' and no less

famous "square circulation", led me to entertain the hypothesis that, at least from

from a museum perspective, there would be an indissoluble relationship between the visible and the invisible,

between the fixed and the volatile and that the amalgamation of this relationship should be sought in the

museum imagination. Along this path, I was led to admit the inseparability

between the so-called tangible and intangible assets. While the intangible provides

meaning to the tangible, the tangible gives corporeality to the intangible, one cannot survive without the other

the other. In other words: the riddle of the little black hat would allow me to understand the

6
Ribeiro (1997a, p.56-57).
 18

tangibility of the intangible and the intangibility of the tangible, the visibility of the invisible and the

invisibility of the visible, the fixation of the volatile and the volatilization of the fixed.

Select, gather, store, and display things in a specific space, designing them.

from one time to another, with the aim of evoking memories, exemplifying and

inspire behaviors, conduct studies and develop certain narratives,

seem to constitute the actions that, at first glance, would be at the roots of these

social practices that have been conventionally referred to as museums. The things selected this way,

gathered and exposed to the gaze (in the metaphorical sense of the term) would acquire new

meanings and functions, previously unanticipated. This inflection is one of

marked characteristics of the so-called musealization process which, broadly speaking, is

device of a selective and political nature, imbued with subjectivities, linked to a

representational intentionality and a game of assigning sociocultural values. In

other terms: from the immeasurable universe of the museable (everything that is capable of being

incorporated into a museum), just a few things, to which qualities are attributed

distinctive qualities will be highlighted and museumized. These distinctive qualities can be

identified as: documentality, testimony, authenticity, rarity, beauty,

wealth, curiosity, antiquity, exoticism, exceptionality, banality, falsehood

simplicity and others not anticipated.

Keeping the proper proportions, the action that my youngest son took, with apparent

innocence announced that it will carry out - "keep... forever... to not... forget

never...7it has an analogy with actions developed in some processes of

institutionalization of memory representations, among which I highlight museums, and

7
It is worth remembering the Visual Poem Opus 2/96, reedited in 1997, at the I Mercosul Biennial and related to the Mothers of
The Plaza de Mayo (Buenos Aires, Argentina): "Sow the memory/so that oblivion does not grow."
 19

with those that most individuals develop throughout their lives. What is not

thus, although it is suggested, there is a practical impossibility for the longing for everything

save, from which arises the need to select some memory supports about the

which will incite the preservationist action, which is equivalent to also choosing what will be

destroyed.

Preservation and destruction, keeping and losing, walk hand in hand through the arteries.

of life. As Nietzsche suggests, it is impossible to live without losses, it is entirely impossible.

to live without the game of destruction driving the dynamics of life8. It is also not

It is explicitly stated in the above-mentioned announcement that keeping the thing (the image or the artifact -

testimony) does not mean avoiding forgetfulness, just as losing the thing (or the object-

The document does not mean losing memory. Memory and forgetting are not in the

things, but in the relationships between beings, between beings and things and words and gestures

etc. It is necessary to have a creative imagination for things to be

investments of memory or thrown into the limbo of forgetfulness.

However, justifying preservation by the imminence of loss and memory by

the threat of forgetting seems more like a tautological argument, since, for this

trail, one ceases to consider that the game and the rules of the game are between forgetting and

memory is not fueled by themselves and that preservation and destruction, besides

complementary, are always at the service of subjects who are constructed and construct themselves

through social practices.

Indicate that memories and forgettings can be sown and cultivated

it supports the importance of working towards the denaturalization of these concepts and for

8
Nietzsche (1999, p.273).
 20

understanding that they result from a construction process that also involves

other forces. One of them, quite important, is the power, sower and promoter of

memories and forgetfulness.

When in the nineties I invested in the identification and analysis of thought

Mário de Andrade's museological9I had not elaborated the concept of imagination.

Museological. Even so, today, from a distance, I see that it was embryonically there.

I delved into the work (theoretical and practical) of Mário de Andrade and I highlighted what

which had an explicit relationship with the museum field. Thus, I focused not only on

your literary writings: poems, short stories, novels, and chronicles, but also in your other

writings: art critiques, correspondence, speeches, reports, projects, and preliminary projects.

I considered as part of your work (poetic of life): your library, your

collections of musical instruments, photographs, and other works of art, as well as the

work he developed at the head of the Department of Culture in São Paulo, in

period from 1934 to 1938.

Even back then my interest was to understand how certain

Brazilian intellectuals without specific training in the field of museums, without a

special and systematic training in the museum profession, they perceive, think, and practice the

museology. Among these intellectuals were: Paulo Duarte, Gilberto Freyre,

Gustavo Barroso, Lúcio Costa, Rodrigo Melo Franco de Andrade, Aloísio Magalhães,

Roquete Pinto, Darcy Ribeiro, Berta Ribeiro, Edgar Süssekind de Mendonça and others.

9
Chagas (1999)
 21

Subsequently, in exploratory research, I sought to examine the

representation of the themes museum, memory, and collection10In the writings of João Cabral de Melo

Neto (Museum of Everything and Museum of Everything and then), Mário de Andrade (Macunaíma and The)

Banquet), Carlos Drummond de Andrade (Meeting: 10 books of poetry), Cecília

Meireles (Absolute Sea and other poems and Natural Portrait), Wislawa Szymborska

(poems included in the book Four Polish Poets), Italo Calvino (Palomar and Cities)

Invisible) and Charles Kiefer (Museum of Insignificant Things). Explicitly, I

I wished to weave bridges, open doors and windows, expand the vessels of communication between the

museum know-how and other knowledges and practices.

In studying the museum thought of Mário de Andrade, I developed a paraphrase of

your debut book: There is a drop of blood in every poem11and I began to support the idea

that there is a drop of blood in every museum. In my understanding, the drop or sign of

blood was what gave the museum its specifically human dimension and

it explicitly stated its unmistakable sign of historicity. To admit the presence of the drop of blood

in the museum also meant accepting it as an arena, as a space of conflict and struggle, as

field of tradition and contradiction.

The expansion of this perspective gradually led me to look not only at the

coast of the museums, that is, for its beautiful face of contact with the public, but also

to your hinterland, to the currents of forces and ideas that move in yours

intestines. Both in the coastal region and in the interior of the museums it is possible to catch areas of

litigation, spaces where full and empty are at stake, shadows, lights and penumbra, dead and

livings, voices, murmurs and silences, memories and forgettings, powers and resistances. The

10
Chagas (2001/2002)
11
Book published in 1917, during World War I. Andrade (1980).
 22

the permanence of this game is the guarantee of the continuity of the social life of museums,

crossed by diverse political and cultural forces. Through this path, I began to

understanding museums as social microcosms and, from there, I began to understand that

to identify them only as "place of memory" is to reduce them to an expression that is

far from encompassing their complexities. It was necessary, at the very least, to consider them as one

time as stages of subjectivities and places of memory, power, and forgetting,

of resistance, of speaking and of silence12.

The studies previously conducted have become one of the layers of

land upon which the present investigation is based. In possession of a ballast

bibliographic, of a methodological instrument that combines museum observation with the

document analysis13already produced, and supported by a professional experience

accumulated over more than two decades of daily experience with problems

museological14I felt ready to face a greater challenge.

This time, my object of study is outlined from the identification and the

analysis of museal imagination in three Brazilian intellectuals: Gustavo Barroso, Gilberto

Freyre and Darcy Ribeiro. In their own way, these three intellectuals - leap year poets -

they produced different interpretations about Brazil. But, as they became interpreters, they did not

they limited themselves to literary and scientific writings, they were also men of action

political and cultural.

12
Chagas (2001, p.5-23)
13
I use the term document here in its broadest sense, which includes not only textual documents.
and iconographic, but also the three-dimensional objects, the collection, the space, the house, the building, the
monument, the city, magnetic and electronic records, and various other information supports.
14
I must register that I did an internship at the Indian Museum in 1979; I interned and worked at the Museum.
National History in different periods - from 1977 to 1980 and from 1989 to 1996 and I worked at the Museum of
Man from the Northeast at the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation from 1980 to 1988.
 23

Against the trend of the aseptic appreciation of fine literature, they built

cultural institutions engaged in educational practices and technical popularization

scientific, have committed themselves to the establishment of heritage protection devices

cultural and were the demiurges of museums. Although these three intellectuals have adhered to the

practice of producing and disseminating highly personal memories in literary terms during life,

their interest in the field of memory was not limited to these procedures.

Those interested in social memory, albeit with perspectives, methods, and approaches.

different, they were innovative poets attentive to the lesson of things (artifacts -

testimonies), to the memory of things, to the soul and the aura of things, knowing or not that the

things have a soul or the auratic power that it is capable of providing, even if unable to

to control.

Barroso, Freyre, and Darcy are three modern intellectuals, although none of them,

has been directly linked to the modernist way of being, proclaimed by the famous

Modern Art Week, which took place in February 1922 in São Paulo.

Different modernity projects have been discussed in Brazil for at least

since the end of the 19th century and even within the modernist movement that exploded in

The week of 1922 allows us to identify not only different times or phases15, but,

above all, various and contradictory trends that can be caught in the works and in

political actions of Oswald de Andrade, Mário de Andrade, Menotti Del Picchia, and Plínio

Salgado16, to cite just a few examples.

15
Eduardo Jardim de Moraes distinguishes two phases in the modernist movement: the first that extends from
1917 to 1924 and the second that begins in 1924 and continues until 1929. Moraes (1978, p.49-109).
16
Chauí (1989. p.87-121).
 24

In any case, the year 1922 was, for the reasons that follow,

particularly remarkable for the three intellectuals focused here: 1st. Birth of

Darcy Ribeiro, in October, in the Minas Gerais city of Montes Claros; 2nd. Acquisition by

Gilberto Freyre earned a Master of Arts degree from Columbia University (New York)

USA) with the defense of the thesis entitled Social life in Brazil in the middle of the 19th

Century17the 3rd. Opening in October, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, under the command and the

direction of Gustavo Barroso, from the National Historical Museum.

It is important to emphasize, at the outset, that with this research I do not intend to

develop a term-by-term comparative analysis of the museum imagination of these three

intellectuals, even though, at certain moments the comparison is indispensable and

illustrative; I also do not intend to develop a trajectory analysis

institutional and, much less, to subordinate this study to chronological rigor, still

that some milestones are equally essential for the design of the

argumentation announced here.

My research emphasizes an interdisciplinary approach interweaving the

museum studies, with the even broader field of social sciences. Upon establishing

my lens on these three intellectuals who dedicated themselves, among other things, to create

museums and reflecting on Brazilian society, I also do it with the intention of highlighting

some links, still not fully explored, between museological production and the

called Brazilian social thought.

17
Published in Baltimore, in the Hispanic Historical Review, v.5, n.4, Nov. 1922 and published in Recife, by
Joaquim Nabuco Institute of Social Research, in 1964, under the title Social Life in Brazil in the mid
19th century, translation by Waldemar Valente.
 25

The option for the examination of the museological imagination of Gustavo Barroso, Gilberto Freyre and

Darcy Ribeiro must be made explicit. These three men of thought and action, as it was

indicated, they created museum institutions and developed museological perspectives

quite different. By contrasting them and putting them in dialogue, one ends up illuminating the

another.

As an example, I cite the following museum achievements of these three intellectuals:

Gustavo Barroso was the founding father of the National Historical Museum and the 'adoptive father'18do

Museum Course, responsible for the institutionalization of museology in Brazil; Gilberto

Freyre was the idealizer and founding father of the Anthropological Museum of the Joaquim Institute.

Nabuco of Social Research merged later with the Sugar Museum and the Museum of

Popular Art, leading to the Museum of the Man of the Northeast, a model on which it was

the Museum of the Man of the North was built; Darcy Ribeiro was the founding father of the Museum of the

Indian, even though his paternity is occasionally questioned, and the idealizer of

unrealized project of the Museum of Man in Belo Horizonte (MG).

The selection made in the works of these three authors suggests the existence of different

museal imagination matrices. The examination of these matrices - born, grown and

developed in a soil fertilized by the relationships between memory and power - can, in my

understanding, contributing to a better understanding of the practices and theories of museology

contemporary, since they (the matrices) continue to unfold and dialogue

with different levels and folds of time.

18
The category 'adoptive father' was used for the first time, with a bit of irony, by Gilson do Coutto.
Nazareth, to refer to Barroso's relationship with the Museum Course, since his 'physical father' is in
words of the cited author, was Rodolfo Garcia. Nazareth (1991, p.39).
 26

Barroso, Freyre, and Darcy are the demiurges of modern museums that still exist today.

they seek to adapt to the contemporary world. The museums they created are in

movement and are no longer the same. Just like books, they are not read today.

in the same way as they were read before; but unlike books - and that is a

characteristic of modern museums - they are re-appropriated and re-written by others

authors, in such a way that over time they transform into a complex work, whose

authorship is collective and diffuse. As José Saramago said, with delicious irony: 'The museum is

the most unfair institution that the traveler knows19.

The reference to these reinterpretations, rewritings, and reappropriations accounts for only

part of the intelligibility of the process that occurs in these institutions, since they

own, similar to the things they hold, also have their auratic power, they are

capable of evoking memories and, in many cases, still hold survivals and

reminiscences of a certain past. In other words: just as "various

Conceptions of 'museum' originating from ancient times are capable of maintaining and coexisting.

with the current and dominant standards in today's world20, so also within a

the same museum unit, various museological orientations often coexist

museographic origins from different times.

Like a braid of three strands, one of which is wider, three chapters

compose the argumentative structure of the thesis presented here. Each of them, in theory,

can be read separately. Together they constitute the visible fabric of a riddle

whose deciphering, I know, is only sketched out.

19
Saramago (1994, p.226).
20
Santos (1989, p.iii).
 27

In the first chapter, I take the examination of the notion as a starting point.

cultural heritage and its configuration as a body in motion; a body, to a

only time, visible and invisible, through which memories, powers circulate permanently,

forgetting, resistances, sounds, silences, lights, shadows, and penumbras. Then,

I highlight the relationships between cultural heritage and the museum universe, to soon after

argue that museums are discursive fields, spaces of interpretation, and arenas

policies. It is part of the objectives of this chapter to highlight that museums and heritage

cultural constitutes narratives and social practices where a certain is present

poetic imagination, without prejudice to the political dimension. This understanding is relevant

for the subsequent examination of the museological reflections and practices of Gustavo Barroso, Gilberto

Freyre and Darcy Ribeiro who, to be fair, are epic characters of the 'narrative kingdom'21,

I am interested in the mediation between distinct worlds and they behave like heroes.

passionate about certain causes.

The second chapter – equivalent to the widest strand of the aforementioned braid - deals with

specifically from the museal imagination. First, I draw a panorama of

museum heritage of the 19th century and, subsequently, I focus on the identification and the

analysis of the museum imagination of the three mentioned modern intellectuals, considered here

as narrators who use written language, but who were also literate

in the language of images and things. When appreciating the museal imagination of Gustavo

Barroso highlighted three aspects: museum, history, and nation; in the case of Gilberto Freyre.

I highlight the following points: museum, tradition, and region, and in the case of Darcy.

Ribeiro highlighted three other elements: museum, ethnicity, and culture.

21
Benjamin (1985, p.198-199).
 28

The third chapter addresses museums in contemporary times, with an emphasis on

post-war museological developments. Firstly,

I resume the characterization of the museum production of the three cited intellectuals; and then

understanding their meanings and their limits in the face of problems of

contemporaneity. In this sense, I discuss the constitution of the so-called paradigm

classics of museology, and I seek to confront it with museological approaches that

they developed from the 1970s of the last century. It is remarkable that after the years

eighty, and especially after the nineties, there has been a renewal in the field

museum-related. This renewal, which does not have a single political-cultural direction and even less

a single technical-scientific guideline contributed to the complexity of the field

for the expansion of Brazilian museodiversity. The museum heritage of the 20th century

it presents itself as a challenge, for which there are multiple responses.

I return to the little black cardboard hat to say that at one of the vertices of the

a square that forms its top has a small hole, from which a string hangs

with approximately 15 cm, at whose distal end there is a kind of

white paper label, featuring a treble clef in ink at the center on one side

blue. There is another tangible sign of the musicality of the intangible.

Just like the little black hat to grab memory depends on the power of

a creative imagination, since it (the memory) is not inert in the thing, but

breaks in the relationship that can be maintained with it (the thing), so too the words and the

opaque ideas here stitched together, to grasp, minimally, the complexity, the opacity

even the contradictions of my object of study depend on the relationship with the reader.
 29

I – Museum & Heritage: Narratives and Socially Adjectivized Practices

THE COLLECTOR

A man was picking up nails from the ground.

I always found them lying down.

or to the side,
or on your knees on the ground.

Never sharp.
So they don't pierce anymore - the man thought.
They no longer perform the function of preaching.

They are useless heritage of humanity.

They gained the privilege of abandonment.

The man spent the whole day doing that task of picking.
rusty nails.
I think this task gave you some state.
State of people who adorn themselves with rags.
Gathering useless things ensures the sovereignty of the Being.

Guarantee the sovereignty of Being more than Having.

Manoel de Barros22

22
Barros (2001, p.43).
 30

At the gates of the museum and heritage domains

23
In the twentieth century, Françoise Choay noted, "the doors of heritage domination"

were forced. An increasing number of people (organized in groups or

individually) became interested in the field of heritage, not only in its

legal-bureaucratic aspect linked to the so-called administrative law, but,

above all, due to its sociocultural dimension. With the doors forced open, the heritage dominance,

instead of restricting itself, it expanded. And it expanded to the point of becoming a ground of

imprecise borders, misty terrain, and a level of peculiar opacity.

The word heritage, even today, has the ability to express a totality.

diffuse, similarly to what happens with other terms, as is the case with culture,

memory and imagery, for example. Often, those who desire something

precision are forced to define and redefine the term. The need to recover its

operational capacity dodging its diffuse totality accent is at the root of

constant requalifications to which this word has been subjected.

It has traditionally been used as a reference to 'patrimony' or

to the "family assets" that were transmitted from parents (and mothers) to children (and daughters),

particularly regarding assets of economic and emotional value, throughout the

over time, the word gradually acquired other contours and gained others

semantic qualities, without detriment to the original domain.

23
Choay (2001, p.13).
 31

Digital heritage, genetic heritage, biopatrimony, ethnopatrimony,

intangible (or immaterial) heritage, industrial heritage, emerging heritage,

community heritage and world heritage are some of the multiple

expressions that inhabit the pages of specialized literature, alongside others more

enshrined as cultural heritage, natural heritage, historical heritage,

artistic heritage and family heritage.

In some museum contexts, the expressions can also be found

24
total assets or comprehensive assets that, used to designate the set

of natural and cultural assets, seem to want to reaffirm the said diffuse totality. Among

The problems arising from the notion of "integral heritage" stand out: the naturalization

of nature and the depoliticization of heritage, since, through it, insinuates itself

a kind of illusionist device that unsuccessfully aims to create a pseudo-

harmony and eliminate differentiations, elections, conflicts, and attributions of values to goods

cultural. Furthermore, the idea that everything is part of the 'integral heritage' is not found

eco in the processes and social practices of cultural preservation.

The modern notion of heritage and its different qualifications, as well as the

the modern notion of a museum and its different typological classifications do not exceed

two hundred and fifty years. Daughters of the Enlightenment, born in the eighteenth century, in the context of

the formation of nation-states, they consolidated in the following century and reached with

the power of the 20th century, still provoking numerous debates around its

universals and their singularities, their classifications as institutions or

global, national, regional, or local interest mindsets.

24
Proceedings of the 1st International Meeting of Ecomuseums, from May 18 to 23, 1992. Rio de Janeiro:
Municipal Secretariat of Culture, Tourism and Sports, p.58, 1992.
 32

In any case, it is worth noting that beyond its link with the

modernity, the category of heritage, as an anthropological category of thought,

as José Reginaldo Santos Gonçalves highlighted - a 'millennial character' and is not

"a modern invention," being in action, namely, "in the classical world," "in the

"Middle Ages" and also "in the so-called tribal societies"25.

The notions of museum and heritage in the modern world not only remain

connected to ownership – whether it is: material or spiritual, economic or symbolic –

are umbilically linked to the idea of preservation. Provisionally, what I want

to suggest is that a preservationist yearning allied to a sense of ownership are stimuli that

they are found at the root of the institution of heritage and the museum.

The notion of possession - from which possession, possessor, possessed, and others derive -

seems, in this case, more precise and suitable than that of ownership. The term possession has,

among others, the following meanings: "Retention or enjoyment of a thing or a right";

"State of enjoying something, or having it in one's power"; "Action or right to possess it"

property title26This last one

The term refers me to the observation of Donald Preziosi who understood the museal object (or

patrimonial) as "staged artifact" and "object of desire" and hinted that the "museum

it can also be understood as an instrument for the production of subjects

sexual27.

Only those who consider themselves to be possessors or who exercise the action of possessing

- whether from an individual or collective standpoint - is that they are in a position to establish the

25
Gonçalves (2003, p.21-29).
26
Silva (1971).
27
Preziosi (1998, p.54-55).
 33

heritage, to trigger (or not) the necessary measures for its preservation, of

activate (or not) the mechanisms of transfer of possession between times, societies and

different individuals. This is possibly one of the root causes of the 'magical power of the

the notion of heritage

transcends the barriers of time and taste28another little root can be associated with

notion of preservation that implies the ideas of prevention, protection, conservation and more

precisely the action of 'putting away from some evil, harm or future danger'29.

However, what is not stated is that for the preservationist action to be

unleashed is not enough the imagination of 'some evil', of some 'harm' or 'danger' that

comes from the future. It is necessary, and this is not an unimportant point, that the subject of the action

identify in the object to be preserved some value.

Heritage & Museum: dangers, values, and doors

Danger and value. Imagined danger and value are the keywords for action.

preservationist. These key words contain at least two suggestions:

1st. Although death is the greatest and practically inevitable danger, the meaning

The dangerous routine fundamentally depends on a reference point. In other words:

what appears as danger to some may not be perceived as danger to others

others. In addition, a change in perspective can alter the perception of danger. The

the need for a reference for better risk qualification allows for its identification

28
Choay (2001, p.98).
29
Silva (1971).
 34

with greater precision, but also allows one to think of its own preservation as a danger.

what contributes to the denaturalization of preservationist discourses. The attempt to

preservation of order and peace at all costs tends to jeopardize peace and itself

social ordering; the attempt to preserve life through political rites of cleansing,

tends to put their own life in danger.

By anticipating the concrete danger posed by the rise of

Nazism in Germany, threatening the destruction of the city, social life, citizenship and the

democratic principles, Walter Benjamin carried out a preservation project and wrote,

in 1933, the book Childhood in Berlin around 190030to my

Dear Stefan. The dedication of the book to your son - noted Willi Bolle - is

significant. "In this communication from parent to child, we literally have the transmission of

a heritage, a link of continuity from generation to generation31.

2nd. Without the identification of any value - whether it be: magical, economic,

symbolic, artistic, historical, scientific, affective or cognitive - the preservation will not be

deflagrated, even though there is a danger of destruction. The motto adopted by the Core of

Historical Orientation and Research (NOPH) of Santa Cruz, founded in 1983 and that nine

years later it would be publicly proclaimed as an Ecomuseum or Museum

Community points in the same direction: "A people only preserves what they love."

A people only loves what they know32This motto helps the understanding that the

preservation as a social practice used for the construction of certain narratives

30
Benjamin (1995, p.71-142).
31
Bolle (1984, p.12).
32
Center for Guidance and Historical Research of Santa Cruz. Ecomuseum: Cultural Quarter of the Slaughterhouse
Organs for the dissemination of the 1st Ecomuseum of the city of Rio de Janeiro and the community activities of Santa
Cruz and the West Zone, edited by), no. 51, year XI, Jan/Apr 2003.
 35

is impregnated with subjectivities, even though they are often masked by

speeches that are intended to be positive, scientific, objective. Completely different

these speeches was Benjamin's narrative. He sought with sensitivity and without

the pursuit of accuracy, in the days of your childhood the element of inspiration for the record

from the memory of the city in the process of change. And for that reason, he spoke of the

city labyrinths, in the noise of the telephone, in the collection of butterflies, in the jewel

oval-shaped like your mother, in the school library, in the letter game, etc.

Never - Benjamin said - can we fully recover what has been.

forgotten. And maybe it's good this way. The shock of the rescue from the past would be so

destructive that, at that very moment, we would inevitably cease to understand

our longing. But that's why we understand it, and all the better, the more
deeply lies in us the forgotten33.

Looking from another angle: there is a hierarchy of values that is mobilized.

politically to justify the preservation or destruction of so-called cultural assets.

34
"Cease all that the ancient Muse sings, / For a higher value rises up."

name of a value considered 'higher' the poet orders that the 'ancient muse' or the

ancient daughter of memory be silenced; similarly, in the name of preservation and the

defense of supposed 'higher' values armies are mobilized and set in motion

causing the destruction of beings and things, which, by the way, begin to be treated as

useless heritage of humanity.

33
Benjamin (1995, p. 104-105).
34
Camões (1972, p.50).
 36

The memories of the recent war of the United States of America (USA) with the

Iraq insinuates itself here with a strange paradigmatic force. As Jürgen stated

Habermas:

"After having promoted international law over half a

century, the United States destroyed not only this with the war in Iraq.
good fame, as well as the role of a power that ensured the validity of the
international law. This violation will serve as a staggering example to the
future superpowers35.

Alongside Habermas' critical observation, which articulates past, present and

future, pedagogy of example and international law, I would like to emphasize that the

the dramaturgy of war destroyed tangible and intangible values, people and things,

family heritage and world heritage. The case of the National Museum of

Iraq, from where more than fifty thousand were plundered, after the capture of Baghdad.

objects, some with more than five thousand years, are an emblematic example of the museum (and

your collections) as a backdrop for conflict36or as a place where it is also present

. A traumatic memory, in this case, becomes permanently established in

history of museums in the early 21st century.

In a report published in O Globo, on April 19, 2003, Ana Lúcia

Azevedo reported that UNESCO recognized "that among the looters were not

35
Report signed by Graça Magalhães-Ruether, titled: "Philosophers at War in Germany"
Enzensberger defends the USA, while Habermas attacks, published in O Globo, p.20, April 19.
2003.
36
For an introduction to the problems of museums in wartime, it is recommended to consult a
small text by Gustavo Barroso, included in one of the sections of the book Introduction to Museum Technique.
Rio de Janeiro: Ministry of Education and Health/National Historical Museum, p.92-96, 1951.
 37

just desperate Iraqis, but also professional antique thieves,

they supply a million-dollar market maintained by collectors, willing to pay

37
fortunes for rare pieces, even if they can never display them [publicly]" . Withdrawal,

theft and trafficking of images38As it is known, they are perceived by technicians who dedicate themselves to

preservation of cultural heritage (museumized or not) as everyday threats and,

that's right, they specialize in the knowledge of surveillance, security techniques and

protection of the treasures that are under your care. The constant threat of these

treasures is paradoxically a tacit recognition of their social value. "Only in 1974 –

reported Pomian - 4785 paintings by great masters were stolen in Europe39.

The memory of these plundering gestures linked to the developments of the war

recently brings up some problems, among which stand out: 1st - the one of

inseparability of the pair of opposites constituted by preservation and destruction; 2nd -

or the relationship between the public and private in the property domain and 3rd - that of

refunctionalization and the re-signification of cultural assets.

It is possible to suppose that some of the looted works - such as the Nobleman's Head of

Nineveh and Harp of the queen of Ur, the first with more than four thousand years and the second.

with more than five thousand years, for example - continue to be preserved in places

secrets, kept by clandestine collectors. In a hypothetical situation like this,

even if the preservation of the works is ensured, their social functions would have been

practically eliminated. Seized from the public sphere, they would have been again

37
The Cultural Genocide of Iraq / Looting
They took part of the History of Humanity," published in O Globo, p.21, April 19, 2003.
38
In 1995, a regional meeting was held in Cuenca, Ecuador, under the auspices of UNESCO/ICOM.
for Latin America and the Caribbean on the illicit trafficking of cultural property. This meeting resulted, among others
things, the publication by ICOM, in the following year, of the book "The Illicit Traffic of Cultural Goods in"
Latin America.
39
Pomian (1984, p.52).
 38

launched in the domain - in this foggy case - of the private, with the aggravating factor that it does not

there would be no public certainty that their existences would be guaranteed. Somehow

Thus, the works would have been subjected to a kind of destruction or social death.

The private interest would radically impose itself over the public interest. Even if

they would be epically rescued or go through a process of resurrection, the

their lives would no longer be the same, their auratic powers would be 'for

always" contaminated with this traumatic experience.

When the aforementioned works were first incorporated into the museum space, they already

they had undergone a refunctionalization. The Harp that possibly would have served

to enchant the court of the queen of Ur was later buried in a royal tomb and there

remained for more than five thousand years. Rediscovered in the first half of the 20th century

she was transferred to the National Museum of Iraq and returned to the domain of the living,

an invasion of new meanings and functions. When being seized from the Museum, it, in some way

mode, returned to the kingdom of shadows.

Beyond these spectacular trajectories and these changes of functions and

meanings remain the ability of these objects to support the function of

intermediaries between different worlds, hence their "magical power".

The Saga of the Dress40of Maria Bonita is a good example, nationally, of

spectacular trajectories of some objects. It is a "brown cotton dress.

with chalk risk, four pockets with clasp, zipper and red piping on the collar,

in pockets and sleeves", 41

which - after the defeat and death, in 1938, of the cangaceiros of

40
Chagas and Santos (2002, p.195-220).
41
Description contained in the Work Information Bulletin (BIT), from MHN, number 551, of 31 of
October 6 to November 6, 1994.
 39

Lampião's gang, among whom was his wife Maria Bonita - was outside

seized as a war trophy by aspirant Francisco Ferreira Melo, of the Police of

Alagoas is at the forefront of the volante of Lieutenant João Bezerra. In 1992, while trying to rebuild the

trajectory of this dress, Frederico Pernambucano de Melo from the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation

(PE) received information that he had been donated to the National Historical Museum in

the seventies. After two years, by a stroke of luck, the piece of clothing was

reencountered in the Museum, without any documentary record, included as a useless rag

batch number for disposal42It was recovered, with the help of the scholar from Pernambuco,

trajectory of the surviving dress43, which one day shaped the body of the cangaceira. He

gift donated to the Museum by the comedian actress Nádia Maria, who received it from her

relatives who, in turn, had received it from reporter Melquiades da Rocha, who the

will receive from the aforementioned applicant Francisco Ferreira Melo. Today, "some brands are already thinking

to copy it to make fashion clothes44.

These flows and refluxes of meanings and functions, involving in some cases the

public and private spheres seem to be more common than one might think, even though the

museums in general operate under the hypothesis of the eternalization of cultural assets in

your domains.

A limiting and equally emblematic situation is the one referring to the Portrait of Dr.

Gachet, painted by Vincent Van Gogh in 1890, and sold a hundred years later, in

auction promoted by Christie's Auction in New York for the amount of 82.5 million

42
Until that date, the dress had not received any documentary treatment and as it was not
it was not even considered for a cancellation process.
43
The last four verses of the poem titled 'Museum', by Wislawa Szymborska (Nobel Prize winner)
Literature, in 1996) speaks about the resistance of a dress, designed almost similarly to a
As for me, I live, please believe it. / My run with the dress continues / And that
He has resistance! / And how he would like to survive!
44
Chagas and Santos (2002, p.195-220)
 40

45
dollars, payment by the Japanese industrialist and collector Ryoei Saito, 75 years old .

Challenging and provoking the patrimonial (and museal) logic of the West, Saito left

to disclose that upon death, I would like to be buried or cremated, according to the rites

traditional, with the best paintings from its collection, among which were the

Portrait of Dr. GacheteAt the Moulin de la Galette, by Auguste Renoir. Regardless of

merit and the truthfulness of the information circulated by a British newspaper,

it touches on one of the nerve points of the patrimonial logic of the modern Western world.

After paying a record price for the mentioned Saito portrait, he would have about it.

unrestricted right of property? Is it possible to imagine that the Western world feels

possessor of that image and understand that it is imbued with Western values of

cult and culture, important to be preserved. Saito died in 1996, and even today

there is a certain air of mystery surrounding the fate of Dr. Gachet's Portrait. It is almost

it's impossible for Western thought to admit that the fate of a work like this does not

was, after all, the museum space. However, it is worth mentioning here the

uncomfortable observation by Theodor Adorno, for whom "museal", "museum and mausoleum are

words connected by something more than phonetic association46.

From a museological point of view, it is important to note that preserving can also

to imply an action against life. It is not enough to preserve against the action of time; it is necessary

also guarantee the prerogative of the public interest over the private, even

recognizing that under this designation (public interest) various groups are concealed

interest, different and even conflicting interests.

45
Segall (2001, p.65-81).
46
Adorno (1967, p.173-186).
 41

Back to the property domain. Ownership and possession, preservation and destruction,

danger and value, public and private, repurposing and re-signification seem to be the

terms that outline the modern notion of heritage and, in particular, of

notion of museumized cultural heritage, which, strictly speaking, is a mediation instrument

between different worlds, between the past, the present and the future, between the visible and the

invisible47It is not another meaning of inheritance that is socially transmitted, in

diachronic terms and socially shared, in synchronic terms. This inheritance

adjective - remembering here of Norbert Elias48it is not just social and individually

constituted, it is also a builder of societies and individuals.

The nail collector by Manoel de Barros is an indication of how it is constituted the

museum imagination. He collects a collection of things that no longer serve the same purpose.

that they had before. Collecting "rusty nails" and marked by the memory of time -

nails that "gained the privilege of abandonment" and that "no longer perform the function of

"to pray" - that man who exercised in the "function of gathering" almost identifies himself

with the nails in this apparently useless function. But, while picking up nails the man

I constituted a heritage. It doesn't matter if it is a 'useless heritage of humanity',

it imports your condition as an adjectival asset. It is not, it must be said, unreasonable.

from a museological perspective, the hypothesis of a nail museum, especially because in a nail there is a

world of knowledge and actions. As Gaston Bachelard observed in The Poetics of Space:

the tiny, narrow door par excellence, opens a world. The detail of a thing

47
Pomian (1984, p.51-86).
48
Elias (1994).
 42

it can be the sign of a new world, of a world that, like all worlds, contains

the attributes of greatness49.

The poet who encountered the 'greatness of the insignificant' and wrote a 'treatise' about them

general," it also seems to know the infinitesimals of greatness. No longer serving to preach,

even so, the collection of nails from the collector serves some purpose. It has some value,

it runs a risk and for that reason must be collected and preserved, like a useless asset of

humanity. But, if it is useless, why collect it?

This question, central to the poetic imagination of Manoel de Barros, also seems to

nourish the imagination museum of Gustavo Barroso, Gilberto Freyre, and Darcy Ribeiro, by

different as they may be. In their own way, they are nail collectors. Narcissistic and vain,

they are also people interested in each other, if only because of their own role

mirror. The collections that they helped to gather and institutionalize as heritage

cultural - at the National Historical Museum, at the Museum of the Man of the Northeast, and at the Museum

of the Indian, respectively - are also remnants, surplus or 'useless things'50, to use

a neologism of Manoel de Barros himself. However, it was not excluded from these collections.

the possibility of being provocateurs of affective and cognitive experiences and less

still to be mediators of biographical, ethnographic, regionalist narratives and

nationality.

Through the hands of Gilberto Freyre, for example, the Museum of Man of the Northeast

collected and transformed into cultural heritage: nails, locks, hinges, bricks,

woods, beams, and vines used in the construction of ancient rural and urban houses of

"Region that has been demolished for years." Justifying the museological and socio-

49
Bachelard (1993, p.164)
50
The poem is above all an inutensil.
 43

Freyre's anthropological collection stated: "it was necessary to know what kind of material it was.

this; what the bricks were like; what the nails were like; what woods were used for doors

(...)” 51.

The National Historical Museum, another example, has also been collecting

nails, chisels, saws, compasses, planes and "other tools related to activities in

sectors of carpentry and joinery52.

The musealization of some 'inutensílios' should not be read as mere action.

cumulative. Similar to the 'Nail Collector' - which by the 'task' it performs

“guarantee the sovereignty of Being more than Having” - the three cited intellectuals contributed

for the constitution of collections that must be read as 'affirmation of self or of the group,

in opposition to or in parallel with other objects and other subjects53.

The possibility of the 'affirmation of oneself or the group' through valorization and

institutionalization of biographical, ethnographic, historical, artistic, and other collections -

formally elevated to the status of cultural heritage – underscores its role of

mediation. In other words: the collected nails (whether they are: nails, needles, thimbles,

toolboxes and sewing kits, vines, fans, political campaign brooches, labels

of cigarettes and cachaça, death masks, cannons and swords of war, arrows, knives

pointed, feather art jewelry and other jewelry, clay pots, throne of the empire, baskets

of woven straw, decorations, medals, coins, banknotes, and an infinite number of things)

they force the doors of the heritage and museum domains and, at the same time, assert themselves

like doors.

51
Freyre (2000, p.16).
52
The National Historical Museum (1989, p. 207).
53
Poulot (2003, p.27).
 44

The insistent allusion to the doors of the heritage and museum domains, in addition to leaving

to glimpse the role of the gate for the assets, which, at the end of the accounts, is something that

it connects and disconnects distinct worlds, sets the stage for two historical references

distant in time and space and yet with great power of condensation of the

arguments outlined here.

I am referring to two doors - one French and the other Brazilian - that, in situations

distinct historical – one in the late eighteenth century and another in the first half of the century

XX - have been transformed into emblems of disputes of the imagination, in bodies

mediators of the struggle for the symbolic construction of memory and heritage.

1st Reference - The Saint Denis Gate (France):

The policies and practices of forgetting and memory, of destruction and of

preservation, set in motion by the French Revolution implied, as if

deliberate efforts to destroy and erase certain bodies capable of

condense a symbolism related to the ancient regime, the feudal world, the monarchy and

to the clergy; effective efforts to promote displacements or transfers of meanings

some of these bodies; and concrete actions capable of producing new bodies, of building

new symbolisms and creating new places and patterns of memory representation.

These policies configured fields of tension and conflict. Measures and actions of

celebration of the new order set in motion iconoclastic forces for the

destruction of the memories of the old order and clashed with other measures and actions

that, in the name of the new order, advocated the defense of icons of cultural heritage,

identifying in them economic, historical, scientific or artistic values, what they

should make them deserving of conservation actions.

 45

While two bodies cannot occupy the same place in space, two or more

senses can occupy the same patrimonial body, since they (the senses)

are dependent on the social place that it (the body) is designated for. This social place, in

meanwhile, it is given by the relations of individuals and social groups with the referred body,

due to its high degree of volatility and its very low degree of fixity. The capacity

the embodiment of multiple meanings of the patrimonial bodies contributes to the expansion of

tensions and conflicts.

The famous portraitist and iconoclast54convicted Jacques-Louis David when wishing to erect

monuments in honor of the French people wanted their foundations to be built with

the fragments of "ancient royal statues"55and Dussault, his contemporary, towards

on the contrary, articulated a speech for the conservation of some heritage icons. In 1792,

At the National Convention, he spoke in defense of a door:

The monuments of despotism fall throughout the kingdom, but it is necessary

save, preserve the precious monuments for the arts. I was informed by
renowned artists that the Saint-Denis gate is threatened. Dedicated, without
doubt, to Louis XIV (...), she deserves the hatred of free men, but this door is a
masterpiece (...). It can be converted into a national monument that the
specialists will come from all over Europe to admire56.

The rhetoric that is built around the door is admirable. The door 'is'

threatened. The door "was" dedicated. The door "deserves" hate. The door "is" a masterpiece. The

54
David's iconoclastic character, when contrasted with his iconophilia, favors the understanding that it is not...
it was about a war against any and all images, but rather a dispute of images or a combat
which targeted the destruction of images that reminded of the Old Regime.
55
Choay (2001, p.108).
56
Cited by Choay (2001, p.111).
 46

the "can be" door converted into a national monument. The door is not this or that, it is

this and that and more of that.

The rhetoric of the door is centered on a brutal and swift displacement of meanings.

As a door and as a concrete body, it condenses different values, anchors different

meanings, multiple adjectives and embody different functions, including that of being a door.57

2nd Reference - The door of the old church of Saint Michael (Brazil):

In June 1937, Paulo Duarte, at the invitation of Mário de Andrade – who had been

appointed by Minister Gustavo Capanema to the position of delegate, in São Paulo, of the

Ministry of Education and Health - conducted some excursions around the State of São Paulo

with the aim of starting the inventory of what should be recorded and preserved as

national historical and artistic heritage. These excursions resulted in a campaign,

led by Paulo Duarte and published in the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo, titled:

Against Vandalism and Extermination58At the center of this campaign was a

door missing.

From these columns - Paulo Duarte said - I want to denounce the attack! I want to
denounce him, with the necessary reservations, for the revelation is unbelievable! To which
it seems the blow came from a priest of the parish of São Miguel. (...)
"The sacristy door, a heavy copper door, all intricately crafted"
hand, document of the crude, naive, smooth, delightful ancient sculpture; a great

57
It is not possible to cast aside an experience lived with such intensity. In the seventies,
during the military regime, a group of friends we sang through the streets of Rio, unafraid of death: 'The name
it doesn't matter / What is behind the door matters / The door doesn't matter much / What it is made of matters a lot
The letter bore the signature of the poet Jorge Luís Ferreira de Almeida.
58
Article published by Paulo Duarte, in O Estado de São Paulo, on June 11, 1937. In 1938, the
The campaign material was gathered and published in volume XIX of the Department of Culture collection.
São Paulo, under the same title.
 47

dresser (...) and even more a precious tabernacle of the church, have just been sold
(...)” 59.

The presence of numerous adjectives conferred to the preservationist speech of

Paulo Duarte a distinctive brand. The reported loss and the attributed value justified

The campaign that would soon overflow to other heritage bodies and would be

engaged with the participation of various intellectuals and representatives of institutions,

responding to Paulo Duarte's call for everyone to mobilize and win

the 'barbarism of iconoclasts'60.

The dramatic tone of the speech should not prevent one from understanding that one does not

it was a war of iconophiles against iconoclasts, but rather a struggle over

certain images. What was at stake was the competition for the production of a body

imaginary for the Brazilian past, a representative body of the modern ideals that already

at this point they considered themselves victorious.

The letter from Oswald de Andrade to Paulo Duarte regarding the aforementioned

The campaign is explicit in this regard:

Many people still believe that the modern world, in literature and art, is
contrary to the past. The reformers are considered, due to misinformation,
like dishware or puzzles.
Now, with the controversial phase settled, (...) our intention is to establish an era -
the contemporary of radio and airplane – with all the dignity that they gave to others
the creators of the Cathedrals or Renaissance, and, among whom, in the past

59
Duarte (1938, p.11).
60
Duarte (1938, p.16).
 48

national, fit the obscure masters of carving and decoration that your
Atilada energy still wants to save from the apostolic auctioneers of São Miguel.
The aggressive phase of current modernism is over with our victory.
Who today defends 'passadismo' does not defend the 'past' in any way. Defends
Oh nothing!61.

Since it is not relevant to the present study, the final fate of the doors remains up in the air. What

retaining matters is the framework of the door function. While in the French case the rhetoric of

preservation is built upon a hypothetical threat of destruction and loss; in the case
62
Brazilian, the door was lost, it was sold by a 'priest'. (or father) and 'the rhetoric of

loss63is used as a preservation device that must overflow to

other icons or heritage bodies. On one side, there is the door of loss as a door and

on the other hand, the loss of the door as a door. In the French case, the door is still a present body,

in the Brazilian case, it is an absent body. But even the absent body still evokes

memories, which suggests the ability of the creative imagination to shift to the

remaining door frame.

Through another window: from a poetic and museological point of view, both the presence and

the absence of the door, while a patrimonial body, can be creative, productive and

stimulating. By presence or absence, by preservation or destruction, what

the important thing is that the cultural heritage - imaginary portal body - is crossed by

multiple lines of strength and power, through traditions, contradictions, conflicts, and resistances;

nothing in it is natural - even if called natural - everything is cultural mediation. The game

61
Letter from Oswald de Andrade (São Paulo, June 13, 1937). In: Duarte (1938. p.169-170).
62
In the aforementioned article: "Against Vandalism and Extermination", Paulo Duarte indicates that he learned that the priest is
"foreigner", insinuating the vicar's insensitivity to local traditions and his interest in values
economic.
63
Gonçalves (1996).
 49

the pebbles - popular in Brazil and Portugal, in ancient Rome and Greece and that,

According to Câmara Cascudo, it is represented in a Greek amphora existing in the Museum of

Naples64– translate with playfulness the argument presented here. This ancient game can

to have, as in my case, an enormous evocative power of memories. But to keep

five small stones (elements of nature) is not to keep the game. The game that involves tension,

Attention, movements and skills are only developed by playing in a society with others.

players (imaginary or not). Its preservation as a game (an intangible asset) lies in the

entire dependence on the know-how to roll, lift and lower the body's stones.

64
Cascudo (1993)
 50

2. The heritage citadel and the museum bastion

Established from specific social practices, the fortress of heritage

cultural includes the museum and its specificities, as a kind of bastion. Thus

so the process of musealization confuses itself with what could be called

heritagization. Being part of this citadel, the museum, however, frequently

contributed, from the inside out and from the outside in, to force the doors and widen the

patrimonial domain.

In the Brazilian case, it is enough to remember that it was at the National Historical Museum that

created on July 14, 1934, the National Inspectorate of Monuments, directed by more

of three years by Gustavo Barroso and which, strictly speaking, was one of the main precedents of

National Historical and Artistic Heritage Service, as acknowledged by Rodrigo Melo

Franco de Andrade, in an article published in the Jornal do Comércio, Recife, on the 18th of

August 1939:

In the past, the role we now perform was assigned to the Museum.
National Historical, due to the lack of a specialized institution. The
the scope of the Service is limited to the city of Ouro Preto, considered by
government act, national monument65.

The death of the National Monument Inspectorate did not occur, as the text above

could suggest, due to technical problems of lack of specialization or limited scope

geographical, but by power struggles, by disputes over memory policy projects. The

65
Andrade (1987, p.30).
 51

the current of thought and heritage practice that Gustavo Barroso represented was

politically defeated by the modernist movement that had Rodrigo Melo Franco de

Andrade and Mário de Andrade are their most prominent representatives. However, in what

it refers to the museum bastion, represented by the National Historical Museum itself,

Gustavo Barroso was victorious and formed mentalities. The understanding of these clashes,

with victories and partial and differentiated defeats, it favors the understanding of practices

discursive practices that to this day separate and bring together, marry and divorce repeatedly 'the

things of heritage and the things of museums66.

By contributing to the constitution and expansion of the domain of the heritage citadel

the museum field is similarly forced into a expansion and reorganization of its

own limits, especially from their mediation practices. This phenomenon,

observable after the Second World War and the colonial wars, gains

even greater clarity in the eighties, with the developments of the so-called new

museology.

It is within this framework of reorganization, reconceptualization, and expansion of limits that one can

to understand the concept of Imaginary Museum developed by André Malraux in the years

seventy and which has as its starting point the evidence of the incompleteness of the 'true

"museums" and the recognition that the expansion of technical possibilities of

the reproduction of artworks altered the relationship of social subjects with them

works.

Moving against the processes of institutionalization, the concept

of the Imaginary Museum - which Malraux coincides with, in the absence of a more appropriate expression,

66
Chagas and Santos (2002, p.203).
 52

67
with the so-called 'art world' disrupts the attempts to discipline taste and to

to control the relationship of individuals and social groups with cultural heritage in

metamorphosis. The invasion and expansion of the field of possibilities68of the domain

patrimonial, the breaking away from rigid and systematically diachronic readings, the

insurrection against the absolute dominance of rationality, the celebration of victory against the

fear of the image and the appreciation of the metamorphoses of meanings seem to be some

the innovative features of the Imaginary Museum. In a way, this Museum is

also a libertarian stimulus to the development of museum imagination.

The International Movement of New Museology (MINOM) that was organized in

the eighties – arising from the opened flanks, in the seventies, in the body of museology

classic, both by the Round Table of Santiago de Chile and by the experiences

museums developed in Mexico, France, Switzerland, Portugal, Canada and one

little throughout the world – it would also set up a new set of forces capable

to simultaneously expand the museum bastion and the heritage citadel.

Ecomuseums, ethnomuseums, local museums, neighborhood and community museums,

community museums, societal museums, and territorial museums are some of the

multiple expressions that have come to inhabit the pages of specialized literature, when

alongside other more established ones such as historical museums, artistic museums, museums

scientists and eclectic museums. The new types of museums broke boundaries and limits,

broke rules and disciplines, stretched the hardened fabric of the historical heritage and

national artistic and shattered in society. Their mediation practices

they updated the power of an imagination that ceased to be the prerogative of a few

67
Malraux (2000, p.206).
68
Old (1994).
 53

social groups. It was no longer just about opening museums for everyone, but about

to admit the hypothesis and to develop practices in which the museum itself, conceived as

an instrument or an object could be used, invented, and reinvented with

freedom by the most different social actors. Along this road, the museum itself started to

being cultural heritage and cultural heritage one of the constitutive parts of the new

museum configuration.

The musealization, as a specific social practice, spilled out beyond the

institutionalized museums. Everything became museable, although not everything could be in

practical terms to be musealized. The museal imagination and its unfolding

museum-related and museographic texts can now be read anywhere where

there was a game of embodied memory representations. Houses,

farms, schools, factories, railways, songs, coal mines, cemeteries,

gestos, campos de concentração, sítios arqueológicos, notícias, planetários, jardins

botanists, popular festivals, biological reserves all of this could receive the impact of

a museological gaze. But, the very existence of the museum continued to be sustained

not in totality, but in the fragment, in the shard, in the discontinuity of the imaginary

what constitutes cultural heritage (including natural heritage). The acceptance of this

discontinuity and the need for systematic negotiation of meanings and functions

for the musealized cultural heritage became some of the necessary antidotes

to avoid the germination of totalizing (sometimes totalitarian) discourses that just like

museum practices have also been renewed.

Seeds of a totalizing discourse can be observed, for example, in the

Communication: 'The Importance of the Eco Museum and its Contribution to the Environment'
 54

presented in February 1973, at a colloquium organized by the Association of Museums

of the Art of Brazil (AMAB), in Campina Grande (PB). At the time, after ...

we will show updated information with the latest colloquia and international conferences on

museums, cultural policies and the environment, the authors - who also flirted with

Civilizing Process of Darcy Ribeiro - they began to advocate for the 'Total Museum' as

an evolved form of Ecomuseum:

(...) only the Eco Museum joining forces and moving to a form of
Total Museum will come to serve the populations of a country like ours in size
continental ...
In this system, the Eco Museum, moving towards the Total Museum, will situate the

region fully integrated into cultural evolution, which although uses the marking
the exact time is always relative69.

It is worth noting that in the previous year the authors had released the book Guide to Museums.

from Brazil70in which an introductory "Message" signed by Hugues was published.

Varine-Bohan, one of the main theorists on the subject. In this 'Message' he stated that

categorical mode:

No museum is complete. Man must seek to find himself in all,

patiently reconstitute your own nature and your own culture starting from
objects, specimens, works of art of all origins, in order to proceed
with continuity and tenacity your creative work71.

69
Camargo and Novaes (1973).
70
Camargo (1972, p. 7-8).
71
Varine-Bohan (1972).
 55

Wandering through the obvious and marking the incompleteness of museums and the

collections, this statement, which could very well be signed by André Malraux, supports the

possibility of threading a broader knowledge through the relationships that are

can be maintained with the different fragments of cultural heritage.

The notion of fragments or shards scattered in society is so dear to

certain sectors of the so-called new museology that it appears expressed in itself

graphic symbol used for the identification of MINOM [nine small squares

they form a larger square that (de)fragments, having on the left side - right of

who looks - seven small squares dancing in the air, with rhythm and movement

apparently random]. MINOM was born from fragmented experiences, it is thought

fragmented and stimulates the creation of new museum fragments. Well, it is not difficult

to perceive in this fragmentary character a political dimension different from the one that is

patented in museums that rehearse great national or regional syntheses that, strictly speaking,

they are also fragmentary. My suggestion is that some sectors of the so-called new

Museology, at least those represented in the MINOM, invested in

power of memories and diversified heritage. With the practices of new museology

the approximation of the heritage and museum domains has been so intensified that some authors

they came to understand museology as a discipline that 'has as its object the study

of the role of museums in the phenomena of fabrication and representation of a

heritage72This position defended by Marc Maure finds resonance in Tomislav Sola.73

72
Maure (1996, p.127-132).
73
Sola (1987, p.45-49).
 56

that provocatively proposes the idea of a "patrimony theory" to characterize the

field of new museological practices.

The effort "to try to imagine a museum of a new kind" and at the same time

systematize the new practices, highlighting the differences in relation to other models

theorists, led Hugues de Varine74still in the seventies, designing a conception of

a museum that would replace the notions of audience, collection, and building with those of local population,

community heritage and territory or environment. All of this - I add from my

tells of the various political interests, of disputes over memory and power.

The museum conception, supported by Hugues de Varine and other practitioners of

Museology was organized in the form of a comparative chart, still disseminated today.

and used75:

Traditional museum = building + collection + audience

Ecomuseum/New Museum = territory + heritage + population

What is not explicit in this scheme is that the terms territory, heritage and

population (or community) has no value in itself. The articulation of these three elements

it can be exclusionary and perverse, it can have an emancipatory or coercive function. Furthermore,

ecomuseum practices have not always been about territorialization; on the contrary, they

74
Varine (2000, p.61-101).
75
Alonso Fernández (2002, p.95).
 57

they move between territorialization and deterritorialization, without assuming a

definitive position.

When in the nineties, during a work meeting, one of those responsible for

Ethnological Museum of Monte Redondo, in Portugal, stated that 'the Museum is the tavern'

of Rui, when we meet there to make decisions, and also Joaquim's house
76
Figueirinha, in Geneva, when we are working there

degeographizing the Museum. At another moment, during the same meeting, this same

the person thought it was important to align the physical territory covered by the Museum with

a medieval map of the Leiria Region.

On one hand, marking the territory can mean the creation of memory icons.

in favor of resistance and the affirmation of local knowledge against the processes

homogenizers and globalizers; on the other hand, embracing the volatility of this territory can

involve the construction of strategies that favor exchange, interaction and the

political-cultural strengthening of the museum agents involved.

The ownership domain, as has been seen, is also not peaceful. It involves

certain risks and can be used to meet different political interests.

Therefore, when carrying out a transition from the concept of collection to that of

heritage, the problems were amplified. However, the ecomuseum practices

here too they don't seem to reinforce the idea of collection or even of heritage,

considered merely as a set of assets passed from father to son.

Experiences like those of the Didactic-Community Museum of Itapuã (BA) 77and of the Ecomuseum

76
Chagas (2001, p.5-23).
77
Santos (1996b).
 58

from Santa Cruz (RJ) operate with the collection of problems of the individuals involved with the

museum processes. What seems to be in focus, here as well, is a disconnection, in

the way Nestor Garcia Canclini defines it78. In both cases, in addition to a

property concern in the sense of protecting a past, there is an interest in the

dynamics of life and the ability of heritage assets to function as

instruments of mediation between different times and worlds. In other words: the

interest in heritage is not justified solely by its connection to the past, whether it is

what is for, but because of your connection with the fragmented problems of today, with life

two beings in relation to other beings, things, words, feelings, and ideas.

The term population, besides anchoring the basic challenge of the museum, is also of high

complexity. Firstly, it is necessary to consider that the population is not a whole.

homogeneous, on the contrary; it is composed of multiple orientations and interests and often

conflicting. Secondly, in the same population there are processes of

identification and completely distinct cultural identities that do not fit into

certain theoretical reductions. Thus, local cultural identities are also not

homogeneous and are not given at the outset.

The museum field, as they say, is in movement, just as much as the

property domain. These two lands that sometimes marry, sometimes divorce, sometimes

interpenetrate, now they disconnect, constitute bodies in motion. And as bodies

they are also instruments of mediation, spaces for negotiating meanings, doors

(or portals) that connect and disconnect worlds, individuals, and different times. What is in

play in museums and also in the field of cultural heritage is memory, forgetting,

78
Garcia Canclini (1998, p.283-350).
 59

resistance and power, danger and value, multiple meanings and functions, silence and speech,

destruction and preservation. And for all this, it is important to understand them in their dynamics.

social and is interested in understanding what can be done with them and from them.

The poetic narratives by Gustavo Barroso, Gilberto Freyre, and Darcy Ribeiro

they set in motion through the language of things - as will become clear later

they are differentiated, but still, they are doors that open and close

passages to different worlds. Just like "the great (...) is contained in

small79, thus the invisible is also present in the visible, a great universe is

contained in the microcosm that the museum is.

79
Bachelard (1993, p.165).
 60

3. Museums: from mythical imagination to museum imagination

I spoke of doors and now I speak of windows, especially because some doors are windows and

some windows are doors. And when I talk about windows I call to my side no one less than

that Charles Baudelaire is the one who says: "There is no object more profound, more mysterious,

more fruitful, more dark, more dazzling than a window lit by a

"candeia". 80There at the window is the sense of mystery, whether it is nefarious or ineffable, it is the

idea of an aura that pours out of it and the hypothesis that someone on the other side

might be (among other things) watching over someone on this side. Just like the door, the

window on and off. Everything the poet of Flowers of Evil said about the window I would like

to talk about museums, about the windows of museums and also about the windows

musealized. There is also depth in museums, there is mystery, there is fertility, there is

Darkness, there is splendor and there is a lamp illuminating them from within. Catch this

the quotation from Baudelaire in Walter Benjamin also gives it a special meaning,

once Benjamin was a dedicated collector of quotes.

Museums embody (for better or worse) the aura of mystery and the mystery of

aura. To truly look at a museum is also to realize oneself being looked at, to truly look at a

the object of a museum is to be aware of being looked at by it. As Benjamin argued: 'Who is

seen, or believing to be seen, retaliates the gaze. Perceiving the aura of something means

invest it with the power to retaliate the gaze81.

80
Cited by Benjamin (1994, p.212).
81
Benjamin (1994, p.139-140).
 61

Discussing the theory of aura, Benjamin engaged in dialogue with

Baudelaire, Proust, Valéry and others. And Proust would say to him: "Some lovers of mysteries

they feel flattered by the idea that something from the gazes cast upon the

objects, remain in them82. And soon after, Valéry insinuated: "When I say: I see

this here, with this no equation was established between me and the thing... In the dream,

On the contrary, there is an equation. The things I see see me as much as I see them.

I see83The nature of temples - Benjamin added - is exactly the same as

dream-like perception, to which the poet refers 84The nature of museums and objects

musealized - I enter the conversation without asking for permission - it can be in this same order.

my intrusion finds echo in Benjamin's words: "Clearly, museums

they are part of the places that, in the order of the collective, evoke dreams85.

This imaginary dialogue is invoked here to introduce the notion that the

museums, like a kind of ark from an archaic time or like a kind of

modern temple, guard the arcana of collective and individual memory, guard the

germs of mystery, but they also hold powers that can be activated by

different social actors. Not everything in museums is visible and concrete, as much as they are concrete and

visible as the things that are found there.

The association of museums with the idea of a temple is not coincidental; it is present in

Greek origin of the word. And yet, even after the secularization of these temples

modern and their transformation into public spaces, a phenomenon that was observed

82
The same.
83
Same.
84
Same.
85
Benjamin (1996, p.114-131).
 62

clearly after the French Revolution, the mystery was not abolished, it merely slipped from

a song from one corner to another, but remained in the same den.

In light of classical mythology, the museum can be understood through two

different genealogical approaches. The first and most frequently encountered is

pages of museological literature, links the term museum to the 'Temple of the Muses,' which,

in its Pythagorean version (6th century BC), it was located in Crotone and 'comprised

numerous dependencies dedicated to housing, exercise, games, and arts. Their vast

gardens, planted with cypress and olive trees, stretched out to the sea86. The muses born from

Zeus ("supreme expression of the exercise of power")87) and of Mnemosyne (expression

supreme in the exercise of the power of memory), are at the same time and in the same space:

power and resistance, memory and forgetfulness, speech and silence. They are ambiguous and know,

as Hesiod recognizes, "to tell many lies similar to the facts" and can, when

want to 'give to hear revelations'88.

The second approach of the mentioned mythical genealogy indicates that the muse Calliope

(dedicated to epic poetry and one of the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne), united with Apollo and

Orpheus fathered Muse, who in turn, joined with Selene (the Moon) to give birth to Muse, a character.

semi-mythological, heir to deities, committed to the institution of the mysteries

Orphic, author of sacred poems and oracles. This mythological tradition suggests the idea that

the museum is a place where poetry survives. Its family tree does not allow

doubts: the epic poetry of Calliope united with the lyre of Apollo generates Orpheus, the greatest poet

86
Macé (1974, p.20).
87
Torrano (1991, p.31).
88
Hesiod (1991, p.107).
 63

singer, the one who with his singing enchanted, attracted, and healed stones, plants, animals, and

men. The enlightened Orpheus gave rise to the poet Museum.

These two paths of a mythical genealogy are not in opposition, to

on the contrary, they complement each other. In both cases, Zeus, Mnemosyne, and the...

Muses. On one hand, the museum is linked to the 'Temple of the Muses', which emphasizes the

notion of space and place and, therefore, of a mythical topography; on the other hand, the "Museum"

as a poet emphasizes the existence of a character, of a semi-historical actor, of a

mythical entity that constructs narratives and is narrated. These two paths help to

understanding that the museum is made as a place or home of the muses and from a

the subject who narrates and interprets the muses. Add to this information the

possibility of a narrative that builds itself with things and through things - in such a way

that they come to have as a shelter the home of the muses, come to be the eyes of the muses, and

also to have the power and memory that the muses grant - and one will have the basic design

from the mythical genesis of the museum.

A place, things that anchor power and memory and an entity (individual or collective)

possessed and possessor of creative imagination are the indispensable elements for the

constitution of the museum. Even when thinking in terms of ecomuseum, the situation is not

different. The prefix 'eco', loaded with ambiguity, evokes ideas at the same time

of repetition, recollection, memory, trace, house, dwelling, and environment. Furthermore, it is

easy to understand, that in the ecomuseum the place is the territory where it is found a

heritage (memory support and instrument of power) managed by subjects

historically conditioned (local population) aiming for its own development

social
 64

Objectively, my suggestion is that museum imagination is configured as the

singular and effective capacity of certain subjects to articulate in space

(three-dimensional) the poetic narrative of things. This imaginative capacity does not imply the

elimination of the political dimension of museums, but, on the contrary, can serve to illuminate

This imaginative capacity - it is important to emphasize - is also not a privilege of some people;

but, to activate the device that sets it in motion, an alliance with the

Muses, it is necessary to have an interest in the mediation between different worlds and times, meanings.

and different functions, different individuals and social groups. In summary: it is necessary to start-

in the "language of things"89Imagination is not even the prerogative of a group.

professional, like that of museologists, for example, even though they have the privilege of

be especially trained for your development. Technically it refers to the

set of thoughts and practices that certain social actors of 'perception

"educated" develops on museums and museology.

This is the meaning that presides over my persistent reference to museal imagination.

Gustavo Barroso, Gilberto Freyre, and Darcy Ribeiro. They are leap year poets in terms of

literary, but they are innovative poets in museum terms. They have a genuine interest in

the language of things and with them and through them they also want to communicate. They are

"narrators" and know the "narrative kingdom", in the Benjaminian sense of the terms.90The

the museum spaces that they produce and organize and in some way inhabit are also

advice boxes. "To advise - Benjamin used to say - is less about answering a question
91
what to make a suggestion about the continuation of a story that is being narrated.

89
Varine (2000, p.69).
90
Benjamin (1985, p.198-199)
91
Benjamin (1985, p.200).
 65

For them, the art of storytelling was not withering. Even while dissimulating here and there, some

more than others, they build epic projects, when they do not behave

own as founding heroes.

Over time, the notion of a museum has gone through various metamorphoses.

Images like cabinet of curiosities, mausoleum, cemetery, bank or university of

objects, palace, school, forum, cultural house and cultural center have been activated by

different actors in the attempt to account for this complex place that it is. All these

images and others survive in the present, without one definitively eliminating the other

another, without any of them fully embracing the museum's complexity. Even the

understanding the museum as a political tool or technology that can be

manipulated to serve different interests (national, regional, ethnic, personal or

locations) does not eliminate its poetic and mythical power. On the contrary, what is observed is

Of the order of symbiosis: the mythical, the poetic, and the political mutually nourish each other.

In other words: museums, like the muses, are ambiguous, they know how to say

lies that seem like truths and can also know, when they want, 'to make you listen

revelations". Whatever the way of dealing with museums, none of them is in itself

emancipatory or coercive92What seems undeniable is that museums (archaic and

modern) set in motion memory, power, forgetfulness, resistance, narrative,

speech and silence, all of this with and through the mediation of things and the muses. As you recognize

George W. Stocking Jr: "Modern museums have also been called temples

92
Santos (1993, p.70-84).
 66

secular, and the wisdom of certain muses still inhabits them and, at times, inspires them

(...)93.

Even though the configuration of a museum is not possible without the anchor of a

three-dimensional space that obviously involves the observed object and the observing subject,

even so, the museum is not exhausted in its spatial three-dimensionality. There are also

in the game, as Stocking Jr. emphasized, at least four more dimensions: a. - the dimension

of time, of history or of memory (the museum objects come from some

past and, through it, the observer is called to cross the doors of time); b.

the dimension of power (the objects that are under the possession of a museum

belong to others, furthermore, they exert some power over their observers,

a power not only of themselves but assigned to them by the museum institution); c. - a

dimension of wealth (the museumized material objects still hold some value

exchange economic); and d. - the aesthetic dimension (objects of material culture are

frequently redefined in the world of art, as objects of aesthetic value94.

In a kind of remembrance of the nine muses, it might be appropriate

add to these seven dimensions, two more: e. - the dimension of knowledge or of

knowledge (museum objects become objects of knowledge as well)

scientific, they witness and represent knowledge and are used as devices

capable of triggering other knowledge about themselves, about culture and nature)

and f. - the playful-educational dimension (modern museums emerge with a clear emphasis

educational, the objects are there as narrative resources, as means of communication

93
Stocking Jr. (1985).
94
Same.
 67

of certain messages and, in many cases, as constituent elements of a

exemplary pedagogy, which over time adds a playful tone and even

pleasure).

It is important to understand that these seven - as suggested by Stocking Jr. - or nine

dimensions - as I have just suggested - stem from different processes of re-signification

and refuncionalization. It should also be noted that these dimensions can be activated by

differentiated manner by individuals and different social groups.

All of this contributes to the understanding of what I have repeatedly stated:

modern museums are spaces of memory, of forgetting, of power and of

resistance, are historically conditioned creations. They are dated institutions and can

through their cultural practices to be read and interpreted as an object or a

document. When a researcher or a museum professional focuses on

these institutions, understanding them as typical elements of modern societies, is

it is possible to see three distinct aspects in its areas of operation and

complementary: 1oFrom a museographic point of view, the museum institution is a field.

discursive; 2o- from a museological point of view, it is a center for the production of interpretation and

3o- from a historical-social point of view, it is a political arena.

As a discursive field, the museum is produced in a way similar to a text by

specific narrators that give it different historical-social meanings. This

narrative text assumes interpretative content and it is in this sense that the museum is

also a center for producing meanings on issues of global and national scope,

regional or local. However, the creation of this text is not peaceful, it involves disputes,

pendengas, which makes explicit its character as a political arena. Museum institutions, such as
 68

It is obvious, they have the life that is given to them by those who live in it, for it, and of it. It matters,

therefore, to know: for whom, for what, and for whom your narrative texts are constructed;

who, how, what and why interprets; who participates and what is at stake in the

pending museums.

These and other issues guide the present investigation towards a possible

understanding the action and reflection of certain Brazilian intellectuals who

exercising museum imagination, they produce museums and create museology. Among these

intellectuals I highlight: Gustavo Barroso, Gilberto Freyre, and Darcy Ribeiro. What kind of

museums do they imagine and materialize? What museological practice do they stimulate?
 69

II - The museum imagination in Gustavo Barroso, Gilberto Freyre, and Darcy Ribeiro.

Marco Polo describes a bridge, stone by stone.

- But what is the stone that supports the bridge? - asks Kublai
Khan.
- The bridge is not supported by this or that stone - replies
Marco -, but by the curve of the arch that these form.
Kublai Khan remains silent, reflecting. Then he adds:
- Why talk about the stones? Only the bow interests me.
Polo responds:
- Without stones, the bow does not exist.

Italo Calvino95

95
Calvino (1993, p.79)
 70

The modern tradition of museology in Brazil

Except for the unique and isolated experience developed in Pernambuco,

during the Dutch invasion - the occasion when a museum was established in the large park

At the Vrijburg Palace, Brazilian museal tradition can be fully understood.

like making a civilizing project of modernity with roots planted in the soil of

18th century.

When at the beginning of the 19th century the Portuguese court arrived in the city of Rio de

In January, with an approximate contingent of fifteen thousand people, Brazil was almost a

desert from a museal perspective, which, by the way, was not exclusive to him. Thus, it is

notable that in just under two hundred years the Brazilian museological reality has

emerging from a situation of nearly desert to reach today the approximate figure of
96
2000 thousand museums One cannot speak clearly of a desert when taking into account

the experiences of setting up Orchards and Botanical Gardens carried out in the 'last

years of the eighteenth century and in the first decade of the following one and97this since it is considered

that these institutions can be included in the museum category, which, at a minimum, for the

time, it would sound strange.

In 1798, as recorded by Leopoldo Collor Jobim, 'Orders were issued

"Regulations" to the governments of São Paulo and Pernambuco in the sense that they established, to

similarity of Pará, Gardens and Botanical Gardens98. These establishments, parts of a

96
I use here the data from a document recently produced by the Ministry of Culture (MinC) and
entitled 'Bases for the National Museum Policy', 2003.
97
Jobim (1986, p.53-106).
98
The same.
 71

broader political and economic project, declined after 1822, but

before that, as Jobim highlights, "they enriched the landscape, culture, and sciences"

Brazilian women" and constitute one of the stages in the "process of updating thought

Brazilian scientist.99In this same sense, it can also be highlighted the creation,

In Rio de Janeiro, during the government of Vice-Roy Luís de Vasconcelos (1779-1790), of

Natural History Museum, nicknamed House of Birds, directed by Francisco.

Xavier Cardoso Silveira, organized with inspiration from the model of European cabinets

of natural history and extinct, in 1813, by decision of the Prince Regent100Second

Ladislau Netto:

This beginning of the Museum, built under the gaze of Luís himself
Vasconcelos by the sentenced individuals from the prisons of Rio de Janeiro, came to have alive

a king vulture, two alligators, and some capybaras

what went afterwards to the Museum of Lisbon101.

In the wake of the royal family's arrival in Brazil, it is well known that

among other equipment: the Royal Horticulture of Acclimatization, in 1808; the Royal Library, in

1810; the Royal Theater of São João, in 1812; the Royal School of Arts and Crafts, in

1815; the French Artistic Mission, in 1816, and the Royal Museum, in 1818, now called

National Museum, recognized as an icon of Brazilian museum tradition102Open to the public

In 1821, the Royal Museum gathered a collection whose stem cells came from the collections of

99
Same. p.95.
100
Cockroach (1986, p.23).
101
Netto (1870, p.11).
102
In 2003, this recognition has persistently inhabited the speech of representatives from the Ministry of
Culture.
 72

extinct House of Birds103and that was gradually increased with contributions from

naturalists who traveled through Brazil: Langsdoff, Nattrer, Von Martius, Von Spix and

others.

The transfer of the court's seat to Brazil created a significant impact on the political landscape and

economic a huge impact and decisively marked the symbolic imagination of

colony, on the path to emancipation. With the court came new habits, behaviors,

flavors, odors, new power and memory relations, new political orders,

legislative, legal and economic, new knowledge and medical practices, new

women, men, books, dreams and gazes. From the museums' point of view this

historical events produced indelible marks that, in turn, produced others

so many marks on individuals and groups.

Somehow, the mad queen, the regent prince, and their descendants invested

some fragments of memory of an auratic vigor that, to this day, can be triggered

with distinct and even conflicting objectives. It is not without reason that experiences

recent museological ones, with differentiated levels of popular participation - like those

carried out at the Ecomuseum of Santa Cruz and at the Urban Cleaning Museum / House of

Caju Baths - still find in the image of Dom João VI appealing references, for

but more mundane and curious ones. It is famous, to cite just one example, the story

from the trip that Dom João VI made to his summer estate in Santa Cruz104During

during your stay in that rural area a tick would have adhered to the skin of one of your

legs. After the parasitic arachnid was removed, the monarch's leg became infected. As a measure

103
Holland (1973, p.170).
104
In Santa Cruz, there are also some stories regarding the anemic pallor of Princess Isabel who,
that's why he frequented the local slaughterhouse to drink some glasses of bull's blood or, according to
other versions, to take immersion baths in bull's blood.
 73

curative and prophylactic the court physician advised him to take immersion baths in the waters

medicinal and crystal clear (!) from Caju beach. The monarch heeded the medical advice, but,

fearing being bitten by marine animals, had a wooden tub built

with holes all around. Thus, after entering the tub, both would be hoisted up and in

gradually lowered down to the sea, all of this for the king's best bath.

I don't need to say that there is no news from Tina, but the Bathhouse

the cashew, listed as a national heritage by IPHAN, is still known today as

House of Baths of Dom João VI. Independent of the truth and the multiple versions of

tasty story, or even for that reason, it is still told and retold by many today

local residents. It has already been presented in the form of a comic book and dramatized.

by a group of young artists from Caju. There is no child in the neighborhood who does not know and does not

delight in this story. In some way it gives Caju a peculiar identity and

very distant from that which, from the outside in, identifies it with cemetery, trash and

violence.

It is important to note that the establishment of the court in Brazil, in addition to contributing to the

the construction of a new imaginary, reshaped and favored a new fiction of the past

Brazilian with the definitive installation of new inhabitants (kings, queens,

princes, princesses and everyone who directly touched the royal epidermis) and, in the case of the

museums were a founding stone in the configuration of the still incipient museal imagination. Until

today remains as a museological and museographic problem the place of the wild Indians,

two black men gathered, two tailors, two jagunços from Canudos, two holy men from

Answered and the landless workers, all of them inventors of a counter-memory and

of a counter-cultural heritage.
 74

The news of the creation of the Royal Museum raises, among other things, the following question: the

who was this modern museum intended for, the child of the Enlightenment, in a country where

the barbarians, the slaves, and the mestizos multiplied, whose memories are engraved in

their social practices and in their bodies, akin to the traumatic memory of

tick?

It is evident that the Royal Museum was not intended for the nobody, for the enslaved black person.

or to the fierce Indian, but rather to the qualification of the new seat of the Portuguese crown next to the

other nations, to the interests of the local aristocracy, of the rich and free men, of the families

provided by the Catholic clergy, scientists, renowned artists, and travelers

foreigners. Carl Von Koseritz, a German naturalized Brazilian, already in 1883, made this

I respect the following record:

It was two o'clock when I left the Museum and time had flown by.

Ladislau Neto provides a great service to the country when he protects and

preserve all these treasures of science. When he took the direction of

establishment, almost nothing had been done. Now not everything is anymore.
disorganized and chaotic, but one can already see how order reigns in these rooms that, in

brief, they will have an endless interest for all men of science who visit the
Brazil105 .

For these men, the Museum functioned as a modern instrument of

illustration, of scientific update and also as a device of disciplinary power,

indicating what can be known, what can be remembered and forgotten, what can be and how

105
Koseritz (1941, p.89).
 75

It can be said and done. In other words: the museal imagination in Brazil was planted.

initially as something distant and isolated from interests and even from gazes

of the popular layers, which will have consequences that will unfold in the

20th century. Such distancing will not prevent, however, that socially

excluded and marginalized find in other social practices, such as parties, rituals,

dances, music, production of various artifacts and in their own bodies others

memory supports, other asset values.

In addition to this discussion, which seems relevant to me, I want to emphasize that during the

the first half of the nineteenth century the Royal Museum would be, in a more or less precarious way, the

unique expressive center of museal experience in Brazil.

During the government of Pedro II, the Brazilian museal imagination would be one of

tools used in the ritual and symbolic construction of the nation that seemed to grow together

with the young ruler. In addition to constituting a new intelligence, it was also necessary

develop new production devices from the past and memory retention.

meaning, the role of the Academy of Fine Arts (with its artists, its works, and its Salons

of Expositions) and the Brazilian Historical and Geographical Institute (with its intellectuals,

your collections and your preservation practices) will be of great importance. How

Mário Barata pointed out that "the notion of the specificity of historical museums remained

current in scholarly circles in the past century" and it fell to the Historical Institute and

Brazilian Geographic the "pioneering role" of creating "an embryonic Historical Museum"106a

the subordinate. However, it seems that this embryo of a museum, whose dating

106
Barata (1986, p.24).
 76

seems to go back at least to 1842107, has developed over time, as it still does today

it can be proven, with some difficulties.

The singular interest of the young ruler in museums can be identified in

prestige and support that he gave to these institutions and also in the exchange of

correspondence that was maintained with the British Museum (England), the Museum of Berlin

(Germany), the Natural History Museum (France), the Spanish Museum of Antiquities

(Spain), the National Museum of Naples (Italy), the Guimet Museum (France), the Museum

Numismatic (Greece), the Museum of Comparative Zoology (USA) and the museum itself

National (Brazil)108 .

In any case, the Brazilian museum landscape would only undergo greater

transformations from the sixties: marked by the creation of the Museum of

Archaeological, Historical and Geographical Institute of Pernambuco, in 1862; of the Society

Filomática, in 1866, which would give rise to the Emílio Goeldi Museum in Pará, which would come to

play a prominent role in the scientific and cultural landscape of Brazil in the centuries

19th and 20th centuries and also through the creation of the Military Museum of the Arsenal of War, in 1865, and of

Naval Museum, in 1870.

Clearly, the establishment of the two military museums can be read as the desire

to establish commemorative markers of the heroic strength of the nation; they are inscribed in

set of epic narratives that aim to update the national pantheon and populate the

memory with unique and heroic gestures. These gestures, as will be seen ahead, do not

went unnoticed by Gustavo Barroso.

107
Bittencourt (1997a, p.213).
108
Araújo (1977).
 77

In the last three decades of the nineteenth century, the Museum was also created.

Paranaense, in 1876, focused on celebrating the history of Paraná; the Museum of

Historical and Geographical Institute of Bahia, in 1894, and the Paulista Museum, in 1895,

installed at the Ipiranga monument, whose construction began in 1885, aiming at

celebration of the memory of Independence and completed in 1890, under the republican regime.

At the end of the 19th century, the museum scene was quite different from that which

here was found when the Portuguese royal family arrived, even so, still

considering the different life and death cycles of institutions, the number of museums

it probably wouldn't exceed twenty. For comparative purposes, it is important

to know that at the beginning of the 19th century France had about twenty museums and to its

the term had approximately six hundred museums109It is in this sense that one

you can say that France in the 19th century experienced a museum explosion, but I have

questions that one can affirm the same thing regarding Brazil.

Explicitly: what I am suggesting is that even having its roots

mythical and foundational rooted in the 19th century - perhaps in the 18th with the House of Xavier of

Birds and in the XVII with the Dutch experience in Pernambuco - the scene

Brazilian museology was decisively established in the 20th century. It was in the last century

the museum imagination was invigorated and only then did the museums spread a little

everywhere. And this is linked to a set of sociocultural changes and

political-economic phenomena that emerged in Brazil after the 1920s and, above all,

after the thirties.

109
Georgel (1994, p.15-18 and 105-137).
 78

An analysis of the book Educational Resources of Brazilian Museums, authored by

Guy de Hollanda (former student of the Museum Course at the National Historical Museum),

published in 1958, with support from the Brazilian Center for Educational Research (CBPE) and

from the National Organization of the International Council of Museums (ONICOM) can be

illuminating.

In order to meet a demand made by UNESCO, the referred

the book presented a repertoire of Brazilian museums. This demand was in tune.

with the realization of the regional seminar of UNESCO on the educational function of

museums, what would happen in Rio de Janeiro, at the Museum of Modern Art, from the period of 7 to

September 30, 1958, and would be directed by George Henri Rivière, director of ICOM -

an organization linked to UNESCO.

The book organized by Guy de Hollanda also featured the participation of

prominent professionals in the museum scene: Elza Ramos Peixoto, Lygia Martins

Costa, Octávia Corrêa dos Santos Oliveira, Regina Monteiro Real, F. dos Santos

Trigueiros and Alfred Theodor Rusins, all members of ONICOM and graduates in

Museology in the Museum Course directed by Gustavo Barroso. From the repertoire

presented in guide format, it includes 46 illustrations, questionnaire model sent

to the museums, four types of index and a total of 145 museums. For sure this

repertoire, made with seriousness, is a partial portrait of Brazilian museums; but, still

thus, it covers the national scenario and constitutes one of the best materials for

analysis, even when compared to museum guides published at later dates.

To analyze this repertoire of museums, I produced a table that organizes the 145.

museums according to the century and the decades in which they were created. Some museums
 79

appear in the book by Guy de Hollanda without an indication of creation date, I searched with the

data currently available to supplement this information. The result is indicated in

table below:

REPERTOIRE OF BRAZILIAN MUSEUMS (according to Guy de Hollanda, 1958)

Century/decade Number of museums created
19th Century
1811 to 1820 1
1841 to 1850 1
1861 to 1870 2
1871 to 1880 1
1881 to 1890 1
1891 to 1900 2
Note. Two museums from the group of museums without a creation date could have
were created in the 19th century 2
Subtotal (including those mentioned in the note) 10

20th Century

1901 to 1910 8
1911 to 1920 4
1921 to 1930 7
1931 to 1940 25
1941 to 1950 29
1951 to 1958 31
Museums under organization in 1958 9
Museums without indication of creation date 22
Subtotal 135
Total (19th century and 20th century until 1958) 145
 80

As was emphasized, it is a partial but quite expressive portrait of

museums existing in Brazil, at the end of the fifties. Even considering the

the hypothesis that some museums born in the 19th century died young - as it is

the case of the military museums of the Army and the Navy that, after they died, were

resurrected during the military regime and therefore do not appear in Guy's repertoire

from Holland - the general framework remains valid, as it presents the museum heritage

received.

The analysis of the framework indicates that the multiplication of Brazilian museums in the century

Nineteen (which represent 6.89% of the total of 145) was not as accelerated as one might think.

The first three decades of the 20th century add up to a total of 19 museums (13.10% of the total

from 145), which constitutes an acceleration far greater than that of the previous century. Still

thus, nothing compares to the explosion of the last three decades referred to

repertoire, which presents a total of 94 museums (64.82% of the total of 145), including

those who were in the organization phase in 1958. It is also noteworthy that while

In the 19th century, the 10 museums listed were spread across 7 cities and 7 units.

federative (including the Federal District), the 135 museums created in the 20th century

are distributed across 71 cities and 21 federative units (including the Federal District and the

Territory of Amapá110 .

There is no doubt that starting from the early thirties, a process is taking place in Brazil.

great transformation in the field of museums, a direct reflection of political transformations,

social and economic. In the thirties, the State modernizes, strengthens, and establishes

a new order. Strengthened and reorganized, it begins to interfere directly in life

110
Guy de Hollanda's research recorded in the State of Pará, in Belém, only the presence of the Museum.
Paraense Emílio Goeldi.
 81

social, in labor relations and in the fields of education, health, and culture.

Various sectors of society are starting to contribute to the re-imagining of Brazil. There is a

broad longing for symbolic construction of the nation, in which the re-imagination of

past, of its symbols, its allegories, its heroes and its myths. The new order demands

a new imagination and it will be necessary once again to repopulate the past. This explains, by

less in part, the expressive multiplication of museums starting from the early thirties.

At this moment, the museum imagination device will be activated as a tool

renewed and of great political and social utility. Its use, however, will not have a single

meaning and will not serve a single interest. To reduce museums and practices of

preserving fragments of the past as mere ideological apparatuses of the State is to give up

to understand its complexities, its internal dynamics, and its complexes

fields of possibilities, both of coercion and of emancipation. It is time to repeat: the

museums also provoke dreams, in them memories and forgetfulness are at stake,

powers and resistances, lights and shadows, living and dead, voices and silences.

The remarkable proliferation of museums that began in the 1930s continues and expands.

in the forties and fifties, it goes through World War II and the so-called Era

Vargas strikes with vigor the so-called golden years. It is important to note that this

proliferation is not just translated in terms of quantity, it implies a new form

understanding of museums and a greater effort for the professionalization of the field. There is

clearly an appreciation of the educational dimension of museums, coupled with the expansion of

museum diversity and the development of regional and local experiences beyond the

former Federal District.

 82

What I wish to underline is that Brazilian museum imagination does not only arise in the

frameworks of modernity as it is established and developed allied to the projects of

modernization of the country that takes to the field starting from the early twenties and,

above all, from the thirties. This consideration is important for understanding that the

contributions of Gustavo Barroso, Darcy Ribeiro, and Gilberto Freyre to the field of

museums, no matter how different they are in political and museological terms, are

inserted in this framework that I am calling modernity.

These three intellectuals at some point in their lives express interest in

area of education and vocational training, conduct research on topics

Brazilians go through the experience of the polls experiencing victory and defeat.

politics and create modern museums. These museums are fragmented narrative contexts and

insubmissive in relation to the written text, they evoke memories, provoke

forgetfulness, but they also want to advise, identify, say what the nation is, what

it is the region, what the Indian is. Like in a police narrative - I am relying on a

suggestion from Donald Preziosi - they want to teach how to think, to 'solve things', 'to add'

two plus two" and realizing "that things are not always as they seem at first

view111. Barroso, Freyre and Darcy seem to have some intimacy with the poetics of

things seem to understand the myth of museums and their ability to articulate worlds

and different times. However, one must not be deceived, despite some

similarities these three modern narrators look at life, at individuals, at the

Brazilian society, for politics, for things and for museums in quite a

different.

111
Preziosi (1998, p.50-56).
 83

2. Three modern narrators

 84

2.1. Gustavo Barroso: museum, history and nation.

From the old house to the museum

The house where Gustavo Barroso spent his childhood was through the eyes of the man already

made 'an old house in appearance, in the inhabitants and in the uses.' It was about an 'old

colonial sobrado with fortress walls and floorboards of planks. Besides the grandmother

octogenarians and aunts over sixty inhabited it "old cupboards and old

dressers with old Indian crockery, silverware and glass candle holders. The practices of

Residents were disciplined: "One woke up at five thirty in the morning, one had coffee.

at six, lunch was at ten and dinner was at four in the afternoon. At nine at night, everyone
112
I was sleeping .

In the first 13 lines of his first memoir, Barroso made the description

from the house where he grew up. What stands out in this descriptive memory is the emphasis placed on the

qualifying adjectives: old and ancient. With this emphasis, he seemed to want to point out that

grew up surrounded by things and people whose roots were

established in another time, in a distant territory. He qualified the house, the things, the

people and their practices as old, but did not attribute any qualifications to that label

negative sense, on the contrary. He seemed to suggest that everything there was old, except for him that

had a "boy's heart" enabled to deal with antiques, to understand

the past and draw lessons from it for a lifetime.

112
Barroso (1939, p.9).
 85

These initial 13 lines still suggest that that past conditioned and prepared

the man for the mediation of other pasts. This is an important first notion.

for the understanding of the museal imagination of Gustavo Barroso. History for him was

lived in the territory of the past, where the old things dwelled and from where they came.

Only a few individuals would have - due to special birth conditions, coupled with

personal work - the necessary prerequisites to connect with the present, to

constituted as pontiffs of tradition.

The "old colonial mansion with fortress walls and plank floors" seems

reasonably describe the building where the Historical Museum was established in 1922

National. Add to this building 'old cabinets and old dressers with old

china from India, silverware and glass candlesticks" and there will be an even more precise description.

of the referred Museum. The Cearense house of Gustavo Barroso, described from Rio de

January 1939 has similarities with the National Historical Museum.

113
For most people, museums are places of old and ancient things. .

However, to say this is to say almost nothing. Regardless of their typological differences, the

museums work with objects that are already made, already produced, therefore with what

is situated in a certain past, even if it is that of yesterday. Old (or new) things

they are neither good nor bad by being old (or new) at first glance. The underlying issue is

to know what the nature of the relationship with the past is. It is used to

to fertilize and illuminate the present or to forget and alienate oneself from that same present?

It is conceived as a peaceful territory, given and completed or as a construction

What is made, remade, and undone permanently? In any case, what today

113
Chagas (1987).
 86

It seems clear that reconstructing (museographically) the past is reinventing a past.

once it is kept, only remnants and traces remain.

However, the nostalgic museology of Barroso seems to want to make people believe that the

The past is allowed to be captured entirely and gives itself up without conflict as ready truth.

Unlike Walter Benjamin, for whom the total rescue of the past would be destructive

and would hinder the understanding of longing, Barroso, through metonymic processes, seems

wanting to recover the integral past and how it is for them the truth. Your 'cult of the

"Saudade" is, in this way, an affirmation of the undeniable truth. "In this book only

I tell the truth. (...) But nostalgia is the greatest witness of truth.114 .

What he says about his memoir seems to apply to his Museum which

it was read and proclaimed as the 'great book of granite open to scholars, perpetuating

patriotic teachings115big open book of the history of our past, reliquary

116
precious objects that allow us to relive other eras and to be read

demands 'imagination and sweetness'117.

Another important aspect for understanding the museological imagination of Barroso

are your tendencies for military life, ambiguously, contradicted and stimulated in the

family background. The father was a police chief and an officer of the National Guard.

Province; the godfather and one of the cousins were patriots in the war with the

Paraguay; a 'campaign eyeglass' used by General Tibúrcio was kept as

relic in the living room118the old mansion, and the aunts dressed him in a uniform of

114
Barroso (1939, p.7).
115
Ornellas (1944, p.6).
116
Ribeiro (1944, p.6).
117
The same.
118
Barroso (1939, p.34).
 87

Lieutenant. Still, the family wanted him to be a doctor, a law graduate. "In

my house - he said - has the habit, the superstition of the doctor. A thing inherited from the past

as old as the jacaranda furniture, the silver jugs from Porto and the porcelain terrines of

India119Having yielded to family pressure and the legacy of ancient times Barroso

graduated in law. The repressed trends, however, did not die.

Fermented, they would find at the National Historical Museum one of the best spaces.

of manifestation. The Museum allowed him to amalgamate the love for the past (territory

familiar), the military trend, the bachelor's formation, and the taste for art. It is not casual that

installation of the Museum in an ancient architectural complex that includes a fortress, arsenal

of war, alley of drums (military) and house of the train (artillery).

Eleven years before the creation of the National Historical Museum, in an article published in

Journal of Commerce of Rio de Janeiro, under the pseudonym João do Norte, Barroso

emphatically proclaimed the need for the creation of a 'Military Museum':

Brazil needs a museum where glorious, mute objects are kept.

companions of our warriors and our heroes; swords that have
sparkled in the hazy light of the great battles in the Platine regions or have
were delivered into our victorious hands by the defeated leaders; cannons that
they vomited death into the enemy ranks from the heights of our bastions and the
the parapets of our trenches (...).
Until today we still haven't taken the care to preserve our traditions, to
to shelter them, to take care of them, to steal from the inexorable rust of time the ancient ones

weapons of the vanished warriors. And, unlike what is done everywhere,

119
Same, p.30.
 88

Some say that we should return the trophies we have won with our
blood120 .

In the same article, Barroso displays his erudition and shows himself to be knowledgeable.

meticulous and updated overview of European historical and military museums. It evokes in detail

the Museum of Invalids in France; the Royal Armory in Spain; the Artillery Museum,

in Portugal; the German museums and the English museums. Dreaming of a military museum

he asks himself and answers:

And us? We ignore the cult of the past and disregard the
antiques of history. We have never had a Military Museum worthy of this.
name and our forgotten warrior memories wander scattered through a thousand
places have already disappeared with the passage of time121 .

He who had a meticulous knowledge and knew the foreign museums so well did not

he insists on clarifying that two military museums had been created in Rio

January, in the 19th century: the Military Museum of the War Arsenal, in 1865, and the Museum

Naval, in 1870. José Neves Bittencourt, focusing on the analysis of these two

institutions, clarified that they have not consolidated, but also clarified that in

1922, "the history exhibition set up at the Centennial Exhibition was formed by the

objects from the Military Museum, deactivated in the early century and, since then, boxed up in

building of the War Arsenal, vacated by the army, in 1902.122The Naval Museum -

still according to Bittencourt - was in decline at the beginning of the 20th century and its

120
Gustavo Barroso cited by Dumans (1997, p.13-23).
121
Same.
122
Bittencourt (1997b, p.9-11 and p.23).
 89

collections were transferred to the MHN in two shipments, one in 1927 and another in 1932,

when the institution was officially dissolved.

Setting aside the interesting controversy surrounding military museums and their

collections, what I would like to emphasize is that Barrosian rhetoric wanted to promote and

expand the pantheon of heroes; I wanted to identify them, immortalize them, and123create

full identification with them. In their perspective, the 'drop of blood' shed by the

heroes in the conquest of trophies and glories were a drop of 'our blood'. In this logic,

preserving trophies and military glories would ensure the possibility of communion with the

heroes of spilled blood, trophies and glories would be mediators possessed by blood

powerful of the heroes. Furthermore - as pointed out by Regina Abreu - the blood category was

a badge of nobility and one of the foundations of the social organization of the elites

aristocratic in Brazil124 .

Adolpho Dumans, former student of the Museum Course, saw in the article 'Museum

Military" and in another published a year later in the same journal titled "The Cult

of longing125the germs of what would become the Historical Museum. All of this demonstrates the

idea that Barroso conceived the National Historical Museum, at least in its

beginnings, as a kind of Brazilian military historical museum that was inspired,

among others, in the French model of the complex Invalides Museum, where are present:

the suggestion of a cannon yard, Napoleon's tomb - whose soldiers he knew

since childhood through "a little transfer sticker notebook"126and the invention of traditions

anchored in heroic deeds, weapons, military uniforms, flags, and remnants of wars.

123
Abreu (1996).
124
Same, p.201.
125
Barroso (1997, p.32-34).
126
Barroso (1939, p.22).
 90

Once the Museum was conceived, Barroso's next step was to install his citadel in it.

particular, whose main gate was protected by Minerva (or Athena), goddess of

wisdom and war strategies, born from the forehead of Jupiter (or Zeus). There from that

citadel, born from her forehead, from her museal demiurgic imagination, he sought

to order, to dominate the world and to fight for what he believed to be the 'Eternal Brazil'127a

happiness of Brazil", the "Heroic State" and "Strong"128.

The pyramid of tradition

Gustavo Adolfo Luiz Guilherme Dodt da Cunha Barroso was born in Fortaleza

(CE), on December 29, 1888, within "an old declining family whose

prestige came from the times of the Empire129He was the third son of Antônio Felino.

Barroso and Ana Guilhermina Dodt Barroso, who died seven days after childbirth. Her grandfather

mother, Gustavo Luiz Guilherme Dodt, of German origin, engineer and doctor in

philosophy at the University of Jena, came to Brazil to work in the construction of lines

telegraphic, bridges and roads through the backlands. Explored unknown rivers130, conducted studies

ethnographic and upon dying left "a large collection of weapons and utensils from our

Indians131.

127
Same, pp. 208-212.
128
Barroso (1935, p.3-6).
129
Miceli (1979, p.60).
130
In 1872, Gustavo Dodt ascended the Gurupi River, conducted topographic surveys and observed the peoples.
indigenous people who lived there. Darcy Ribeiro, who in 1949/1950 conducted "ethnological research among the
Tupi-speaking Indians known as Urubu, from the Maranhão bank of the Gurupi River, knew and appreciated the
the works of Gustavo Dodt. Ribeiro (1997).
131
Barroso (1939, p.267).
 91

After their mother's death, the brothers were separated: the two older ones were

delivered to the German grandparents who lived in Maranhão and the newborn stayed in Ceará

with the father, but under the care of the grandmother and aunts. Iaiá, the older sister of his father, was the one who

taught the first letters in the living room of the big house, where it operated after the

lunch, the improvised Saint Joseph School. From there, in 1898, the boy would leave for the third

primary series of the Paternon Cearense School and the following year would go to the Liceu of

Ceará, where, in 1906, he would complete secondary school. In that same year, he would start his...

journalistic career publishing, under the pseudonym Nautilus, its first article in

Cearense Newspaper Republic Journal132 .

Antônio Felino was the owner of a notary office and a man of letters.

influenced by positivism, evolutionism, and materialism. Alongside Capistrano of

Abreu, Rocha Lima, Childerico de Faria, Frederico Borges, and Araripe Jr. founded the

French Academy of Ceará133. From the perspective of the now adult son, however, the father was

a man "in whose spirit the confusion of the nineteenth century had not been able to erase love

ancestral of traditionalism": without declared religious ideology, "he admired the Church.

for its victorious permanence; with ambiguity, he also admired the Revolution

French, but "detested the spasms of the rabble." "Since the dawn of my life" -

he would confess the son who was already over fifty years old - "he had always heard him speak this way.

the old things, like the sprout of traditional people in our land134 .

The self-image of the memorialist was that of a "mixed" man: not so German

like your brother Valdemar, "except in height," "not as darkly Brazilian as"

132
May (1992, p.68)
133
Same.
134
Barroso (1939, p.25).
 92

your sister Nini. "Spiritually - he said - alongside my vast and deep love for

Brazil, your life and your history, the natural inclination towards discipline, order, meaning

"The constructive nature of existence betrays the Germanic ancestry."135Beyond the stereotype in

in relation to Brazilians and Germans, what matters here is to understand the construction

imaginary of the memorialist himself as a German descendant, a Teutobrasilian.

Barroso looked at the modern world from the top of a pyramid of tradition.

oligarchic and slaveholding that was crumbling. He was born in the Empire and lived the first eleven

months of life as a small subject, the imagination of his decaying family

it was impregnated with symbols of the ancient royalty. Perhaps that is why he considered the

hypothesis of building bridges between the Republic and the Empire and being committed to building

a story of continuities. He would be the bow and also the defending warrior of the

relics, the ensign, the militia chief to whom the past entrusted the task of defending the

history, the nation, the tradition. The National Historical Museum - let it be repeated - would be its

citadel, your fortress.

In 1907, Barroso enrolled in the Law School of Ceará, founded by

Nogueira Acioli, where he remained until 1909. During this period, he opposed political...

Acioli's oligarchy and intensified his journalistic career, both as an editor of

Ceará Journal, wants as founder of the periodicals: The Kid, The Ecuadorian

Regenerator; or even as a contributor in: OUnitário, O Colibri, O FigançaeO

Demolisher, socialist organ of Joaquim Pimenta. Furthermore, he was a founding partner of

Literary Grêmio March 25, secretary of Talma Cearense - dramatic society of

Calypso Center - a member of the Maxim Gorky Club - the first socialist club of

135
Same, p.267.
 93

Ceará136In 1910, he moved to the Federal District, where he completed it in the year

next, through the Law School of Rio de Janeiro, your bachelor's degree in sciences.

legal and social. During the study period in Rio de Janeiro, he was a professor at

School for Minors of the Federal District Police and at the Gymnasium of Petrópolis (RJ). In

In 1912, he successfully published his first book in the literary world: Land of Sun, nature.

the customs of the North137 he joined the Conservative Republican Party (CRP) 138
,

led by Pinheiro Machado, in which he remained until 1918. In 1913, he took office

of the secretary of the Superintendency for Rubber Defense and that of the editor of the Journal of

Merchant of Rio de Janeiro, a position he held until 1919. He returned to Ceará in 1914.
139
- stage of one of the most important political battles fought by Pinheiro Machado -

to occupy the position of Secretary of the Interior and Justice, in the government of his cousin

Colonel Benjamim Barroso, recently elected, and to lead the State Diary.

In 1915, with the support of his cousin and the leader of the PRC, he was elected as a federal deputy.

representing the Ceará bench. Back in the capital of the Republic, he got married this year,

with Antonieta Labourian, having Pinheiro Machado as one of the godfathers of

marriage140With Antonieta he would have two children: Carlos and Flávio Labourian Barroso. The

the first pursued a military career and the second enrolled in the Museums Course in 1936,

but did not manage to complete it.

136
May (1992, p.70).
137
Gilberto Freyre was an attentive reader of Gustavo Barroso, whom he considered a historian and one of the
masters of Brazilian folklore, as can be seen in the quotes included in Casa-Grande & Senzala
(1977a, p.367, 533 and 568), in Northeast (1977b, p.728) and in Adventure and Routine (1980, p.312).
138
The PRC was founded on November 17, 1911.
139
Souza (1974, p.208).
140
May (1992, p.72).
 94

Having completed your parliamentary term and not having succeeded in re-election,

Barroso took over, in 1918, the secretary of the Commercial and Consular Bulletin of the Ministry

of Foreign Relations and soon after, in 1919, the secretariat of the Brazilian Delegation to

Peace Conference in Versailles. This function was a special opportunity for

expand and solidify your network of relationships, to intensify bonds of friendship and to

to better understand some European, Canadian, and American museum institutions.

Back in Brazil, Barroso was appointed as a school inspector in the Federal District, a position in

which was maintained from 1919 to 1922, when he was then appointed to the management of the

National Historical Museum, with the expressed support of the friend and President of the Republic

Epitácio Pessoa, who had previously presided over the Brazilian Delegation to the Conference of

Peace.

Between things and between words

Between 1906 and 1922, the career of the founding father of the National Historical Museum was

incisive and meteoric141With an intense cultural life, he founded and collaborated with several

newspapers and magazines, held various positions in public service and published at least

fifteen books (ten as an author, one as an organizer, and four as a translator). Messy

with this cultural life he maintained intense political activity: he was a stone - when he was there

in opposition and close to the socialists - and it was a target - defending their interests and the

interests of the oligarchies. This standard of intellectual life entangled with activism

141
Gonçalves (2001, p.83).
 95

politics, as one can see, is nothing new. The cultural and political contexts change,

the actors change, but the matrix of the intertwining of these two contexts seems not to

suffer changes. It seems that Brazilian intellectuals maintain a relationship of

love and hate with the formal instances of power.

Interested in these formal and official instances of power whether to criticize them or

to benefit from it, Gustavo Barroso found in journalism the bridge, the gate of

entry into power and from there into the world of eternal memory. Journalism was for him a

means of expanding your network of relationships, channeling your literary production and a
142
trampoline - in Weber's expression - to ascend to a leadership position .

This position, strengthened by kinship relations and sponsorship.

politician, would allow him to fulfill the fantasy of eternity.

Gustavo Barroso knew how to leverage his network of relationships to stay ahead.

at the National Historical Museum for more than thirty years, going through ten different

presidents of the Republic. Even the political friction he had with the Vargas government and

that removed him from the Museum from 1930 to 1932 and placed him under suspicion in

1938, on the occasion of the Integralist Attempt, were not enough to exclude him.

definitely the 'apple of your eye'143 .

Many times Barroso stated that he had no ambition or desires for riches.

materials; he considered himself - and perhaps he was - free from this poor dream. But if his

The desire was not for material wealth, what wealth or desire did he nurture? There is none.

doubts, Barroso desired the immortality of the hero. He would like to make a gesture of

142
Weber (2002, p.82-86).
143
Mello (1961, p.126).
 96

heroic bravura for which he would be recognized and admired forever. The Museum gave him

this opportunity.

What some museums promise to objects, regardless of the

the practical impossibility of the promise is, as is known, eternal life; that which Barroso

the lion in the Museum was the promise of its own eternity and, therefore, every sacrifice was worth it

It's a shame. To leave no doubt about his desire for eternity, he ran for office, soon

after the creation of the Museum, for the fourth time, a vacancy in the Brazilian Academy of Letters

(ABL)144With the blessing of the powerful muses, this time, in March 1923, he was

welcomed into the realm of the immortals. It is worth noting that in less than five months Barroso

achieved two distinct immortals: one of letters (or of the poetic memory of

words) and another one from the museum (or from the poetic memory of things). From the Brazilian Academy

of Letters and the National Historical Museum he would not leave anymore. In these two kingdoms

narratives he would remain trapped, filling the void between things and between words. Until

today it cannot be known with certainty whether this eternal imprisonment is a gift or a

curse, a tribute or a revenge of words and things.

After visiting the Museum, possibly to better prepare your speech for

posse, Silva Mello, the academic who succeeded Barroso in chair number 19 of the Academy

Brazilian Literature witnessed what could already be intuited: there was the 'most'

important145of that one who

had recently died.

144
Mello (1961, p.100).
145
Mello (1961, p.124-125).
 97

When can a museum be a bridge

The work of the author of Terra de Sol is vast; it includes numerous drawings and caricatures,

more than a hundred books and many other texts scattered in newspapers and magazines of the

country and abroad. His writings take the form of biographies, short stories, critiques, chronicles,

dictionaries, memories, regional novels, plays, poetry, romances, treaties and

various essays on archaeology, philology, folklore, history, integralism, politics and

museology.

This study is aimed at understanding what is referred to as

museum imagination of Gustavo Barroso, it is understandable that I behave like a

kind of 'magnifying glass man'146to what Bachelard referred, and focus my attention

in detail, in what in the Barrosian work has a direct and explicit relation to the field

of museums and museology. In this case, it is essential that I include in the set of

your work the National Historical Museum and the Museum Course.

When in the articles published in the Jornal do Comércio - 'Military Museum', in

1911 and 'Cult of Nostalgia', in 1912 - and in the magazine Brazilian Illustration - 'Museum

Brazilian History", in 1921 - Gustavo Barroso was exercising his rhetoric and calling the

attention from some sectors of the Brazilian elite to the need to preserve and

to preserve certain relics and for the important task of constructing a museum that

to reunite the works of a glorious past, he was not an isolated voice and even less did he

it constituted the sole and primary defender of the things of the past and the 'notion of

146
Bachelard (1993, p.157-187)
 98

specificity of historical museums" that, after all, "remained common in the fields

scholars147of the 19th century.

Without needing to resort to the erudite means of the 19th century - which could favor the

germination of arguments that corroborated the Barrosian hagiography148built the

starting from the National Historical Museum - it is interesting to note that in the first twenty years of

20th century, voices like those of Bruno Lobo, Alberto Childe, Araújo Porto-Alegre, Araújo

Viana, Alceu Amoroso Lima, Edgard Roquete-Pinto, Max Fleuiss, José Mariano

Affonso d'Escragnolle Taunay and Alfredo Ferreira Lage expressed support for the

the need to preserve material testimonies of the past and some of those voices

they explicitly defended the need for the creation of historical museums.

It is important not to forget, as Ana Cláudia Fonseca Brefe pointed out, that the

Paulista Museum - created under the aegis of an encyclopedic, evolutionist model and

classifier, which from the zenith to the nadir dominated the natural sciences and naturally

anthropology - underwent a process of re-invention aiming for its transformation into

historical museum149This process, gradual and slow, began with the entry of Affonso

of Escragnolle Taunay and projected itself even a hundred years after the proclamation of the Republic.

In 1989, as Brefe observes, they were transferred from the Paulista Museum to the

Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, both linked to the University of São Paulo,

"coleções de natureza antropológica", "pessoal técnico-científico" e "seus respectivos

projects150Regardless of the political and technical arguments that may have supported

I wonder if this transfer at the end of the 1980s of the 20th century did not

147
Barata (1986, p.24).
148
Elkin (1997, p.126).
149
Brief (1999, p.33-44).
150
Same, p.9.
 99

it would be going against the museological trends that reaffirm the stretching of

disciplinary boundaries, the creation of new fields of knowledge and, above all, the

notion that museums, in general, are hybrids. I still wonder if this

transfer of collections operated at the Museu Paulista, already in the late eighties, not

it also implied a subordination of one of the museum bastions of the 19th century to knowledge

compartmentalized by the university. It is worth noting that the most important collection151of

ethnographic objects of indigenous peoples from the National Historical Museum were incorporated,

in 1985, during the management of Solange Godoy, responsible for the pioneering process of

renovation of the Museum that, in fact, paved the way for the renovation of some others

national museums in Brazil.

This last paragraph might be better in a footnote. Following an old

I decided to rethink the matter and chose to leave it where it is. Reason: this is

possibly a problem that affects museums in their daily practices. In addition,

if the transfers of collections are not questioned with visibility, there is a risk

risk of an essay on depoliticization and dehistoricization of anthropological collections,

ethnographic, artistic and others.

Picking up the thread. According to Ana Cláudia Fonseca Brefe, Taunay's entry into

The Paulista Museum opened "a period of intense changes in the institution"; still in

in his first year of management, he installed 'a new exhibition room entirely dedicated to '

"history of São Paulo" and began to outline "the contours of the History Section"

officially created in December 1922.

151
This is the collection of the indigenist Luiz Felipe de Figueiredo (Cipré), donated to the Museum in 1985, and
presented the following year in a short-term exhibition called 'The Owners of the Land: the Indian
Artist-Craftsman. Godoy (1986).
 100

Since 1918, the historical collection begins to grow, to be inventoried,

classified and exposed by Taunay, so that the official creation of the Section
historical seems to result from a logical and irreversible process where History
it takes on a central and distinct role different from the one occupied previously. For this reason,

despite maintaining the Natural History collections and the activities related to it
domain, History becomes the 'apple of the eye' of the institution, gaining
epistemological status and not just ethical152 .

The demand for national historical museums came from various sectors of the

intellectuality and so much more approaching the expected Centennial of Independence

but she was strengthened by the rhetoric of the urgency to establish a place that celebrated

the memory of the nation. This museum gap, a legacy of the eighteen hundreds, was perceived as a

problem that required a quick solution. And, after all, the Republic had not yet

a special memory project was established that would go through the field of museums. The weight

the Centenary brought back to the forefront the need to organize the past. It was part of

for the modern nation's project to have its history disciplined, it was not enough to rely solely on the...

beautiful letters, it was also necessary to resort to three-dimensional space and inhabit it with

three-dimensional images, recognizing in them the presence of other dimensions, such as the

educational, for example.

Among the various demands for the creation of a historical museum are the

efforts of Max Fleuiss and Edigard Roquete-Pinto, partners of the Historical Institute and

Brazilian Geographic Institute (IHGB), which - according to Noah Charles Elkin - presented, on 6

June 1918, 'to the Public Instruction Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, a

152
Brefe (1999, p.35).
 101

153
Proposal for the establishment of a national historical museum, subordinate to the IHGB .

As highlighted by the mentioned author, the disputes surrounding a possible historical museum of

national character also involved, just days before the Centennial, the National Archive,

on the occasion directed by Gastão de Escragnolle Dória, and the National Museum directed by

Bruno Lobo. The director of the Archive was seeking to expand its collection for the future.

install there a 'full museum', the National Museum Congregation opposed to the

interests of the National Archive and the delay in the creation of a history museum

national154 .

What I want to highlight with these references is that the creation of the Museum

National history, in 1922, was not the result of an isolated act by Gustavo Barroso,

anchored solely in its foresight of the museological needs of an era, to

opposite. At that moment, there was understanding on the part of broad sectors of the

Brazilian intellectuality regarding the importance and opportunity of establishing a

place that presented to the world the historical density of the country. This understanding, in

meanwhile, it was not crystallizing into a single project. They were in dispute at that time,

different plans for a national historical museum, different formats of

museum imagination. And in this context, due to issues related to the political arena, by

prestigious networks of social relations, including friendships, and by presence

marking Barroso in the cultural life of the capital of the Republic, his project was victorious.

A laudatory museum project, based on a dream or nightmare of eternalization of

symbolic values of oligarchies in crisis.

153
Elkin (1997, p.126-132).
154
Same.
 102

In general, since F. dos Santos Trigueiros published it in 1955,

The Museum: documentation organ has become recurrent in some media

museum-related the periodization that he, with some reservations, suggested as feasible to

to be adopted. For Trigueiros, the 'historical evolution of museums in Brazil' could be

analyzed from three periods: 1o- what would begin with the creation of the Royal Museum,

in 1818, and would extend until the creation of the National Historical Museum, in 1922; 2owhat

o
it would cover from 1922 to 1930; and 3 what would begin with the creation of the Ministry of Education

and Health, in 1930, and would extend to the present day.

For the situation of museological studies in the fifties, these landmarks

temporals were important references and, at the time, possibly helped the

examining and understanding museums in Brazil. They were, after all, landmarks so

good as any others. The problem is that, over time, they came to be

naturalized and began to be treated as the very expression of museal truth.

Currently, due to some studies conducted and the available data

one can not only dispense with these landmarks but also denaturalize them.

Without resorting to the museum experiences of the 17th century (with the museum of

Maurício de Nassau in the large park of the Palace of Vrijburg) and XVIII (with the Museum of

Natural History or House of Birds), especially since they had no developments until

today widely known and studied, it is enough to remember that, effectively, the Museum

Real was only opened to the public in 1821, which would be enough to question the

inaugural framework of 1818. Furthermore, disregard the transformations that took place.

in the museum panorama of the second reign, especially from the 1960s
 103

seventy, does not seem to be a procedure of great contribution to understanding

of the history of museums in Brazil.

Moving a little further. The choice of the year 1922 as the second great

Marco can only be understood within the frameworks of official celebrations of

Centenary of Independence, being thus a merely commemorative date, this

because in museological terms the opening to the public of the Mariano Procópio Museum, in

1921, in Juiz de Fora (MG), could have been an equally valid landmark. This Museum

a miner of great importance, but with little visibility, was created in 1914, as

a private institution of history and art, bringing together collections related to the century

XIX, with special attention to the figure of Dom Pedro II and his family. Saved by absence

the military devices or collection of Mariano Procópio, in many aspects, would make one envious of

director of the National Historical Museum.

Finally, the suggestion that the third milestone would begin with the creation of

Ministry of Education and Health and would extend to the present day (I remind once again

that the edition is from 1955), does not help the understanding of the relationships that developed

between the State, memory policies, and the field of museums during the so-called Era

Vargas. These relationships involved groups with divergent political interests.

a dynamic of 'biting and blowing'.

All this argumentation has a precise target: to problematize the choice of the date of

inauguration of the National Historical Museum as a differential landmark, as a "divider"

of waters" in the world of museums in Brazil. Putting this belief into question, I would like

to suggest that instead of a "watershed" landmark, the idea of a bridge be adopted.

 104

The intention is not to minimize or devalue Barroso's museum gesture, but to access others.

devices capable of understanding it from other perspectives.

The National Historical Museum of Barroso was a bridge. A museum bridge.

between the 20th century and the 19th century, between the Republic and the Empire, between heroic gestures

of the present and the past. What was at stake there was not a break, it was continuity and

tradition. For this reason - as Regina Abreu noted - "it is possible to highlight

divergences between the historical construction of Barroso and the historical construction that the

Republic, in its early years, sought to consolidate.155. If for the builders of

the new republican tradition of the nation was interested in emphasizing the discontinuity in relation to

Imperial State, for Barroso it was important to value continuity, as the foundations of

national tradition, for him, would be based on the Empire.

In the same argumentative line, the creation of the National Historical Museum

it should also not be read as a break with the national museum model of

eighteen hundred, but as its necessary complement. Considering that the

experiences of building a historical museum of national character have not succeeded

full consolidation in the 19th century, producing a gap in relation to

representation and presentation of the historical narratives of the nation through the supports

materials, the Museum came to fill this gap, contributing, in this way, to the better

finish of the frame of the so-called national museums. However, this need,

as vividly demonstrated by Mario Barata, it had already been detected

previously.

155
Abreu (1996, p.184).
 105

According to Krzystof Pomian, the expression 'national museum' is generally used for

design two different genres of museum institutions. In one, the nation is valued and

presented as part of the universal concert of the civilized world; in the other, are

presented the specificities, the exceptionalities of the nation and its path in

time. In the first, what the nation has in common with others is underlined and are

presented are the works of art and the productions of nature, including the production of

material culture of the so-called primitive peoples; in the second, what gains visibility is that

What is the difference: traces, risks and vestiges of national history156.

The Barroso Museum fits into this second category. It did not have the character of

universal encyclopedia, was not interested in problematizing the theme of evolution

the species and also did not gather collections made up of people, animals, plants, and

stones. "His main objective - as Abreu pointed out - was to address another
157
evolution, the evolution of the so-called Brazilian nation . He wanted to underline

particularities, I wanted to constitute a singular narrative and exalt founding myths,

I wanted to be a kind of identity card of the nation and be identified as such. In

but he was subjected to the same conservative, positive, classificatory logic,

evolutionary and monumental of the encyclopedic museum institutions of the eighteen hundreds.

Perhaps a simple difference could be hinted at here: the National Historical Museum

he has clothed himself since very young with certain poetic rags with which he played

hides (in its own labyrinths) with the dreams of controlling rationality.

There is still today, at the National Historical Museum, as a legacy of Barroso - to

side of your classic museum spirit and joking with it - a clear accent or

156
Pomian (1990).
157
Abreu (1996, p.164).
 106

romantic accent: visible in the Courtyard of Crowns, now called the Courtyard of Cannons;

invisible among the ghosts that haunt the Institution, including that of its founder;

legible in the popular myth that involves some items from the collection, such as the bed that would have

served to the "Emperor in the Caldas da Imperatriz" (SC) and about which - it is said -

would have been "conceived Princess Izabel"158The referred romantic accent is also

present in the survivors' narratives of secret love through the mazes of the Museum and in the

passionate dedication of its servants.

When contrasting Barroso's museum proposal with the conception that guided the

centenary celebrations of independence, "which aimed to give the nation a character

modern and progressive," Myrian Sepúlveda dos Santos noted that these two projects

pointed to different horizons. While the International Exposition of 1922

betting on the image of a new, modern, progressive, industrious and dynamic nation,

Barroso Museum was constructing a nationalist narrative that turned towards the worship of the

relics of the past, privileged the 'political history' of 'great heroes', 'glorious

"battles" and reinforced the "bonds with a romantic attitude towards the 'nation'"159 .

It is curious that the place reserved for the Museum

at the Centennial Exhibition was precisely that of the Pavilion of Great Industries.

For Santos, the Barroso Museum was not the mirror of Brazil that posed as dynamic.

and modern, and this would be one of the determining factors in the financial difficulties and

158
See: Correspondence from the Office of the Secretary of the Interior and Justice, Florianópolis, May 9, 1925.
MHN/CG - no.74, Proc. no.14/25, Doc.no.3.
159
Santos (1989, p. 13).
 107

budgetary challenges that the Institution would face during the governments of Artur Bernardes and

Washington Luís160 .

Not being the place of technological modernity, nevertheless the Museum did not fail to

to fulfill a modern role in the context of the city that was being reorganized and adorned with

lights; not being the place of industrial progress, he still celebrated.

the progress, at least the progress represented in the very consecration of a new

national history museum. This ambiguity inhabited the heart of the Museum, from the

your first moments. Here it also seems appropriate to describe to you the idea of

bridge.

The museum of the finger pointed

The National Historical Museum was a decisive landmark in the life of Gustavo Barroso

which, in turn, was an indelible milestone in the life of the Institution. "The great influence

exercised by its first director - observed Santos - arises not only from his dedication and

leadership capacity and the administrative organization of the Institution, as well as of itself

a game of interests locked in Brazilian society (...) that presents, among its

characteristics of excessive centralization of power, personal prestige, and obedience

excessive161.

160
Same.
161
Santos (1989, p.10).
 108

These characteristics were present in the Barrosian museal practice. He

centralized administrative, museological, and museographic decisions; valued the

Institution with its presence and used the prestige it started to confer;

selected, trained, educated, and maintained a disciplined, docile, and

obedient and still wanted to discipline and control the visitor. It was the founding father who

knew and could say when, how, where and why such or such an object should occupy that

or that place in space (three-dimensional), next to this or that other object, for the

best composition of the writing of things in the 'granite book'. After all, he was the narrator.

As much as your institutional culture is marked by the presence of the specter

from the founding father, the National Historical Museum is in motion and today it is no longer the

what was before, or what complicates the task of understanding and examining the museum imagination

Barrosiana. To circumvent this difficulty, it is necessary to use a trick

methodological, to refer to sources where that imagination was known to be recorded.

Thus, without losing sight of other important references, I will focus my

attention to two moments of Barroso's vast production: the General Catalog of the Museum

National History, published in 1924, and the book Introduction to Museum Techniques,

published in 1946. The first has a descriptive and museographic character and the second a

treatise and museological character.

Two years after its inauguration and one year after a threat of extinction162

the Institution was museologically structured into two Sections: the 1ª of Archaeology and

Stories from 2ª Numismatics, Philately and Sigillography. Even though the 2ª Section

the largest number of objects was 1ª with its greatest object diversity,

162
Dumans (1997, p.22).
 109

occupied the largest number of rooms, received more attention from the director, and aroused more

interest in the public. Thus, it is understandable that the so-called General Catalogue of the Museum

National History was dedicated to the presentation of 1ª Section.

The 1924 Catalog is a clear exercise in the construction of memory and

institutional consolidation, accountability and increased visibility. Exercise

made with scientific rigor, academic criteria, and a certain modern flair for the time.

This Catalog, which can be read both as an inventory and as a guide

of visitors, presents the summary description of 2496 objects distributed across twenty-one

rooms (designated by letters ranging from A to U), in addition to 25 photographs of objects and

environments. Before any textual information, a photograph is offered that

represents the facade of the building. The next page contains the 'Instructions for visits'

to the Museum" and includes suggestions for possible itineraries; when turning the page the reader finds

a photographic detail of the main entrance through the Minerva Gate; on the next page there is

a brief historical presentation of the building; later a photograph of the concierge office and

from the beginning of the exhibition circuit. Following is the description of the collection room by room,

containing, in general, the designation of the object, the indication of the original owner

and the provenance (name of the donor, collection or institution of origin, collection location and

other information). The last two pages are dedicated to the presentation of the so-called

General statistics of objects from three different points of view: 1o according to the

distribution by the rooms; 2o- for generic origin; and 3oby origin

discriminated meticulously.

The general organization of the Catalog suggests the idea of a travel guide capable of

facilitate the understanding of the narrative presented in the Museum and to promote an approach
 110

gradual of that world of things available to the eye. The organizer of the work seems to have

awareness of the importance of highlighting the three constitutive elements of

classic and modern museum: the public (or visitor to whom the Catalog is addressed), the

building (historically contextualized) and the collection (with information that adds value to the

individuality of objects). At the intersection of these elements lies the personal.

specialized, which in the Catalog is represented by the Director's Office (room T) and
163
by the Secretary's office (room U) .

The indications about owners, origins, and donors play a

a role that is not just to broaden the range of information, they constitute devices

of prestige negotiation and special meanings, and help to build the atmosphere

aura of things164 .

The overall statistics of objects is an important key. Through it, one can-

it is understood that the absolute majority of the collection (56.16%) of 1ª Section, until that

moment, resulted from the transfer of other public establishments: former Museum

Artillery, National Archive, Imperial Palace of Quinta da Boa Vista, defunct Museum

Military, Mint, Naval Museum, National Museum, National School of Fine Arts

former Royal Court Arsenal, National Library, Army Library

Ministry of War and Ministry of Transportation.

The acquisitions of the Museum - by collection in demolitions, by purchase of collections

individuals or through unspecified processes - accounted for more than a quarter of the total

of the collection (25.6%), a clear indication that the Museum had the capacity to

163
These constitutive elements of modern classic museums can be observed in the work The Museum and
Life. Giarudy (1990, p.10).
164
Abreu (1996, p.186).
 111

negotiation. Donations from individuals, associations, governments, and representatives

foreigners accounted for about a fifth of the collection (17.82%), which indicated the

growing prestige of the Institution. In this group were the offerings of the widows and the

families of illustrious dead, in addition to two objects donated by Colonel Antônio Felino

Barroso165and of a 'Portrait of Dr. Gustavo Barroso', painted by R.B. Cela and donated

by the museum employees.

The museum director himself was a donor. And the collection of thirty or so objects

what he offered to the Institution was basically composed of a set of prints

colorful military uniforms, of a Uruguayan soldier's uniform, of a musket.

Mauser is 'a leaf from the elm tree planted by Pedro II at the entrance of George's tomb

Washington166The insignia, the uniform, and the carabiner testified to the well-known

I have a liking for military life; the leaf of the olive tree, besides bringing to Brazil a

a piece of the symbolic gesture of the Emperor also brought the news of the journey that had taken place,

in 1919, alongside Epitácio Pessoa and the visit they both made to Mount Vernon, where

the house-museum that served as the residence for the hero and founding father can still be found today

of the North American nation.

Closed in March 1923, the International Exhibition of the Centennial, with all

its modernity and desire for progress, abandoned the stage of short duration and

gained long duration by being museumized through various fragments, some

donated by Epitácio Pessoa. This emblematic musealization seems to suggest that the

165
It is about two fragments: 1st. A "shrapnel of a La Hitte cannon shell that exploded in the Palace
of the Government of Fortaleza (...), on the night of February 15 to 16, 1892, during the attack to the
deposition of the President of the General State José Clarindo de Queiroz" and 2nd. The letter D" of one of the plaques of
Count d'Eu Street, in the city of Fortaleza (...), shattered by the students of the extinct Military School (...), on the day
November 16, 1889 (...)". See: Barroso (1924, p.192).
166
Barroso (1924, p.116).
 112

Museum won the Centennial Exhibition and its representation of modernity; now

they were in the past and were a glorious memory and it (the Museum) was there giving its

eloquent testimony of a bridge between different times. Other acquisitions of collections of

recent history, such as the collections donated by the widows of Pinheiro Machado and

Hermes da Fonseca hinted that the Museum wanted to build continuities.

between the past and the present, without being exclusively linked to the 19th century.

The 1924 Catalog allows us to visualize, at least in part, the conception

museum exhibit that inspired Barroso at that time. The twenty-one rooms even

identified by letters received names that did not follow an easily applicable criterion

understandable. Even if everyone designated what the room contained, this designation did not

it obeyed a single criterion. Now the name of the room referred to the dominant type of

objects (Chandeliers Wing, Portrait Room, Flags Room, Arcade of

Cannons, Arcade of Stones, Arcade of Coaches, Staircase of Shields, Hall of

Helmets, Trophy Room and Weapons Staircase); now he designated one or more

highlighted objects (Scepter Room, Throne Room); in other situations, he referred to

not to the objects, but to a category that unified the representations (Room of

Ministers, Constituent Room, Gallery of Nations); in at least one case it applied

non-biographical (Osório Room); in others it pointed to historical periods (Room of

Abolition and Exile and the Hall of the Republic); and finally, in some others, it referred to the

functions (Conference Room, Director's Office and Secretary).

Except for the Flag Room, the Throne Room, the Conference Room,

from the Director's Office and the Secretariat, in all the others it appeared right after the name

specific to the room the designation of the era to which it referred (All eras, Colony,
 113

Monarchy, First Reign, Second Reign, Paraguay War, Republic and

others).

The museography of Barroso valued perspectives, the plans

verticals and horizontals, the use of showcase cabinets, the emptiness of the arches and the space

architectural. In 1924, broadly speaking, the Museum subordinated the historical reading (or of the

periods) to the appreciation of collectives of objects reinforced by individualized description

of each of them. Yet, there were the germs of the narratives present there.

biographical and the desires to demarcate historical periods. In 1944, when the

reporter Adalberto Mário Ribeiro visited and described the Museum, the museographic narrative.

it had been rearranged and the rooms renamed. In a clear appreciation of characters

individualized, each of them began to receive the name of a patron who both

could designate a statesman, a war hero, a minister, as well as an artist of

highlight, a donor of objects or a patron. But the common thread of the entire narrative

he had not changed, he continued to be dominated and woven by the very director of the

Institution that embodied the privileged narrative link. The aforementioned reporter,

commenting on the guided tour of Barroso, he noted that he was sliding his hands over the

cannons like someone caressing a "purebred animal"; when talking about cannons and weapons he gave the

impression that he is also... an artillery officer of our Army167 .

The barrosian museal imagination materialized in space (three-dimensional)

narratives about history and nation. These narratives - as Santos observed -

they articulated at least two levels of desires: that of the nostalgic romantic and that of the authentic

scientificity168The recipe-less mix needed these desires amplified the ambiguity.

167
Ribeiro (1944, p.12).
168
Santos (1989, p.17).
 114

of the Museum, which was, thus, at the same time, a space for preserving authentic history and

romantic territory of the national past.

The nation that, from Barroso's perspective, was born hand in hand with the transfer

the Portuguese court would have its space of celebration and worship in the Museum in Brazil.

Built with the blood of heroes and with the power of traditional elite families the

the nation was something given and finished, to which only remained to love, preserve, and defend

against internal and external threats, which, strictly speaking, constituted special opportunities

for the exercise of heroic bravery.

The museum, also intended for the elites.169those who were fit for the

knowledge and for command, for knowing and for power - would serve to teach by

symbolic mediation of things to love, preserve, and defend the nation and the memory of

heroes who confirmed and conformed to the national past. Through the creation
170
of a "complex network of symbolic mediations" The museum performed its role.

regulatory and before one could think that there was another way, it advanced with the

pedagogy of the 'finger pointing'171He pointed to the hero as an example, the object-

testimony as a mediator of symbols and values (ethical and aesthetic) and to the visitor he

it seemed to repeat the words of the old Antônio Felino Barroso: tradition '(...) must be

sacred, because it is the soul of a Homeland. There can be no homeland without tradition.172 .

As Abreu pointed out: “Just like the myth, which, when told several times, has

function to establish the basic rules of an indigenous society, the museum under the direction of

Gustavo Barroso's role was to maintain a constructed order.

169
Abreu (1996, p.200).
170
Habermas (2003, p.90).
171
Same, p.68)
172
Barroso (1939, p.25).
 115

daily through objects - visual representations of an idea that linked

the categories museum, history, and nation, according to their own logic173.

From a Barrosian perspective, some objects were more plastic and malleable than

others and therefore were more easily suited to the mediumistic role. 'The ancient weapons -

he said, talking more about himself than the objects - they were crafted with great art, with

I am very pleased. However, I have no interest in modern, indigent weapons.

of artistic requirements, harsh, expressionless...174Thus, the place of greater or lesser

the highlight of the objects in the Museum was linked to the recognition of their power of

mediation, both in the composition of a writing eager for scientificity, and in

context of mythical and poetic narratives. Exemplary objects would be those capable of

anchor values from an aesthetic or ethical point of view. For this reason, the cult of the nation, to

tradition and the past were articulated to the worship of objects possessing mediumistic power

to heroic personalities that, like some objects, could also be

mediators of the values of tradition and the nation.

Still with a finger pointing

After organizing the National Historical Museum in 1922, Barroso remained

uninterruptedly in its direction until 1930. That year, contrary to the trend of

Epitácio Pessoa, his former ally, actively supported Júlio Prestes' candidacy to

Presidency of the Republic, in opposition to the slate Getúlio Vargas - João Pessoa, of the Alliance

173
Abreu (1996, p.187).
174
Barroso cited by Ribeiro (1944, p.13).
 116

Liberal. With the deposition of President Washington Luís and the takeover of power by

revolutionaries of 1930, Barroso was removed from the direction of the Museum.

In December 1930, Rodolfo Garcia took over the leadership of the Institution and in it

remained until November 1932, when he was appointed to head the Library

National. Thus, it was during the short tenure of Rodolfo Garcia that it emerged in 1931, and

was created in March 1932, in the facilities of the National Historical Museum, with a duration

for two years, the Museum Course, which would fulfill a dream that dated back to

year 1922.

The creation of the Museum Course was undeniably a pioneering initiative and

a singular event in the field of museums and museology in Brazil. From the standpoint of

This museum view was a much more significant milestone than the

creation of the National Historical Museum. The silence, the ellipses and the mists that linger

about Rodolfo Garcia's time at the Museum suggests that Gustavo Barroso

he/she had the awareness of the importance of the creative gesture of institutionalization of

museology in Brazil. After all, Rodolfo Garcia had desires like him

immortality and how the immortal was appointed to the Brazilian Academy of Letters in 1935.

The political, cultural, and institutional transformations triggered by the

The Revolution of 30, as can be seen, is at the origin of the process of institutionalization of

museum studies in Brazil, initially, as a course for specialized technical training and,

subsequently, with a university academic background.

This singular process that conditioned the development of museology

Brazilian has no precedents in Latin American countries or in the countries of the so-called

Third World. In the United States, the first and nascent training programs
 117

in museology traced back to the first two decades of the 20th century and in the world

European, the main reference was the Louvre School, founded in 1882, dedicated to

teaching of the history of civilizations, fine arts, and conservation techniques of

cultural heritage.

It is important to remember that in Brazil, at that same time, certain things would be established.

Free School of Sociology and Politics (ELSP), founded in 1933, the Faculty of Philosophy

Faculty of Sciences and Letters (FFCL) of the University of São Paulo (USP), dated 1934 and the

University of the Federal District (UDF), created in 1935. It is in this context of

professionalization of the areas of knowledge linked to the field of social sciences

which, in my opinion, should be understood as the institutionalization of museology in

Brazil. However, this institutionalization did not occur within the universities and,

for that reason, it followed its own path, peripheral and marginal.

The approach and entry of museology into the university space was slow and

It gradually became effective in 1951, with the granting of university mandate to the Course of

Museums by the University of Brazil, during the rectorship of Pedro Calmon, who in addition to

a personal friend of Barroso had worked at the National Historical Museum - during the period of

1925 to 1937 - in the Museum Course as a professor of Brazilian History. Even so,

The Course remained isolated from the University and stranded in the Museum until 1979, when it was

incorporated into the then newly created University of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO).

Barroso's period of exile from the National Historical Museum was not long. In

November 1932 he was back and brought with him the presidency of the Academy

Brazilian Letters, taken on a few months earlier. Barroso's return marked a new

stage in his life and in the life of the Institution. In 1933, he formally joined the Action
 118

Brazilian Integralist Action (AIB), an extreme-right political organization and of character

totalitarian, created under the leadership of Plínio Salgado, in October of the previous year175 .

In a short time, Gustavo Barroso became one of the main ideologues and

integralist propagandists alongside Plínio Salgado and Miguel Reale. Published

various books promoting the integralist ideology and, in 1934, took on the position of

Chief of the Militias, the military arm of the movement and responsible for technical training,

tactics and morals of the militants, which was in accordance with the calling that he had cherished since

the times of boyhood.

The position of Chief of the Militias not only provided Barroso with a differentiated channel

contact with the integralist bases would allow him to give vent to his ideas of

cult of the past, the homeland, heroes, symbols of nationality and their desires of

a militarily strong and disciplined state. Competing with Plínio Salgado for

political leadership of the movement, Barroso isolated himself in the construction of a thought

radical anti-Semite, with Nazi coloring, that found no acceptance elsewhere

integralist ideologists176.

These references are important to understand that Barroso's return

the direction of the Museum and its commitment to the consolidation of the Museum Course created by

Rodolfo Garcia was simultaneous to his intense political activism in the ranks of the Action

Brazilian Integralist.

To my knowledge, there is no study specifically aimed at examining the

possible relationships between the Museums Course and the Integralist Schools, but still, the

linking Barroso's political ideas with the achievements of the Historical Museum

175
Cavalari (1999, p.13).
176
May (1992, p.78-101).
 119

"National" - as Santos noted - is undeniable.177In the preface of your book History

Brazilian military, published in 1938, he himself provides the clues for a future study.

of these relationships:

This book is the result of a nationalist campaign that I started twenty years ago.
four years, in 1911, by the 'Commerce Journal', when I launched the idea of
foundation of a Historical Museum of military character (...). The historical summary of
our campaigns contained in this volume were constituted with the series of lessons
about Military History of Brazil, given in the University Extension Course of
same Museum in 1933, which I repeated in 1934 at the Officers' School of the Militia

Integralist of the Federal District178 .

What also seems out of question is the conservative and elitist nature of the Course.

of Museums that at least until Barroso's death remained untouched. Still in the years

In the seventies of the twentieth century, it was possible to hear in the classroom phrases like: "He who does not

Having a good set of baccarat crystal at home does not necessarily make one a good museologist.179 .

The Museum Course was a cornerstone for the consolidation, amplification and

dissemination of the Barrosian museal imagination, especially through a well-organized

system of tours to historical and artistic places and scholarships granted to

candidates residing outside the Federal District and the Capital of the State of Rio de Janeiro and

177
Santos (1989, p.27).
178
Barroso cited by Santos (1989, p.27).
179
I register and request that my own testimony be accepted as valid. I was a student of the Course of
Museology in the period from 1975 to 1979.
 120

preferred chosen among state and municipal servers with exercise in

museums180.

The fact that the Course was created by Rodolfo Garcia was not any

obstacle for him to have, after surgical operations, in a short time.

successful, the face of the "adoptive father"181It was through him that Barroso prepared

followers, established a school and formed a group of heirs who for a long time

they stood out in the museum institutions of Brazil.

The image of the museum curator - as they were called at the time

specialists in this field of knowledge - designed by Barroso, assumes a range

enormous singular knowledge, a 'great sum of erudition, patience, and acumen'

of spiritual sharpness182It is not difficult to read one's own professional image in this drawing.

of the founder of the Museum. If there was an innovative character in the Course, given by the encouragement to

learning the language of objects183In a world dominated by beautiful letters, there was

also a clear conservative and traditionalist accent in political terms, given by

own Barrosian ideology.

Elevated to the status of higher education institution in 1943 and re-

structured in the following year, the Course began to have a duration of three academic years, divided

in two parts: a general one and a specialized one; with the latter divided into two

sections: historical museums and artistic museums.

180
Ministry of Education and Culture/National Historical Museum. Museum Course, Instructions for
registration. Rio de Janeiro. (1951, p.7).
181
Nazareth (1991, p.39).
182
Barroso (1951, p.18).
183
Same, p.14.
 121

The table below facilitates the understanding of the Course structure:

Course of 1ª Series 2ª Series 3ª Series

Museums
General Part Independence History of Brazil
History of Art (part History of Brazilian Art
general) Brazilian Numismatics
Numismatics (general part) Minor Arts
Ethnography Museum Technique (part
Museums Technique (basic part)
general
Special Part Military and Naval History
museums from Brazil
historical) Brazilian Archaeology
Sigillography and Philately
Technique of Museums
(applied part)
Special Part Architecture
museums of Painting and Engraving
fine arts you Sculpture
artistic Brazilian Archaeology
Indigenous Art e Art
Popular
Technique from Museums
(applied part)

The pointed conservative, elitist and aristocratic character of the Museum Course does not

there was no impediment for lessons on "art" to be given there

indigenous and popular art," considered as "survivals" of the "primitive"; to

On the contrary, he justified these lessons. Gustavo Barroso, as is known, was a scholar.

of folklore themes and this also did not represent any contradiction with the

political conservatism that informed his thinking.

 122

It is timely to note that, in 1942, he published in the Annals of the Historical Museum

National article titled 'Brazilian Ergology Museum'184, containing basic ideas

for the creation of a possible 'folk science' museum that, for Barroso, was divided into

in two main parts: 1athe "animology", referring to the soul and spirit of the people,

dedicated to the study of "customs, uses, ceremonies, rites, ways of life, tales,

chants, songs, dances, tales, proverbs, games, tricks, riddles, fables,

fables etc."; and 2athe 'ergology', dedicated to the study of utility elements, 'since

the food and the ways to prepare them to the manual trades such as those of braider

leather, silversmith, and rustic professions, some very original such as that of a tamer,

tracker, singer, and healer185 .

The proposal for the Brazilian Ergological Museum was not put into place.

practice186, but it contributes to the understanding of the place that Barroso allocated to the

popular culture in the museum framework of national representation187This place could not

to be, from the Barrosian perspective, the National Historical Museum and much less the Museum

National Museum of Fine Arts, since these two museums would be reserved for the

heroes and acclaimed artists188.

Returning to the Museum Course and setting aside its conservative nature, the

what is interesting to note is that he was directly responsible for the creation of a new profession and

184
Barroso (1942a, p.432-447).
185
Same.
186
Barroso's proposal, as noted by Abreu (1990a, p.62), "had no direct relation to the installation
of the Edison Carneiro Folklore Museum," held in 1968. Nonetheless, this installation had the
decisive participation of technicians and students from the National Historical Museum, among whom I highlight the
Pernambuco native Aécio de Oliveira, a scholarship holder at the Joaquim Nabuco Institute of Social Research, who, in
On that occasion, I was in Rio de Janeiro doing my studies in the Museum Studies Course.
187
Abreu (1990a, p.61-72).
188
Chauí (1986, p.30; 1983, p.98).
 123

through the training of various generations of museologists who began to perform since the

the thirties multiple functions in scientific and cultural fields.

As can be inferred from the testimony of Mario Barata, young students who

they did not find a nest in the traditional careers of medicine, law, and engineering

they visualized in the specificity of this Course an alternative path for their

personal vocations189Luís Castro Faria's testimony is quite in this sense.

illuminating

I took several courses. The first one that interested me - that's why I
I started my career at the National Museum - it was in museology, at the Museum
National History. It is the course that still trains museologists, and I was part of the second.

class. At the time, it was one of the courses that offered the possibility of studying
history, ethnography and all those subjects related to museology, such as cabinetry,
numismatics. It was in this course that I was a student of Pedro Calmon, from whom I became

Friend, a long time. He was a history teacher. Gustavo Barroso, who was the
director and had been the creator of the museum, taught various subjects, was a figure
excellent as a teacher. And there was another remarkable teacher, who was the son of
Silvio Romero, Edgar Romero. The archaeology professor was Eugênio Costa, a
amateur, practically. Anyway, it was a course different from all the others.190.

Castro Faria's choice for the Museum Course came after he had tried without

successfully enter the National School of Medicine, one of the traditional careers for

the children of well-off families. Interested in the studies of history, he turned to

the Course of Museums recognizing that in the "framework of Brazilian higher education, the

189
Barata (1991).
190
Faria (1997, p.175-195).
 124

The museology course was absolutely new," in addition to "extremely important in

season, because a historical museum had been created, but there was no staff of

professionals for this institution191 .

Of the museum as a counterweight or the systematization of imagination

Barroso's teaching practice was especially linked to Military History of

Brazil and the so-called Museum Technique, which, in fact, constituted the museological basis and

museum of the Course. The lessons of Military History of Brazil gave rise to, as was

seen, in the book published in 1938, with the same title; and the lessons taught in the chair

Museum techniques, since 1933, allied with the experiences gained in the direction of the Museum.

National Historical, constituted the basis of the treaty of museology called

Introduction to Museum Techniques, first published in 1946.

The book, divided into two volumes, has the explicit goal of weaving together a wide range of

knowledge that - according to the author - "has never been compiled in a didactic work and

there has always been sparse, without convenient systematization192 .

Being one of the rare scholars on the topic of museums and museology is not

to admire that your book Introduction to Museum Techniques was considered as a

a kind of bible of museology in Brazil. Until the end of the sixties, as stated

Solange Godoy, the student who entered the Museum Course received the two volumes of

191
The same.
192
Barroso (1951, p.3).
 125

referred book and up to the seventies - I present my own testimony - some

professors of the Course, at that time called Museology, taught classes following

entirely the content of Barroso's books.

The Technical Discipline of Museums was structured as follows:

Museum Technique Notions of

General Part Organization
Organization
Cataloging
Restoration
Basic Part Chronology
Epigraphy
Paleography
Diplomatic
Bibliography
Iconography
Specialized part Heraldry
Decorations
Flags
Armory
Naval Art
Vehicles
Architecture
Furniture
Clothing
Ceramics and Crystals
Jewelry, Silverware and Artistic Bronzes
Instruments of Torture
Machines
Religious Art

The first volume of Introduction to Museum Technique corresponded to the

calls: general part and basic part and, therefore, to the program of the first and second

years of study; the second volume corresponded to the specialized or applied part and,

therefore, in the third year of studies.

 126

Alongside the effort to systematize scattered knowledge, the book

drew a specific profile of the professional that was desired to be formed. The museologist,

that for Barroso it was the "technical or expert in Museums", should have a knowledge

detail-oriented, meticulous, and encyclopedic. Their target was the relics of the past, the

events and episodes covered with unique drama and not the understanding of

contemporary society and even less the understanding of the social place of museums.

To defend the aforementioned list of knowledge above and consciously193ruled

in the collections of the National Historical Museum, Barroso presented multiple arguments: the

heraldry could "make the greatest revelations"; the armory would allow understanding that

"não há história sem feitos militares" e que "não há feitos militares sem armas"; a

clothing would have 'great significance in relation to individuals and eras' and thus,

for each topic listed in the specialized part of the Museum Technique was presented

a special justification194.

The problem is that over time this set of subjects based on collections

specific to a specific museum, instead of giving rise to a possible sociology or

the anthropology of objects has become a universal requirement for training

of professionals in museology, which contributed to the establishment of a certain type

of museum deimagination for the disconnection from contemporary issues

which involved, among other things, the establishment of new collections and new sets

assets not foreseen in the Barrosian manual.

193
According to Barroso: "Museum Technique is understood as the set of rules, observations and
essential knowledge for the organization and operation of a museum. The subject, of a nature
complex, to this day it has not been addressed in our country. The program of the respective subject in the Course of
Museums, from the National Historical Museum, organized it for the first time among us, based on
naturally due to the special nature of the institution it is intended to serve. Never lose sight of this.
point, which is essential for the understanding of the entire present work." (1951, p.7).
194
Barroso (1951, p.15-18).
 127

Aware that with the book Introduction to the Technique of Museums was

producing educational work that would soon become a basic reference for

his students and potential heirs, Barroso reviewed various themes. He underlined the

the importance of the museum to explicitly detail its purposes; highlighted the role of

a program for publishing catalogs, proceedings, and studies; warned of the need for

exchange with other national and international institutions and valued the actions of

propaganda and advertising as a means 'to attract visitors' and as a complement to

educational, cultural, and social mission of museums.

Operating on a prescriptive plan, inspired by new museological trends and

in some of the assumptions of the new educational currents, in vogue in Brazil after

In the thirties, Barroso would assume that the 'dynamic life of museums' should adopt the

following principle: "instructing, seducing"195And for that, he said:

A museum should not be merely a necropolis of historical relics,

ethnographic, artistic, folkloric or archaeological; but a living organism that
impose yourself through educational value, resurrecting the past accumulated within it. The

A conservator must first and foremost be an evoker. A museum preserves.

just to evoke196 .

The importance granted by Barroso to the educational role of the museum does not authorize the

conclusion that he was touched by transformative educational processes

social and of valuing democratic instances. He seemed to admit that the museum

it could be a morgue, as long as it was not 'only' that, as long as it

195
Same, p.25.
196
Same, p.27.
 128

impulsiveness

past." The idea of the past appeared as something good in itself, as

something given, ready and finished. In this horizon, the issues were not included:

Why and for whom to evoke the past? Which past to evoke? What to do with the past?

evoked? Possibly, these and other questions were not at stake because the answer

all of them should have been previously known and would have already been presented by W. Deonna,

director of the Museum of Art and History of Geneva, and signed below by Barroso: "The

the museum is a counterweight, in our disintegrating society, to the uncultured forces and

destructive197. Against these forces, the musealbarrosian imagination would be

mobilized.

When addressing the theme of museum arrangement, which is equivalent to what in

the current term is called expography, Barroso valued: the 'rules and technical principles'

derived from "empirical teachings"; the environmental conditions; the financial means

available and, in particular, the "individual coefficients of caretakers, conservators

and directors, greater or lesser sum of knowledge, greater or lesser sum of vocation,

innate good taste, quick perception, practice, willingness to serve, etc.198. In his theory

exgraphic or "good taste" or "artistic nobility" - "essential condition of the arranger" -

should be allied: to "property" or "sense of the arrangement of objects in relation

to others"; to "harmony and symmetry" or "balanced arrangement in all senses"; to

"erudition" as "one of the greatest helpers for those who organize a museum" and to "practice"

as an "auxiliary condition" for those who have the "innate sense of measure and proportion"

197
Deonna cited by Barroso (1951, p.25).
198
Barroso (1951, p.12).
 129

the 'fundamental condition' for those who do not have these gifts by birth, 'who wish

acquire them through observation, experience, and persistence199The dresser of

Museums, as one can see, was a valued character who, from the Barrosian perspective, saw-

by rule, it was born made, and when this did not happen the way became longer and

but harder. You don't have to go far to understand that your theory

de-culturalized the arrangement of museums and assigned to the arrangers an almost

divine: they were born ready by the grace of God, they were what they were by that same grace and

only those touched by grace could be good arrangers. "The arranger -

he said - he is the only judge of what is most suitable200.

With a always prescriptive approach, the book Introduction to Museum Technique

it dealt with security, conservation, restoration, lighting, topography and

architecture; it focused on the examination of the use of walls, showcases, labels, catalogs and

mannequins. Throughout the richly illustrated book, the National Historical Museum was

presented as an example of a modern institution that, engaging with the standard

internationally, held exhibitions in a "technically perfect" manner201One of

recommended advice as a way to ensure the modernization and improvement of the museum

it was the avoidance of 'subversive reforms'202 :

"When gradual reforms are made in a museum - Barroso observed -,

there is time to think, to reflect, one takes an object to a room, another is brought back
on the other hand, the pros and cons of the new arrangements are weighed and soon
A great change occurred almost as if nothing was out of place. A

199
Same p.48-52.
200
Same p.37.
201
Same p.33.
202
The same, p.32.
 130

A radical and abrupt change is a kind of earthquake. It initially creates a

terrible confusion203 .

Even teaching many subjects, forming many disciples and mastering

In a sovereign manner to the Technique of Museums, it was not possible for Barroso to shape it entirely.

in their own way all the professionals graduated in Museology. Some of these

professionals deviated from the norm or at least followed different paths. In this sense, the

roles played by the National Museum, by the Historical and Artistic Heritage Service

National, by the National Museum of Fine Arts and by the Modern Art Museums -

especially after World War II and the creation of the International Council of

Museums (ICOM), in November 1946, would be of great importance. It is advisable

remember that Oswaldo Teixeira, director of the National Museum of Fine Arts, Rodrigo Mello

Franco de Andrade, director of the National Historical and Artistic Heritage Service and

Heloísa Alberto Torres, director of the National Museum, were the first three presidents.

of the Brazilian ICOM Committee which clearly represented a museological pathway

different from the one dominated by Gustavo Barroso.

Examples of how former students of the Museum Course sought their own

paths and were trying to construct spaces for independent thought and action from the "father"

can be found in Guy de Hollanda, F. dos Santos Trigueiros, Lygia Martins

Costa, Mário Barata and Regina Monteiro Real. The latter developed activities

museological and museographic practices at the National Museum of Fine Arts, during the period from 1937 to

1955, and at the Rui Barbosa House Museum, from 1955 to 1969, the year of his death.

In tune with new museological trends, she participated in training sessions and

203
Same, pp. 46-48.
 131

international congresses in Europe and the United States and was, from 1946 until at least

1958, secretary of the Brazilian Committee of ICOM.

In 1955, Trigueiros published the first version of his already mentioned book The Museum:

documentation body, which would be revised, expanded and renamed in the 1956 editions

1958. I have a copy of the 1955 edition that had a trajectory that is at least

curious. On December 26, 1955, the author transferred the possession of the referred copy with

The teacher Jenny

Dreyfus this modest work of his student". Following are the signature and date. The curious thing in

signature is the presence of the three dots in the shape of a triangle with the vertex facing up

that serve to identify a member of masonry. Gustavo Barroso was, as if

knows, enemy and radical critic of the Freemasons, the Jews, and the communists, who, for him,

they were part of the same orchestra. The curious thing about the date is that it marks the next day

of the Christian Christmas. Upon becoming a student, at a time when he was already graduated,

Trigueiros also indicates the affection dedicated to teacher Jenny Dreyfus and with that the

the presence of teachers who in the Museum Course competed for the students' attention with the

Master Barroso.

Through friendships, Regina Real inherited the book from her equally teacher.

Jenny Dreyfus. Due to friendship relations, the book was transferred to Professor Ecyla.

Castanheiro Brandão and through him, it came into my hands. Besides the curious

the mentioned example is interesting for its marginalia, annotated in pencil by

Regina Real. In this marginalia she dialogues with Trigueiros and criticizes the old Barroso.

Tom and the care of his notes suggest that he looks to the future and wants that

let your marginalia be read.

 132

When Trigueiros states: "The distribution of responsibilities to the greatest number

of employees is a democratic process that results in the best use of the

functional capacity of each employee204She underlines the whole sentence and comments on it.

Left margin of the page: "Modern idea that deserves applause, but not always

followed by the leaders who consider themselves indispensable and the greatest experts.

On the same page and in the last paragraph, Trigueiros includes the following quote from

Barroso, withdrawn from his Introduction to Museum Techniques:

One must not forget that the current audience, despite everything,
in general, it is more cultured than before, although more rushed. Have you seen it too?
a lot of things in illustrated publications and in cinemas. The museum has, therefore, to
to give your visitors clear, sharp, intense impressions. That is why the problem of
the decongestion of museums continuously concerns the technicians of the world
whole205 .

Ironically, Regina Real notes in the left margin of the page: 'Interesting'

the quote being from G.B. when it does not absolutely follow what he recommends in his Technique

Mr.

When discussing modern art museums, Trigueiros states that:

The buyer of a painting should act like a teacher; not take sides.
We could not accept a good teacher who stopped studying the work of
Picasso or Portinari because the work of those artists was not in accordance.
with your aesthetic sensitivity; it would be, at most, an explainer. The

204
Trigueiros (1955, p.14).
205
Barroso cited by Trigueiros (1955, p.14).
 133

the person responsible for purchasing any work of art should act as if
prepare the material for a class206 .

On the left margin Regina Real notes: 'Barroso probably didn't like this

paragraph.

It doesn't take much effort to understand the fight with the 'founding father' of the Museum.

National Historic. Regina Real debates, criticizes, seeks other paths, but her

the conception of a museum is anticipated and contained in the classical paradigm of museology which was,

a rigor, the same defended by Barroso:

It's called Museology - he said - the scientific study of everything that

refers to the Museums, in the sense of organizing them, arranging them, preserving them, managing them

the, classify and restore your objects. The term is recent and results from
technical works carried out in recent decades on the subject. Museology
covers a broader scope than Museography, of which it is a part, since it is natural
that the simple description of the Museums fits within the boundaries of Science of
Museums207.

Despite the differences, in 1969, two months after his death and ironically

on the birthday of Barroso, one of the exhibition halls of the Museum

National Historical received the name Royal Regina Room. The remarkable thing about this new

designation is not the biographical and personal accent, but rather the fact that the room received the

the name of a prominent professional in the museum field, who has not even managed to

to work at the National Historical Museum. Would she be a new kind of heroine?

206
Trigueiros (1955, p.31).
207
Barroso (1951, p.6).
 134

Starting from the 1950s, Barroso began to lose its importance in cultural life,

but his museum imagination was widely disseminated. In 1958, a year before

of his death and in celebration of his birthday, he would be enthroned by the

employees through the inauguration and incorporation of their bust into the collection of the Museum

National History. This act of musealization was not a novelty, as it was in the Hall of

In 1924, it was already recorded, as a donation from the employees, the 'Portrait of Dr.'

Gustavo Barroso" as a director immortalized by the mediation of the oil painting by R.

B. That. By the power of things, of paints and colors, by the power of shapes, of volume and

Do bronze operated the memory production of those who dreamed of wearing the fantasy of

immortality.
 135

2.2. Gilberto Freyre: museum, tradition, and region.

I saw the world... it starts in Recife208

In the carnival of 1962, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, the Recreational Society School of

Samba Estação Primeira de Mangueira paraded on March 4 with a theme, allegories

The fantasies inspired by the book Casa-Grande & Senzala. Sung on the avenue Presidente.

Vargas, the samba enredo authored by Jorge Zagaia, Leléo and Comprido, moved the

old man from Apipucos and marked a rare apotheotic moment of popular celebration in life

of social scientists and, equally rare, regarding the social life of books.

Few authors have been as awarded, honored, and acclaimed in their lifetime.

how much Gilberto Freyre and few Brazilian books have been so debated, so praised,

so socially striking, so edited and re-edited, so translated into other languages and

transported to other languages, Casa-Grande & Senzala. The book inspired

poets, musicians, painters, illustrators, and many other categories of artists; gave rise to the

theatrical performances, comic books, and exhibitions. In 1983, during the

celebrations of its fifty years of publication, he had already reached more than

twenty-two editions in Brazil and had already been translated into Spanish, English, French,

Polish, German, and Italian. The author has received numerous national and international awards,

208
Title of a large panel painted by Cícero Dias, a close friend of Gilberto Freyre.
 136

was hated, accused of being lustful, pornographic, anti-Catholic, imprecise209and an essayist and was

beloved, hailed as a genius, courageous intellectual, creator of style, original, researcher

sharp and much more.

The repercussion of Casa-Grande & Senzala in the Brazilian intellectual milieu was

immediate. Published in December 1933, months later the work would be commented on in

Brazilian newspapers through articles by Yan de Almeida Prado, Roquete Pinto, João

Ribeiro, Affonso Arinos de Melo Franco and others. From 1933 onwards, the literary production

de Freyre would be intense. In 1977, according to Villaça, he had already published more than

sixty books and more than fifty pamphlets210 .

Bombarded on the left and right, Gilberto Freyre developed a technique.

peculiar of dynamic equilibrium. At times it seemed to lean to one side, at other times to the other and

I was never in the place that some would wish I was. Conservative, in its own way, and

progressive, in his own way, he seemed to nurture the desire to be

permanently in a surprising place and that might have been one of its main

characteristics. He behaved like a juggler and seemed to derive a lot of pleasure from it.

scene play. He seemed to embody ambiguity and when someone tried to define him

he jumped (or pretended to jump) over the wall of his own ambiguity.

Defining oneself as a self formed by a set of selves, which harmonized.

and contradicted themselves, he perceived himself, at the same time, sensual and mystical and admired his

knowledge is your power to play the game of contradictions. Darcy Ribeiro, who knew it well

209
On the inaccuracy in Casa-Grande & Senzala, see: Ricardo Benzaquem de Araújo (1994, p.27-41).
210
Villaça (1977, p.13).
 114

of the Museum, which was, thus, at the same time, a space for preserving authentic history and

romantic territory of the national past.

The nation that, from Barroso's perspective, was born hand in hand with the transfer

the Portuguese court would have its space of celebration and worship in the Museum in Brazil.

Built with the blood of heroes and with the power of traditional elite families the

the nation was something given and finished, to which only remained to love, preserve, and defend

against internal and external threats, which, strictly speaking, constituted special opportunities

for the exercise of heroic bravery.

The museum, also intended for the elites.169those who were fit for the

knowledge and for command, for knowing and for power - would serve to teach by

symbolic mediation of things to love, preserve, and defend the nation and the memory of

heroes who confirmed and conformed to the national past. Through the creation
170
of a "complex network of symbolic mediations" The museum performed its role.

regulatory and before one could think that there was another way, it advanced with the

pedagogy of the 'finger pointing'171He pointed to the hero as an example, the object-

testimony as a mediator of symbols and values (ethical and aesthetic) and to the visitor he

it seemed to repeat the words of the old Antônio Felino Barroso: tradition '(...) must be

sacred, because it is the soul of a Homeland. There can be no homeland without tradition.172 .

As Abreu pointed out: “Just like the myth, which, when told several times, has

function to establish the basic rules of an indigenous society, the museum under the direction of

Gustavo Barroso's role was to maintain a constructed order.

169
Abreu (1996, p.200).
170
Habermas (2003, p.90).
171
Same, p.68)
172
Barroso (1939, p.25).
 138

books, articles, and interviews. And, in addition, agreed and collaborated with the musealization of

Solar de Santo Antônio de Apipucos, where he resided from 1940 until his death in 1987.

The desire for alliances and ambiguity constitute one of the places from which Gilberto

Freyre looks at and faces the world, sometimes as a resistor, sometimes as a collaborator.

This place, as is evident, does not imply an avoidance of conflicts or a non

insurgency, and yes, a desire to place oneself in a privileged position for observation of the

traditional conflicts and for this very reason, in a kind of mobile line - similar to

a network balance - which being a conflict area cannot be grasped by images

static, without the dimension of time and movement, unless the hypothesis is admitted

of some deformation of the imagetic representation.

The admission and denial of an imagetic representation that distorts the original

it was an experience that seems to have marked Freyre's intellectual formation. According to the

according to his own accounts, he would have entered the Kindergarten of the College in 1908

Americano Gilreath, in Recife. Having faced difficulties in learning to read and

to write, to the point that the family considers him mentally weak, and having shown abilities

For drawing, he started taking private lessons with the painter and landscape artist from Pernambuco.

Telles Júnior who reported, in the drawings of the boy, the persistent tendency of

deformation of the models. At the same time, he was introduced to the English teacher

Joseph Willians who praised your drawings and from this stratagem conquered the

the attention of the eight-year-old boy who then agreed to learn to read and write in English.
 139

Maybe it is in these children's drawings - as suggested by Edson Nery da Fonseca - the

roots of imagism that would come to characterize his texts in prose and verse213.

I would not dare to say that Freyre followed the middle path, as if one were to follow

O Tao, but I would say that he wanted to uncover, supported on the shoulders of some masters, a

a different path amid other paths, knowing that a gesture like that would

a price and would place it at the crossroads of some possible roads.

On the celebration of her eighty years, in a famous interview given to the magazine

Playboy, he declared that the controversy, the discussion, and the criticism surrounding him

it gave him a pleasant feeling of vitality.

"I fear - said Freyre - being considered a nice guy who pleases everyone."
world, a conventional one that does not thrill any convention. I have a lot
fear of being liked by everyone at the same time. I believe that
Those who have attitudes need to come to terms with the fact that they will displeasure some.214 .

Having attitudes, liking to be the center of discussions and controversies does not imply

necessarily an opposing position to ambiguity. As Darcy Ribeiro observed,

Ambiguity was the predominant reason that allowed Gilberto Freyre to write Casa-

Grande & Senzala. He was "the young nobleman evoking a familiar world" and "the

young man trained abroad, who brought from there an inquisitive gaze, a stranger's eye,

213
Same.
214
Gilberto Freyre Virtual Library. (http://prossiga.bvgf.fgf.org.br). Source: "Talking about politics, sex and
"life". Interview granted to Playboy magazine in March 1980. See also: Coutinho, Edilberto (ed.).
Gilberto Freyre. Rio de Janeiro: Agir, 1994. p.87-94.
 140

of foreigner, of English215It was with this gaze that he could find himself strange, he could

to miss the country, the region, the province, the city of Recife, friends, and family.

Associated with the ambiguity is the condition of an anthropologist educated abroad and interested in

Brazil.

The anthropologist being - noted Darcy - allowed Gilberto to step out of himself,

remaining himself, to enter the skin of others and see the world with
other people's eyes. It is a case of appropriating the other in an operation
similar to mediumistic possession. In this mimetic capacity of being many,
staying with it, is where the secret lies that allowed him to write Casa-
Great & Senzala216.

However, this ability to step out of oneself and step into the skin of others is not a

exclusivity of anthropologists. Artists and writers, in general, and poets,

specifically, they are people who also exercise this ability of displacement and

empathy. Moreover, there is, undeniably, in some branches of the social sciences a hint of

art and craft, as C. Wright Mills has already observed217, a touch of poetic narrative.

These questions are notable in the insistence with which Gilberto Freyre permanently and

provocatively claimed to be a writer. "The sociologist, the anthropologist, the historian,

the social scientist is (...) "ancillary to the writer" - as he himself used to say218Your

writer's condition, however, no matter how much he valued it, does not alone explain his

215
Ribeiro (1997b, p.20).
216
Same, p.14.
217
Mills (1975)
218
Freyre (1965, p.6).
 141

desire to interpret Brazil through the lens of an intimate story, nor your interest in

patriarchal past and the everyday elements, and not even their gaze at 'the

formation of an agrarian, slaveholding, and hybrid society219 .

As unique as he was, Gilberto Freyre was a product of his education in the

exterior, combined with her experiences in the Northeast, and was also the result of an era

which also produced other interpreters of Brazilian society, among which should be

included Gustavo Barroso. Unlike Barroso, however, who focused on

cult of nostalgia and the military character of Brazilian social formation, Freyre considered the

past, present, and future as coexisting. From this perspective, he

developed the idea of triple time, according to which, "time is never just the past, nor

only present, not just future, but all three simultaneously220And to examine the formation

from Brazilian society he opted for the "study of his intimate history," of "an almost

"way of life", disregarding "everything that political and military history offers us

exciting (...)221 .

Studying the domestic life of our ancestors - he said -

we slowly feel ourselves completing: it is another way of searching for 'time
lost. Another way to feel ourselves in others - those who came before us; and
in whose life ours was anticipated. It is a past that is studied by touching on

219
This is the subtitle of the first chapter of Casa-Grande & Senzala.
220
Virtual Library Gilberto Freyre. (http://prossiga.bvgf.fgf.org.br). Interview granted to TV Cultura
from São Paulo [video].
221
Freyre (1977a, p.88).
 142

nerves; a past that stitches together each person's life; an adventure of

sensitivity, not just an effort of research through the files222 .

Treading a path that combined the influence of foreign masters, such as

Franz Boas, with the heritage 'of all Brazilians who strove for us

understand223Freyre "did not prepare anyone who has accomplished relevant work and

fruit-bearing within the fields he cultivated 224, but had numerous admirers. And he

even if he admired and was enchanted by the work done. Like a vain demiurge, he

it seemed to say: I made a world, I did it well and that is good.

Gilberto Freyre continues to be a kind of enigma for social thought.

Brazilian, your work escapes classifications and remains in dialogue with the

contemporaneity. Darcy Ribeiro, one of its most insightful critics, goes so far as to point

to affirm:

I open this essay with such grand words because, very reluctantly,
I have to join the circle of worshippers. Gilberto Freyre indeed wrote about the
most important work of Brazilian culture.

Indeed, Casa-Grande & Senzala is the largest of Brazilian books and the
the most Brazilian of the essays we wrote. Why? It has always intrigued me, and it
it still intrigues, that Gilberto Freyre being so narrow-mindedly reactionary in scope
politician (...) could have written this generous, tolerant, strong, and beautiful book225.

222
Same
223
Ribeiro (1997a, p.121).
224
The same.
225
Ribeiro (1997b, p.11-12).
 143

Approaching the work of Gilberto Freyre, as his namesake Gilberto has already observed

Dude, it's running the risk of being redundant and repetitive.226, and it is also to embark on a

almost an adventure with the risk of getting lost in the sugarcane field. To minimize the risks, I outlined a

small map, through which I seek to find in the Freyrean work the clues for the

understanding of your museum imagination. As you can see, my focus is not Casa-Grande &

Senzala, even though this work is important for understanding the aforementioned imagination.

I have simpler goals.

Based on what has been presented so far, it is important to retain that the propensity for the

imagism, the conception of trinary time, the choice to study intimate, everyday history

and without monumental character and the desire to harmonize opposites, are some of the

characteristics of the musealfreyrean imagination.

From Pernambuco toys to the world and back to toys

Gilberto de Mello Freyre was born in Recife on March 15, 1900, in the bosom

from a traditional and aristocratic family, already in a phase of decline. Being one of the four

children of Alfredo Freyre and Francisca Teixeira de Mello Freyre, Gilberto grew up in the midst

urban from the capital of Pernambuco, but had rural experiences as a plantation boy

through the season spent at the Engenho de São Severino dos Ramos,

property of relatives through the maternal line. The mother, a practicing Catholic, was a former student of

226
Old (1985, p.11-13).
 144

French-origin convent school and the father, a man of letters and a free thinker, was a judge and

professor of Latin, Portuguese, French, and commercial law at the American College and of

political economy at the Law School of Recife227 .

Descendant of ancient rural lords, Gilberto lived, still as a child, with

old slaves and slave women of your family, as is the case of the old black woman, 'called,

very ironically, Happiness is nicknamed Dadade (...)". Now in his eighties, Freyre, if

I would remember the stories of animals that talked, told by that old black woman and also

would evoke the memory of stories about princes and princesses, told by Isabel - a

young black girl of about fifteen years, when he would have been five or six years old -

that he assumes was his first love228 .

In addition to the memories of stories and loves, he also remembered his

toys, some of which, as is common among children, were

personalized. The company of these toys is etched in his memory as the place

as a refuge to229 .

Interested in stories, toys, and drawings, but uninterested in

learning the letters, the author of Sobrados e Mocambos, was unable to, until the age of eight,

learn to read and write. The family even considered the possibility that the boy

would have some mental deficiency. Worried about his son's education, old Freyre

hired the English teacher Joseph Willians, previously mentioned, who soon won over the

the boy's heart, which began, thus, his process of literacy in the English language.

227
Ventura (2000, p.32-33).
228
Freyre (1985a, p.29-35).
229
Freyre (1975a, p.76).
 145

With his father, a man of humanist education, he learned Latin and took Portuguese classes.

Later, at 15 years old, he would take private French lessons with Madame Meunieur.

In the period from 1908 to 1917, at the Gilreath American College, founded by

Baptist missionaries in Recife, completed primary and secondary courses. In the meantime,

he became a writer in 1914 for the newspaper O Lábaro, produced at the College; he carried out his

first public conference, in 1916, at the Pathé Cinema Theater, in the capital of Paraíba and

he experienced a mystical crisis, even considering becoming a missionary and preaching the

gospel in the outskirts of Recife. Chosen as the speaker at the graduation ceremony of

secondary course, in 1917, invited the historian Oliveira for the role of patron

Lima, who would become his friend and protector.

The following year, in 1918, he boarded for the United States and joined in

Baylor University, in Waco, Texas, where he would complete his degree in 1920,

letters and human sciences230The stay in Waco provided her with the necessary conditions

to become an international correspondent for the Diário de Pernambuco, to make new

friendships and making oneself known in the American academic circle, keeping updated regarding

intellectual production in English and personally meeting the poets William Butler

Yates, Vachel Lindsay, Amy Lowell.

With the support of Oliveira Lima, he/she received a scholarship for the University.

from Columbia, in New York, where he pursued a master's degree in political and legal sciences,

social, having been a student of the anthropologist Franz Boas, the sociologist Franklin Giddings and

from other renowned masters. The stay in New York was not just a time of

230
Ventura (2000, p.34-35).
 146

immersion in books and libraries, it was time to get to know the Hindu poet Rabindranath

Tagore, and also, time of streets, taverns, friendships, dreams, concerts, adventures

sexualities and the construction of research themes, such as the cherished sociology of toys.

Planning to write a 'Boy's Life Story in Brazil' or 'In Search of'

a lost boy" Freyre insisted on visiting factories and visited stores and

toy warehouses.

I am interested in studying - he noted in 1921, in his diary - what

perhaps the sociology of toys can be called an aspect of sociology
- sociology and psychology - of the child and the boy. (...) I dream of a museum of
rustic toys made from pieces of wood, coconut shells, straws of
coconut tree, for poor boys of Brazil231 .

The 'History of a Boy's Life in Brazil' was not written, the desired sociology of

the toy was not developed and the dream of the rustic toy museum did not come true

concretized. Still, at the Museum of the Man of the Northeast, according to the

Freyre's guidelines incorporated a significant collection of popular toys and

traditional. The toy, as a theme of anthropological and museological interest,

psychological and sociological, greatly attracted Gilberto Freyre. He marveled at the

visits he made to the toy section of the monumental stores of New York, but

lamented the excessive tendency of domination by mechanical toys. "In my view -

wrote the young man from Recife, in 1922 - the ideal toy will be the one that requires the most

231
Freyre (1975a, p.54).
 147

than in the child is constructive imagination, inventive power, creative spirit. And not the

that comes to your hands like pieces already made232 .

Freyre's meditations on the theme of toys remind me of Walter

Benjamin, who also showed a keen interest in the subject, wrote about it.

in 1928, some small essays like: "Old toys: about the exhibition of

toys in the Märkische Museum; 'Cultural history of toys' and 'Toys and '

games: marginal observations on a monumental work233The trend for

research around toys was, as Benjamin witnessed, a characteristic

from the time:

The German Museum in Munich, the Toy Museum in Moscow, the

toys section of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris - creations of the past
most recent or present - demonstrate that everywhere, and certainly by
good reasons, the interest in authentic toys is awakening234 .

Having completed the master's degree in 1922, with the presentation of the thesis titled

Social Life in Brazil in the Middle of the 19th CenturythCentury published, in the same year, by

Hispanic American Historical Review, from Baltimore, Freyre embarked for Europe in

study trip and traveled through England, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain and

Portugal. In Paris, in addition to delighting oneself repeatedly with the Sainte Chapelle and with the

Rodin Museum, got in touch through the Pernambucan brothers Vicente and

Joaquim do Rego Monteiro, with French and foreign artists, including the

232
Same, p.76.
233
Benjamin (2002).
234
Same, p.95-96.
 148

Brazilian modernists: Tarsila do Amaral and Victor Brecheret. In England, visited

carefully the Oxford Museum and in Germany, experienced expressionism and delighted

with the museums of anthropology and ethnology.

Paris and now Berlin - in their ethnological or ethnographic museums -

as it is said here - or of Man, that is, anthropological, I have fulfilled my
study program, in your own way post-graduate and according to European suggestions
Hello. Well, in Europe, I sought the guidance of the great Boas for these contacts with
living museums like those in Germany, England, and France. Good, as
anthropologist, is an enthusiast of museums of this kind. He thinks that in them one can

to learn more than in simple abstract conferences in pure classrooms.

These three museums - the one in Paris, the one in Oxford, the one in Berlin - require days.

followed by panoramic studies. Panoramic without considering what it can be

carried out in any of them as specialized study235 .

This study trip and visits to European museums were fundamental for the

development of the imagination museum of Freyre. The recommendations of Boas, in this

they opened doors, encouraged attentive observation and note-taking

notes that would later be organized and facilitate comparison with the

Brazilian museological panorama, especially in relation to museums of

Anthropology. Conditioned by Boasian training, the imagination of the traveling museum

it was especially directed towards the anthropological and towards the cultural traditions of a character

regional.

235
Freyre (1975a, p.88).
 149

Viewed from the outside, Brazil was seen as a very rich subject for approaches.

Museums. The trained eye abroad allowed the identification of omissions and gaps.

The certainty of the return and the uncertainties about the paths of reintegration provided for the

the formulation of questions and fueled the desire to build new dream places:

When will we have, in our country, a great museum of Man

specialized in the systematic, didactic, scientifically oriented presentation of
anthropological material related to the Brazilian people - to their physique, to their ethnicities, to the

your culture (entering here a reorientation of our anthropological studies

under the inspiration of Boas, Wissler, and Kroeber - in their various expressions
regionals?

If I can, it's one of the cultural things I will compete for when I
reintegrate in Brazil: the organization of an anthropological museum according to the

guidance of Boas, which is a guidance, largely, German236 .

Before returning to Brazil, he took his time in Portugal. In Lisbon and Coimbra he did

contact with modern Portuguese intelligence, mingled with the people of Seara Nova,

met in person João Lúcio de Azevedo, the Count of Sabugosa, the poet Eugênio

de Castro, Fidelino de Figueiredo and Joaquim de Carvalho, and received 'news of the

‘modernist’ explosions in Rio and São Paulo237After almost six years spent

Abroad the writer returned: "I left Brazil as a child, and I come back to see it again."

made man. I come to see him with different eyes: those of an adult. An adult who has traveled through America.

In the North and in Europe. Adult is said in English, sophisticated238 .

236
Same, p.89.
237
Same, p.125.
238
Same, p.125.
 150

"The search for a lost boy" had not been abandoned. The return came.

accompanied by the desire to revisit the Engine of São Severino dos Ramos where there was

played. In the land of the playful, the imagination of the man made was now seeking out others

toys.

One does not effectively enter the territory of the museum without a child's spirit.

without being dazzled by the playful dimension of things, without realizing that the object

museumized is also a toy. This perception is evident in the expression

boy: "playing house", with which some dedicated curators work on setting up

exhibitions refer to their own practice. It is this perception that allows them to laugh in the

museums and it allows us to understand that everything there is transient, even if disguised as

eternity. As the poet Omar Khayyam said:

Lutes, perfumes, cups,

Lips, hair, large eyes:

Toys that time destroys

Day by day - mere toys!239

239
Khayyam (d. ch.)
 151

The region of the gaze and the gaze at the region

The return home was a trip back in time: a simultaneous return to the past, to

present and to the future. On one hand, the young native who returned found the old

province, revisited the ancient inhabitants of her memory, readjusted the dimension of things,

of the streets, of the tall houses, of the Capibaribe river and approached carefully the novelties

modernists; on the other hand, the natives of the province found in him the airs of a young Anglo-

American, the maladjusted and exotic behavior, the fashions and the foreign ways.

At this point, the returned person's self-perception took on a dramatic tone: "What I feel -

he said in 1923 - it is that I am repelled by Brazil (...), as if I had become a

strange body to the same Brazil240 .

The experiences of return and estrangement enabled other experiences:

the charm of disenchantment241, in search of its new social place and of the

need to discover another Brazil, which was not the one that repelled him, but "the

Basic, essential, popular Brazil242It is this essentialized identity of Brazil that he

I went to look for in the regional constants of the Northeast, in popular traditions, in the formation

of the Brazilian patriarchal family.

It cannot be said, in all truth, that the young Freyre was entirely

repelled and much less that your readaptation has been highly problematic. He

counted on the support of a personal network of social relationships, including that of his/her

240
Freyre (1975a, p.128).
241
Same, p.131.
242
Same, p.128.
 152

kinship, quite settled and organized. In the same year of his return to Recife

returned to collaborate with the Diário de Pernambuco and made friends with José Lins do Rego;

the following year became involved with the animation of the Regionalist Center of the Northeast, to

side of Odilon Nestor, Alfredo de Moraes Coutinho, Luís Cedro Carneiro Leão, Júlio

Bello, Amaury de Medeiros, Gouveia de Barros, Carlos Lyra Filho, in addition to his father

Alfredo Freyre, his brother Ulysses Freyre, and others. During this period, he intensified his

journalistic activities and devoted himself to the organization of the so-called Book of the Northeast,

published in 1925, in celebration of the first centenary of the Diário de Pernambuco,

counting on the participation of various authors, among whom is the modernist Manuel

Flag that, at his request, wrote for the said book the poem 'Evocation of'

"Recife," with clear references to childhood times.

It was under the influence of this beginning of regionalist movement that the parliamentarian

Pernambuco native Luís Cedro Carneiro Maranhão presented, in 1923, to the Chamber of

Deputies the first project for the creation of an Inspectorate aimed at defense of

historical, artistic, and landscape values of the region. The project sank, but the theme

it would be resumed in 1928, when Estácio Coimbra was in government in Pernambuco.

the State Inspectorate of National Monuments and an Art Museum were created

Retrospective.

The Regionalist Center of the Northeast, the Book of the Northeast and the published articles

by Freyre in the Diário de Pernambuco brought the mark of his interest in the recovery of

cultural traditions of a regional character, as a romantic way of searching for a time

lost and resistant to the advances of industrialization and the increasing loss of power
 153

economic and political of the families that still preserved the corroded inheritance of the ancients

rural gentlemen.

Regarding the modernist movement that exploded in São Paulo with the Week

of Modern Art in 1922, Freyre maintained a deliberate position of distrust and

he believed it was good to be "far from the snoring of those 'modernists' from this side and beyond the sea"

but no longer seem to have anything to give anyone (...). Except noise. Scandal.

Sensation243Still, I wanted to pay attention to those he called the 'good moderns'

from Rio and São Paulo

to address issues - including the old or the usual ones - with a new attitude or approach.

bringing a new flavor244Possibly, it was with this spirit that he approached.

Manuel Bandeira, from Prudente de Morais Neto, from Heitor Villa-Lobos, from Rodrigo Melo

Franco de Andrade, by Carlos Drummond de Andrade and Sérgio Buarque de Holanda

who would later become the godfather of his daughter.

With Mário de Andrade, however, the relationship was, on both sides, of

distance, distrust, and antipathy. In 1923, Freyre noted in his diary: 'Do not

I can get excited about Mário's andradices. I prefer the 'modernist' andradices.

of the other Andrade (...)245. When he personally met Mário de Andrade in 1927

who was passing through Recife, noted: "Bad personal impression of M. de A. (...) His

way of speaking, so artificial, seems - without being - excessively delicate. Some

"Your gestures also seem precarious to me"246 .

243
Same, p.132.
244
Same, p.132.
245
Same, p.132.
246
Same, p.207.
 154

Manuel Bandeira, who acted as the bridge between the two, received a letter from Mário in 1928.

with the following request: "Look, ask as if it were your own, to Gilberto if he knows the

name of some famous lace maker from Pernambuco or any part of the Northeast. If not from

Pernambuco, let him say where she is. It's for Macunaíma. Don't say it's my thing.

otherwise he might commit treachery and give a wrong name just to enjoy reading nonsense247".

Bandeira's response informed: "I asked Gilberto what you want to know. He didn't

he did not remember any name but says there are some248.

The divergences between Gilberto Freyre and Mário de Andrade were not only situated

at the level of personal relationships, they reached a deeper stratum: that of the conception of

Brazil is of the world. Mário, who refused to know other countries, developed a

the conception of Brazil and national identity that did not leave room for regions and

regionalisms. Your Macunaíma, in theoretical terms, created a kind of melting pot

which dissolved regions, provinces, cultural manifestations and promoted a remapping

or a de-geographicization of Brazil; Freyre, who traveled the world even before knowing

other Brazilian regions, developed a conception of Brazil, influenced by its

Boasian culturalist training, which prioritized the focus on regions, understanding

that the essence of Brazil was made up of multiple identities. One looked at the

unity and the other for diversity. In any case, these divergences should not

to cloud the understanding that both took Brazil as a theme, got involved with

preservationist actions and had a marked interest in the colonial past.

247
Moraes (2000, p.372).
248
Same, p.373.
 155

In February 1926, an event took place in Recife, under the leadership of Gilberto Freyre,

1º Northeast Regionalist Congress, also known as 1o Brazilian Congress

of Regionalism. The initiative aligns with the movement for defense and rehabilitation of

traditions invested with characteristics considered regional, started two years before

with the Regionalist Center of the Northeast, which brought together divergent political trends.

One of the objectives of the regionalist movement animators was the development by

Brazil, aside from other regionalisms, capable of giving the movement an organic sense and

comprehensive, both from a national and international perspective.

In this Congress, Freyre presented a paper on 'Aesthetics and Traditions.'

from Brazilian cuisine." In a modern performance, distributed "among the congress members

"Pernambucan cocadas," circulated among them "photographs of old dishes from India and

from China, tableware, teapots - reminiscences of the ancient noble table of

lords of the sugar mills of the Northeast - as well as, photographs of black women from the banquets,

sweet rice and glue vendors249 .

In this performative conference - mentioned by Joaquim Inojosa - after highlighting

the presence in Brazil of three important culinary regions: the Bahian, the Northeastern, and the

Mineira, Freyre lets loose the reins of his Proustian and polemic self: "When sometimes,

Sunday morning, I ride my bike in Casa Forte and at Poço, I can feel coming from the houses the

the smell of mungunzá and the smell of incense from the churches, I feel more faith in the future of Brazil

Brazilian than listening to the national anthem or reading Mr. Afonso Celso.250 .

249
Freyre cited by Inojosa (1981, p.34-35).
250
Same, p.35.
 156

I cite Gilberto Freyre based on Joaquim Inojosa, deliberately. Inojosa, who is

considered herald, authorized representative, and forerunner of the modernist movement in

Pernambuco dedicated hundreds of pages and a good part of its intellectual energy to

to relativize the robustness of the regionalist movement and to cast doubt on the existence of

a Regionalist Manifesto, dated 1926. It suggested that the manifesto would be a

creation or assembly of the fifties; in what diverged from Freyre, who argued that

publicly read the so-called Manifesto during the 1 º Regionalist Congress, even if only the

had been published in 1952251.

As interesting as this controversy may be, I think there may be more to it.

manga, it does not illuminate my work. The so-called Regionalist Manifesto constitutes for

the objectives I propose to a document of great relevance, since

contains important references about the museum issue. In other words: the existence of

the Regionalist Manifesto of 1926 is a concrete fact, whether it was written

twenty-something years before or after. The controversy, which in some way reflected the

disagreements between regionalists and modernists - especially with some from São

Paulo - of whom Inojosa considered himself the advanced spokesperson, focused on a

chronological issue and had as its backdrop the desire of one and the other, to

vainly wanting to be recognized by posterity as pioneers. It was about a

inglorious battle for Inojosa. It was impossible for him to surpass Gilberto Freyre in love for

himself, in the confessed vanity and immodesty, in the pleasure of savoring compliments like a

251
Freyre (1976, p.52).
 157

boy who tastes a chocolate252Thus, I overlook this controversy that

I find it relevant, and I focus on the content of the Regionalist Manifesto, stated in 1926.

It is at least intriguing the position of distrust and ambiguity that Gilberto

Freyre maintains relations with the leaders of the modernist movement that erupted in São Paulo. Newly-

returned from a long adventure abroad, where in addition to updating oneself in terms of

university education, made contact with avant-garde artists and intellectuals and observed the

the daily lives of people, one could not say that he was unaware of the trends

modern ones in vogue in Europe and the United States. Furthermore, his work had a

unequivocal accent of modernity. My suggestion is that the presence of a strong

regional character in Freyre's imagination, more than his interest in the past,

justified the maintenance of this position of distrust and ambiguity and, as

consequent unfolding, the dispute for a place of leadership in the intellectual milieu

Brazilian. A place or a region with a differentiated perspective that, in its view,

it authorized the gaze towards the northeastern region, looking for its specificities.

remains, both the regionalists - modernists in their own way - and the aligned modernists

with the Week of 22, especially in its second phase, they became interested in the past,

namely, through colonialism; they conducted research on folklore, carried out

preservationist actions, invented traditions, committed to the rediscovery of

Brazil, they wanted to promote a renewal in Brazilian intelligence and got involved

with the fate of cultural heritage and museums.

From the perspective of the author of the Regionalist Manifesto, it would be unfair to confuse the

regionalism with separatism, localism, anti-internationalism, anti-universalism or

252
Freyre (1975a, p.131).
 158

antinationalism. Its goal was to overcome state divisions, 'contain the misuse of power

of large and rich states, to police the Balkan turmoil of some of the small ones

in population" and develop a "new and flexible system in which the regions, more

important that the States complement and actively and creatively integrate into a

true national organization253. The premise of this reasoning was expressed in

following terms:

For from regions is Brazil, sociologically, made, since its

first days. Natural regions that overlapped with social regions.

So, given this is its configuration, what is imposed on the statesmen

the national legislators is to think and act inter-regionally. And to remember
always that govern regions and legislate for interdependent regions,
whose reality should never be forgotten by the necessary fictions, within the
its limits of 'Union' and 'State'. The set of regions is what forms
truly Brazil254 .

The curious thing about this argument is the representation of the region as a unit or a

natural given, to which the social overlaps. Freyre's rhetoric, at this moment,

characterized 'Union' and 'State' as fiction, but did not discuss the equally

fictional of the regions. From another angle: just as the national is not a ready-made data and

finished, but something that is done, undone and redone permanently; thus

the regional could also be understood as a process imbued with tensions,

conflicts, political litigations, and disputes over memory and tradition. The notion of a unit

253
Freyre (1976, p.54-55).
254
Same, p.56.
 159

regional, understood as a harmonious whole, encompasses intra and inter problems and conflicts

extra-region that cannot be resolved by the characterization of its natural elements. The notion

of regional identity, associated with the idea of unity, can also be used to

suppress internal differences, to erase similarities with the external, to exclude, to

to prevent crossings and block the dynamics of life. The borders of the region are not

natural. Furthermore, the crystallization of debates in the confrontation between the regional and the

national can simply mean the abandonment of a universalist perspective,

as Roberto Da Matta observed255 .

Being one of the objectives of the regionalist movement the defense and rehabilitation of

regional and traditional values, emerged almost as a logical extension of their

concerns the interest in the museum universe.

In 1924, Freyre published in the Diário de Pernambuco an article where he pointed out the

the need for the State to have a museum that "gathered values of the regional culture", "that the

"evoked in an attractively educational way" and that "presented what the training

regional views producing either more typical or more characteristic256In this article

Freyre argued: "now that a museum of Retrospective Arts257was organized in

Rio could well consider Pernambuco - a Brazilian land with such a dense, such a

deep - to establish yours, as a document to local life." Then, it criticized the

museological notion of the Historical Institutes that operated solely for the exaltation of the

grand achievements in the military and political spheres, and were not interested in the day-to-day of

255
DaMatta (2000, p.6).
256
Freyre (1979/1980, p.23).
257
I suppose that the Museum of Retrospective Arts referred to in the 1924 article was the Museum
National history, but I do not have documentary sources that can prove or deny this
supposition.
 160

Brazilian, where the "people" and the "rustic man" should be included. Among the

various suggestions for "plastic illustration of very significant everyday life" that is possible to

being submitted to a musealization process, highlighted was 'the technique of production of'

sugar.

This article echoed in the Regionalist Manifesto, where Gilberto Freyre stated

to want 'museums with clay pots, pointed knives, rustic pipes, sandals of

country musicians, miniature almanjarras, ceramic figures, fabric dolls, toy cars

boy, and not just with relics of war heroes and martyrs of glorious revolutions.

Highlighting your interest in exalting 'bumbas-meu-boi, maracatus, mamulengos,

carnival pastors and popular clubs," he also expressed his desire for "a

regional museum full of memories of the productions and the work of the region and not

only from idly bourgeois antiquities like baroness jewelry and canes of

games from the time of the Empire258 .

Freyre's Boasian and regionalist view was also concerned with what

today is referred to as intangible or immaterial heritage and in this sense was extended in the

description of culinary elements, highlighting the role of the black trays

Bahianas, "almost always immense with fat." According to him: "Many aged like

how eternal, like monuments - the fountains, the water features, the matriarchal trees -

selling, in the same yard or on the same corner, candy or cake for three generations of

boys and even of greedy men259.

258
Freyre (1976, p.62).
259
Same, p.69.
 161

In his Manifesto, he walked through various subjects: he defended 'a good garden

regional zoo260; stimulated the production of painters, photographers, poets, essayists,

novelists and short story writers "capable of associating the animal with the human, the regional with

universal261I suggested the creation of a regional restaurant that resembled a center for

cultural traditions, as it should include, in addition to culinary activities, a pharmacy of

medicinal plants, a toy and art objects store, a space for presentation

of mamulengo, bumba-meu-boi, pastoril, and a house of horrors, all with

regional characteristics262For Freyre, the culinary tradition of the northeast was in crisis,

a kitchen in crisis - he said - means an entire civilization in danger: the danger

to become descharacterized263
.

As can be seen, Freyre's preservationist discourse also made use of

notions of regional value and danger of decharacterization to justify as an action

necessary. There was also in the freyrean museum imagination a certain air of nostalgia and

longing, a certain cult of the past. But, unlike Barroso, he seemed to look

to another side of the tradition pyramid. Less concerned with the monumental, with

the deeds and glories of military and political history, he turned to everyday life, to a

type of everyday museology, with a strong intimate and subjective character. There was

visibly a pedagogical dimension in Freyre's museum imagination, but it seemed

to distinguish itself from that which informed the Barrosian imagination. One could not speak here

in a pedagogy of pointing fingers, it might be possible to think of a kind of

pedagogy of seduction or of seductive tradition.

260
Same, p.79.
261
Same, p.79.
262
Same, p.73-74.
263
Same, p.72.
 162

The tradition that interested Freyre, unlike Barroso, was not that of

extraordinary historical events or exemplary heroes, but one that having a long

temporal duration could function as a social amalgamation of distinct generations,

the one that could evoke memories in a more spontaneous, affectionate, and less rational way

sedimented in a deeper layer of the psyche. For this reason, he, in the condition of

modern narrator, insisted on flavors, smells, sounds, merriments, toys and images of

everyday life that spanned long periods. His interest in the narrative realm was one of a

another order.

Adventure, exile and routine

After 1º Regionalist Congress of the Northeast, still in the year 1926, Gilberto

Freyre made his first broader trip across Brazil, getting to know the

cities of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Salvador. In Rio, one of its first

initiatives was to attend a session of the Federal Senate, in the old Monroe palace, today

demolished. At the time, the president of the Senate and vice president of the Republic was his

friend and fellow countryman, Estácio Coimbra, to whom I was also connected by ties of

family. It was on this trip that, staying at the house of the "tubercular" Manuel Bandeira, he became close.

contact with the modernist group from Rio, "reformers without any 'ism'" - would note in

your diary264But Freyre was not an individual destined for a single group. In

264
Freyre (1975a, p.182).
 163

Rio often visited the house of Miguel Calmon, Laurinda Santos Lobo, the Jockey Club, and the

Copacabana Palace was with José Nabuco, Teodoro Sampaio, Juliano Moreira,

Getúlio Vargas, Heitor Vila-Lobos, Luciano Gallet, Pixinguinha, Patrício, Donga, and

so many others.

I wonder if during this trip to Rio, Freyre would have found some time.

to visit the National Museum of Quinta da Boa Vista and particularly the Museum

National Historical, which, at that time, was in full operation. I did not find.

an explicit reference about these visits, but here is recorded the suspicion that

they could have happened. It would be interesting to know the perspective of the young man from Pernambuco,

traveled through the world of foreign museums, about the Barroso Museum. Among the

various groups he interacted with in the city of Rio, was at times close

from Barroso's network of relations, but did not mention in his diary a direct contact with

the founding father of the National Historical Museum recorded only, with a certain arrogance of

boy, that Barroso "after debuting with the excellent Terra do Sol, writing

just trivial things265 .

Back in Recife, he was appointed as the delegate of the Diary of

Pernambuco at the Pan-American Congress of Journalists, held in the United States and

took office as the chief of staff of the newly started government of Estácio

Coimbra (1926-1930). Its privileged position influenced some areas of the new

government like that of education, entrusted to Antônio Carneiro Leão and that of public health,

delivered to your cousin Ulysses Pernambucano. In addition, starting in 1928, began to

to lead the newspaper A Província and to teach sociology at the Normal School of the State of

265
Idem (1975a, p.191).
 164

Pernambuco. It is stated in the Pernambucan tradition that it was under its inspiration and in response to

to your suggestions266that Estácio Coimbra created, in 1928, the Inspectorate of Monuments

Nationals of the State of Pernambuco and the Museum of Retrospective Arts. The Inspectorate, by

lack of constitutional support, did not prevail and the Museum, after being deactivated in

1933, it was reopened in 1940 and still exists today, under the name State Museum.

In the museum's collection, primarily from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, notable furniture stands out.

of jacaranda, porcelain, Catholic images, lithographs, metal engravings, paintings,

sculptures and drawings, as well as archaeological and ethnographic material.

The political alliance with Estácio Coimbra placed Gilberto Freyre in a situation

difficult. The victory of the revolutionaries in 1930 deposed President Washington Luís and placed

end to the government of Estácio Coimbra, which supported the ousted president. The governor of

Pernambuco hurriedly embarked for exile, accompanied by his chief of

cabinet. Three years later, Freyre would record this episode, perhaps with a certain amount of

of irony, in the first paragraph of the preface to the first edition of Casa-Grande &

Senzala: "In October 1930, I experienced the adventure of exile. It first took me to

Bahia; then to Portugal, with a stopover in Africa. The ideal type of trip for studies.

and the concerns that this essay reflects267In the next two paragraphs, he would record

the importance for your studies of the Portuguese Ethnological Museum in Lisbon and of

Nina Rodrigues Afro-Baiano Museum, in Salvador (BA). The routine and the adventure of visiting

museums, studying their collections, following Boas' advice, continued to be present and

with significant importance among the socio-anthropological practices of the author of Casa-

Grande & Senzala. From Lisbon, Freyre boarded a ship to the United States in 1931.

266
Freyre (1979/1980, p.22-23).
267
Freyre (1977a, p.75).
 165

invitation from Stanford University, where he began writing Casa-Grande & Senzala.

Before returning to Recife in 1932, he traveled around Europe again and made contacts with

the anthropology museums of Germany.

After the publication of Casa-Grande & Senzala, Freyre organized, in Recife, the 1 o

Congress of Afro-Brazilian Studies, in 1934, and the following year, at the invitation of Anísio

Teixeira taught a course at the University of the Federal District (UDF).

Social and Cultural Anthropology.

"In 1935 - he would later testify, referring to Anísio Teixeira -,

made, in my view, the most serious attempt to create a university to date.
in our country, the University of the Federal District. He also had a certain
management is difficult in Brazil, as it is for me in Pernambuco, outside
called before 1930 to intellectually advise the governor of Bahia,
Góes Calmon. To create the new university, he relied on all the strength,
resources and the prestige of the then mayor of the Federal District, the Pernambuco native

Pedro Ernesto268 .

With the advent of the New State, the continuity of the University of the District

The Federal was rendered unfeasible, Anísio Teixeira's project was thwarted, and Freyre returned.

to Recife. In the following years, he continued publishing books, articles, collaborating in

newspapers, holding conferences and traveling throughout Brazil and abroad. Contradictorily,

268
Gilberto Freyre Virtual Library. (http://prossiga.bvgf.fgf.org.br). Interview granted to Gilberto
Old (National Museum and UFRJ), César Benjamin and Cilene Areias (Science Today), in May/June 1985.
Source: Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science. Scientists from Brazil: testimonies. São Paulo:
SBPC, pp. 117-123, 1995.
 166

approached Oliveira Salazar, the dictatorial president of Portugal, even though in Brazil

was involved, alongside intellectuals and students, in the struggles for redemocratization

from the country. In 1941, he married the Paraibana Maria Magdalena Guedes Pereira, with

who would have two children: Sônia and Fernando, who would later come to be, respectively,

presidents of the Gilberto Freyre Foundation and the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation, formerly the Institute

Joaquim Nabuco of Social Research.

With the end of the Estado Novo, he was elected in 1945 by the National Democratic Union.

(UDN), with the support of the student youth of Pernambuco, for a seat as a deputy

federal in the National Constituent Assembly, having fulfilled its mandate during the period

from 1946 to 1950. He ran for a second term but was defeated in the elections

from 1950. It was during his term as a federal deputy that he drafted and presented, in 1948,

the project for the creation of the Joaquim Nabuco Institute of Social Research, approved by

legislative and sanctioned by President Eurico Gaspar Dutra in 1949.

As a social analyst and deputy - I would say later - I felt a great lack
of Brazilian centers dedicated to research about the country itself. It occurred to me
So the idea of taking advantage of the celebrations of the first centenary of
the birth of Joaquim Nabuco to propose, in the Constituent Assembly of what
I was part of the creation of a center of this type in Recife, which could be useful.
of encouragement for other similar initiatives in other places. My project,
approved by the Legislative, anticipated that the action of the new institution would encompass not only

the Northeast, but also the North of the country, and that its operation would be

disconnected from the university system to avoid the old evil of this system: the
 167

burocratization. I believe that the institute was the first Brazilian research center
socials that had this type of autonomy269.

For Gilberto Freyre, the celebration of the centenary of the birth of Joaquim

Nabuco is more than an event of the ephemeral order that, after the festive period, does not

It should leave another trace besides the memory of the celebration; it should produce a result.

of a permanent nature.

In your defense speech of the project, which included several interjections - from

opposition and support - from other parliamentarians, he referred extensively to the museums that

you will know abroad and the importance of these bodies in the context of research, of

social development and the defense of regional values. With these references he

was seeking to justify the inclusion of a museum in the body of the Joaquim Nabuco Institute,

anthropology.

Of course, such an institution - clarified its future founder - should have the
your museum of rural and sertanejo ethnography, popular art, and home industry.
But only an individual with a narrowly academic view of what Science is
Social will consider the meeting useless or merely fun or recreational.
similar material270 .

269
Same.
270
Gilberto Freyre Virtual Library. (http : // prossiga.bvgf.fgf.org.br). Source: Freyre, Gilberto.
Need for social research institutes in Brazil. Speech delivered in the Federal Chamber, Rio of
January 4, 1948.
 168

In the sequence of his argumentation, he detailed the type of collection.

what should be museumized. Insistent and repetitive, transforming repetition into style

literary, in the rhythmic mark of his way of being a writer, he affirmed:

It will be the work of greater scientific and practical interest to gather together, with

scientific criterion, the material most related to life and the work of the
our regional populations. Types of housing, sleeping nets, of nets of
fishing, from boats like those of the São Francisco River - whose figure of the boatman is claimed

special study - of boy toys, of puppetry, of porcelain, of dress, of

chapéu, de alpercata, de faca, de cachimbo, de tecido, de bordado, de renda
calls from the land or Ceará, recipes for medicines, foods, sweets, drinks,
beliefs, superstitions, all of this has scientific, artistic, cultural interest,
social, practical. The office reformers who see all of this are mistaken.
just entertainment for the eyes of tourists or antique dealers271 .

This elongated enumeration of items, combining elements of the heritage.

tangible with the intangible, understanding that they can be mediators of life and of

work related to the past, the present, and the future, was sketching a kind of

inventory or museum map for understanding the region. In listing so many things

Freyre provoked in the listener (or in the reader) the creation of a succession of images, which from

some way abolished time and, similar to what happens in a museum, composed a

poetic narrative, not entirely dominated by the rational.

271
Same.
 169

Gilberto Freyre was an example of a modern narrator. He used words and

the things to tell stories and build different narratives, for the pleasure of

to combine and recombine things and words, driven by the desire to obscure the reader (or listener)

with the desire to see (or hear) more stories. As Roberto Ventura points out, "Freyre

seduces and engages the reader like a tropical Scheherazade or a fiery mulatta272 .

In examining the art of narrative, Benjamin identified two archaic types.

fundamentals or two families of narrators: one would be composed of the 'sailor'

"merchant" and another by "sedentary peasant." The first narrated the routine of the

adventures, the second recounted the adventure of routines. In light of this scenario, Gilberto

Freyre would probably affirm his ambiguity and would want adventure and routine, the

the enchantment of the trip and the homemade slipper. At this point, he would possibly be

accordance with the following assertion by Walter Benjamin: "The extent of the narrative realm, in

its entire historical reach can only be understood if we take into account the

interpenetration of these two archaic types273 .

Having abandoned, over time, the dream of building a museum of

rustic toys and the idea of writing the "History of a Boy's Life in Brazil", Freyre

it gradually consolidated the idea of a museum of man, using as a reference

important the Museum of Man, in Paris. An outdated model museum that made (and makes)

a theoretical discourse of an apparently universalist nature, but which, in practice

museographic, it revealed (and reveals itself) Eurocentric, colonialist, conservative and,

somehow, sexist, regardless of the role of vanguard and resistance that some of

272
Ventura (2000, p.64).
273
Benjamin (1985, p.198-199).
 170

your most advanced professionals had during the occupation of Paris by the forces

Nazis. Since the end of the colonial wars, this model of museum shows visible

signs of exhaustion and currently facing one of its greatest crises, with threats,

inclusive, of passing into the kingdom of dead museums.

The inspiration in a museum of a universalist mold like that of the Man of Paris does not

I found, in Freyre's case, signs of contradiction. In the same way as that

The Parisian museum outlined (and outlines) a universalizing rhetoric, which in practice

crystallized (and crystallizes) prejudices and stereotypes regarding non-European peoples,

justifying expographically the pseudo-superiority of European civilization 274so

also the Freyrean perspective even emphasizing the need for attention to the

relationships between the master and the slave, the man and the woman, the child and the adult, all

socially situated, seemed to crystallize and justify these same relationships in the way that

they were given. After all, Freyre's perspective, as innovative as it was,

was informed of her status as an heir of ancient rural lords.

Making use of an argument of authority, which evoked and utilized memory

two international models as a technique of persuasion, Freyre stated in his

parliamentary speech

274
In 2002, it was still possible to see the presentation in the exhibition hall of the Museum of Man in Paris.
of a video showing different types of human childbirth: one from a black woman, another from a woman
Asian and another of a white woman, possibly European. The childbirth of the black woman was happening in
precarious environmental conditions and was assisted by a midwife; the Asian woman's situation occurred in a cold
hospital environment, entirely aseptic and almost inhumane; that of the white woman was humanized, the
the environment was calm and happy, the doctors were discreet and efficient, the mother and father were present
happy and smiling. Everything was happiness and civilized harmony.
 171

Let's not forget that social museums or museums of man, like the
led in France by Master Rivet, social research institutes, centers of
regional studies of Sociology, Ethnology, Ethnography, etc., exist today in
more advanced countries and not just in those where traditionalism is a
a kind of saudade: longing or nostalgia for glories or simply for
uses of the past. There are such institutes and museums in Sweden, in Argentina, in
United States, in England, in the Soviet Union; there existed in pre-Germany
Hitlerist who had some of his admirable centers of anthropological study
destroyed or distorted by the Nazi adventurers275 .

Despite all the emphasis of his parliamentary speech on the importance of

museum practices, the creation of an anthropology museum within the Institute Joaquim

The Nabuco Social Research would still take another fifteen years to come out of the realm of dreams.

and desires and to assert itself as an institution open to the public.

In the early 1950s, Gilberto Freyre traveled through Europe and Africa.

and through the East "in search of the Portuguese constants of character and action"276Nessa

trip, accompanied by the family, continued the international contacts, to

ethnographic observations and the journey through the museums. In Lisbon, the family did not fail to

visit the Ethnological Museum, the Popular Art Museum, the Green Windows Museum, and the Car Museum; in

Evora, the Archaeological Museum; in Guimarães, one of the local museums; in Porto, various

themselves and so on. In Mozambique, he observed: "There is a good museum; animals of

region stuffed with good technique. Good studies on regional animals and plants277 ;

275
Virtual Library Gilberto Freyre. (http://prossiga.bvgf.fgf.org.br). Source: Freyre, Gilberto.
Need for social research institutes in Brazil. Speech delivered in the Federal Chamber, Rio de
January 4, 1948.
276
Freyre (1980).
277
Same, p.420
 172

in Angola, visited the Mossâmedes Fishing Museum - "almost entirely dedicated to things

fishing regions278and lingered at the Ethnographic Museum of Dundo, which caused him

impact and admiration

In the Dundo Museum - recorded the traveler - the art is represented

both in the form of drawings and paintings as well as sculptures. A wealth
magnificent African sculptures: those that can be considered the
the brown and even black eminence, behind the great European artistic endeavors
modern. What would Picasso be without these gray eminences behind his genius
of Spanish, relative of African?279 .

There is something of Picasso in the Freyrean perspective, whether through sensuality,

for the taste of images, for the pleasure of movement, for the interest in the traditional, in

modern and in everyday life or by the mystical taste of life. It's that something picassian

What allows me to question: What would Freyre be without these very same gray eminences?

black or almost black, behind her work, her aristocratic air, her exercise of

creativity, of your interest in the kitchen, of your attention to cultural heritage

tangible or intangible, from your taste for the chewing of words?

278
Same, p.381
279
Same, p.347
 173

Around the Museum of the Man of the Northeast

The creation of the Joaquim Nabuco Institute of Social Research did not imply the

immediate establishment of a museum, as one might assume from the speeches

parliamentarians of Gilberto Freyre. Gradually, the Institute began to establish itself as

an entity interested not only in the development of social research but also

in the field of documentation practices, preservation, scientific dissemination, and promotion

cultural. The Museum of Anthropology would emerge within the body of the new Institute as a

unfolding of these practices; but it would be necessary, first of all, to overcome obstacles

bureaucratic, organize spaces, constitute collections, systematize discourses, create and train

teams. Under the supervision of Gilberto Freyre and the direction of Mauro Mota, the work of

museum organization was delegated to the anthropologists René Ribeiro and Waldemar Valente,

dedicated, respectively, to Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous studies in Brazil. However,

only in 1964 - as noted by Frederico Pernambucano de Mello - the Museum of

Anthropology will be open to the public, with collections related to research interests.

two cited anthropologists280, in addition to the collections organized by its creator.

Still in the second half of the sixties, the Joaquim Nabuco Institute of

Social Research would establish an agreement with the government of the State of Pernambuco and

would assume responsibility for the building and the collection of the Museum of Popular Art, created

at the initiative of Abelardo Rodrigues, in 1953, at Horto Dois Irmãos, and closed afterwards

of a little more than ten years of operation. The investment in this new unit - counting on

280
Mello (2000, p.10).
 174

works of Vitalino, Zé Caboclo, Zé Rodrigues, Porfírio Faustino, Severino de Tracunhaém

and others, "in addition to notable collections of images of folk artists, anonymous, from

popular toys made of wood, leather, cloth, and straw, from ex-votos of Santa Quitéria, in

Garanhuns, from the Chapel of Jaqueira and São Severino dos Ramos281 would allow to the

Institute, still at the end of the sixties, to maintain in its organizational structure the

presence of two museums.

The need to form teams with specially trained professionals

it led the leaders of the Institute to invest in the museological training of their technicians

panel of permanent servers. It was in this context that the Pernambuco native Aécio of

Oliveira, godson of Gilberto Freyre, moved to Rio de Janeiro with a scholarship.

of studies, where, during the period from 1966 to 1969, was a distinguished student of the Course of

Museums of the National Historical Museum, having taken classes with teachers trained by

Gustavo Barroso.

The growth and consolidation of the Museum of Anthropology and the Museum of Art

Popular had a significant boost with the return of Aécio de Oliveira to the

Recife. Updated professional, Oliveira took care of the updates to museum practices of

Institute, from its insertion in the Brazilian museum landscape and the introduction of jargon

museological in the daily life of the Institution. Among its noteworthy actions are:

creation, in the early seventies, of a Department of Museology focused on

treatment of the museums of the Institution, for meeting museological demands

281
Same.
 175

regional282and for the preservation, recovery, and musealization of numerous collections,

among which, the Maracatu Elefante.

In 1977, the Sugar Museum - which had been created by the Sugar Institute and

the Alcohol, in 1961, - was transferred with all its structure, including some

employees, from the Joaquim Nabuco Institute of Social Research, your neighbor of

wall. The collection of the Sugar Museum included representations of the processes

technological planting, cutting, harvesting, transportation, and manufacturing of sugar over time

distinct, as well as refined collections of artifacts related to traditional families and

ladies of the region. The transfer of all this structure had been considered by the

less since 1975, when Gilberto Freyre, through the book The Presence of Sugar in

Brazilian training publicly lamented the separation of the Anthropology and museums.

of Sugar and indicated the need to unify them under the same scientific direction283 .

During the year 1978, the three museums: the Museum of Anthropology, the Museum of Popular Art and the

the Sugar, although subordinate to the Institute, operated independently and the

From the second half of 1979, they were reorganized and merged into a single

institution, giving rise to the Museum of the Man of the Northeast, which, so to speak, would be the

the embodiment of Freyrean museal imagination. The role of Aécio de Oliveira, as

museum arm of Freyre and specialist in museum mediation practices, throughout the

The process of creating the Museum of the Man of the Northeast was of unquestionable importance.

As seen, Freyre's explicit interest in the museum universe dates back to

time as a graduate student at Columbia University, where he received

282
Camargo and Almeida (1972, p.93-94).
283
Freyre (1975b, p. 47-48).
 176

insistent advice from Franz Boas - who even directed the Museum of Natural History

from New York - so that he could specialize in observations and studies in the museums. "Good

- would repeat the founding father of the Institute, in 1979 - did not consider the specialist complete

in this science [anthropology] to those who lacked contact with these modern institutions

of culture and study, complementary to the universities; and where they operate, in fact,

several university courses284 .

Having embraced the boasian advice, Freyre, as has been seen, not only

observed the museums, especially the anthropological ones, as he/she spoke about them in

newspaper articles, travel books, manifestos, conferences, and interventions

parliamentarians. The first exercise of minimally systematized condensation of their

museum imagination, however, would appear in 1960, with the small work called

Suggestions regarding the Anthropology Museum of the Joaquim Nabuco Institute

Social Research, illustrated with drawings by Manuel Bandeira, the painter. Strictly speaking, it does not

it was about a systematization, since Freyre, unlike Barroso, did not

was systematizing and not concluding anything, just suggesting285In any case, these Suggestions

they were revisiting points he had already addressed at different times and situations and

they presented a character of a work program or philosophical guidelines and

conceptual paths that should be followed by the Museum of Anthropology which, at the time,

was in the project phase.

284
Freyre (1979/1980, p.12).
285
The trend towards the development of suggestions, to the detriment of conclusions and systematizations, is not
a peculiarity of the mentioned opus: it is explicitly present in several works by Freyre; it was
identified in 1934 by João Ribeiro, and examined by Ricardo Benzaquem de Araújo (1994, p.185-
208).
 177

With this document, Freyre assumed the paternity of the Museum and indicated, in a way

of course, for your collaborators and for the community of social science practitioners

that this Museum should be 'of a new type', in which instead of the celebration of

"dead past" or the making of "a 'rendez-vous' with death," if one could feel

what is alive and connected to the current and civilized man in remote civilizations, in

primitive cultures, in arts and folk creations286For the constitution of the collection

of this new type of museum, he himself, similar to the already mentioned Catador by Manuel de

Barros was picking up nails.287like someone who wanted to give a new life to this

useless heritage of humanity

After outlining the Brazilian museum landscape in his book of Suggestions,

citing more than a dozen museums; after highlighting the Indian Museum, organized

by Darcy Ribeiro, as "the maximum expression of Brazilian capacity for the

scientific organization of a specialized museum288, Freyre justified the uniqueness

from your Museum of Anthropology stating:

As you can see, none of these Brazilian museums currently holds any,
specific way, functions that resemble, even from afar, those that were designed
The Museum of the Joaquim Nabuco Institute for Social Research aims to perform:
to gather, under anthropological criteria, documentation as much as possible
significant about the past, life, and culture of a region
traditionally agrarian Brazil like that which extends from Bahia to Amazonas
(...)" 289.

286
Freyre (1960, p.5-6).
287
Same, p.13.
288
Same, p.23-24.
289
Same, p.24.
 178

In 1980, it began to circulate in Recife, with a publication date from the previous year.

the small book entitled Science of Man and Museology: suggestions around the
290
Museum of the Man of the Northeast of the Joaquim Nabuco Institute for Social Research .

It was a revised and expanded reissue of the pamphlet published in 1960.

the Museum of the Man of the Northeast was inaugurated on July 21, 1979, Freyre repeated,

with this updated edition, the gesture of establishing paternity and reaffirming the program

of work and the general guidelines of the new museum. The new edition of the pamphlet outlining

the possible relations between the science of man and museology, incorporated the

contributions of Aécio de Oliveira who, at that time, coordinated the creation process

of the Museum of the Man of the Northeast as a laboratory of museological experiences291.

In the new Museum, Oliveira put into practice the main museological ideas of

Gilberto Freyre. There was highlighted: the attention to the 'meaningful everyday'.

opposition to the solemn, grand, and monumental; the museographic break with

evolutionary and classificatory paradigm; the distinction between culture and racial traits; the

highlighting the cultural experience that was revealed through the mediation of tangible goods; the

use of documentary pluralism; the emphasis on the regional as opposed to the state, but in

articulation with the national and international and the overvaluation of processes of

miscegenation; all of this handled within an aesthetic exhibition principle of a fair

public, tropical and baroque, which wanted to move, touch and play, wanted to be educational

and attractive, 'without ceasing to be scientific'292. During this period the expression "museology"

290
Freyre (1979/1980).
291
Chagas and Oliveira (1983, p.181-185).
292
Freyre (1979/1980, p.6).
 179

"morena", sister-in-law by Oliveira to refer to museum practices aligned with the

regional tradition of the north and northeast of the country. The criteria by which the borders

regions are delimited were not under question. The region, as previously already

I indicated, it appeared in this museum discourse as something given and completed. The

regional identity, consequently, was considered as a kind of essence

magical and powerful, seemingly able to flatten tensions, dilute conflicts, make

forget the 'blood drop' and ensure the preservation of local traditions, as they were

and should continue to be.

The museum imagination of Gilberto Freyre, backed by the know-how of Aécio de

Oliveira spread rapidly through the northern and northeastern regions. The Train Museum,

In Recife (PE), the Regional Museum of Olinda (PE), the Rapadura Museum, in Areias

(PB), the Museum of the State of Piauí, in Teresina (PI), the Metropolitan Gallery of Arts

Aloísio Magalhães, in Recife (PE), the Museum of the Northern Man, in Manaus (AM) and

other museological processes spread across various municipalities in the north and northeast,

received directly or indirectly the impact of the work of the Department of

Museology of the Institute, whose model served for the creation, in the eighties, of a

similar department at the Emílio Goeldi Museum in Pará.

Gilberto Freyre had in Aécio de Oliveira the greatest promoter of his imagination.

museum. Assuming museology as a "mission" and museography as expression

aesthetic and technical-scientific, Oliveira traveled for about twenty years, the

North and Northeast regions sowing museums and museological training courses.

Generated from three museums with distinct trajectories and stories, the Museum of

Northeast man kept his fragile unity simply anchored in

 153

economic and political of the families that still preserved the corroded inheritance of the ancients

rural gentlemen.

Regarding the modernist movement that exploded in São Paulo with the Week

of Modern Art in 1922, Freyre maintained a deliberate position of distrust and

he believed it was good to be "far from the snoring of those 'modernists' from this side and beyond the sea"

but no longer seem to have anything to give anyone (...). Except noise. Scandal.

Sensation243Still, I wanted to pay attention to those he called the 'good moderns'

from Rio and São Paulo

to address issues - including the old or the usual ones - with a new attitude or approach.

bringing a new flavor244Possibly, it was with this spirit that he approached.

Manuel Bandeira, from Prudente de Morais Neto, from Heitor Villa-Lobos, from Rodrigo Melo

Franco de Andrade, by Carlos Drummond de Andrade and Sérgio Buarque de Holanda

who would later become the godfather of his daughter.

With Mário de Andrade, however, the relationship was, on both sides, of

distance, distrust, and antipathy. In 1923, Freyre noted in his diary: 'Do not

I can get excited about Mário's andradices. I prefer the 'modernist' andradices.

of the other Andrade (...)245. When he personally met Mário de Andrade in 1927

who was passing through Recife, noted: "Bad personal impression of M. de A. (...) His

way of speaking, so artificial, seems - without being - excessively delicate. Some

"Your gestures also seem precarious to me"246 .

243
Same, p.132.
244
Same, p.132.
245
Same, p.132.
246
Same, p.207.
 181

northeast," seemingly easy to handle, concealed yearnings for essentialization and

naturalization of the region. By proposing a regional synthesis of a totalizing perspective, and by

trying to match this perspective with the musealized, discontinuous things and

fragmented, the Museum was creating an embarrassment for itself. It wanted to represent the

northeast, but the northeast did not fit in the representation; by saying this and that

they represented the northeast he risked leaving out significant aspects for

the understanding of the northeast itself. This type of embarrassment is common to museums that

they try great or small syntheses.

This situation has similarities with the one experienced by the Historical Museum.

National, in trying to present the synthesis of the history of the nation and that of the Museum of the Indian,

when trying to translate the culture of different indigenous peoples into a single museum institution.

In the case of the Museum of the Man of the Northeast, the dramatic power of the situation was still

greater, since he was not born of an organic project, but from a fusion that took place

posterior, and that sought to frame different collections within a concept that was applicable to them

exterior.

Twenty years after its creation, it was still possible to recognize in the Museum of Man.

from the Northeast the clear presences, with demarcated territories, of the Museum of Anthropology,

of the Sugar Museum and the Museum of Popular Art. In other words: the merging of these three

museums that were only made possible by the breadth and the integrative power of imagination

musealfreyreana that, opposing the everyday document to the solemn monument, does not oppose the

from the past to the future, the "rustic man" or the "people" to the "lords and ladies of"

engine," but first, integrate them. This integration process is carried out to

starting from the perspective of the Casa-Grande.

 182

The Northeast Man Museum constitutes a type of regional narrative that

there is in the porch of the Casa-Grande and in the swing of the hammock its privileged point of

perspective. The slave quarters, the cane field, the popular fair, the terreiro of Xangô and the

the very labyrinths of the Casa-Grande are visited as if by a noble boy who

having studied abroad returns home and wants to revisit the region, wants to see toys and

friends, want to reintegrate all the ghosts of lost time and with them build a

new history.

Still around the Museum of the Man of the Northeast

In the so-called local and regional museums scattered around the world,

and seek to make large or small syntheses of the regions and localities where

there is a permanent tension between the local and the regional, between the regional and the

national, between the local and the global. This is not a problem specific to museums

classics - based on the trinomial: building, collection, and audience - it is also present

in ecomuseums or community museums - anchored in the ternary: region (or

territory), cultural heritage and community (or local society). It should be mentioned, by the way,

that ecomuseums have in regional museums a close ancestor.

In the Ecomuseum of Seixal and in the Work Museum of Setúbal, both in Portugal,

this problem is dramatically present in the desire of these institutions to be

"mirrors" of localities and being recognized as bearers of national value and

international prestige. In the case of the Ecomuseum of Santa Cruz, in Rio de Janeiro, the
 183

the situation is similar, with the aggravating factor that in the short and medium term the narcissistic gaze

may entail the loss of contacts with the national museological community and with the

problems of cultural policy that affect you directly. In cases like this, it is

common the development of practices of self-pity or victimization that end up

to produce immobilism and detachment regarding broader issues.

The anticipation of these embarrassments was what possibly led Freyre, when elaborating the

guidelines for the action of the Museu do Homem do Nordeste, trying to reject regionalism

museum-like diminished, in the following terms:

"When one says modern museum, one refers to a center for studies and research; and "

studies and research that cannot be confined to the limits of the province or the
region where the museum is located. In this case, would we have provincialism or

regionalism, not the good one, but the sterile one, which soon degrades into
autophagy, due to lack of contact or exchange between its research centers with
other centers of intellectual activity, artistic research or study
scientific: centers where studies similar to those taking place in
regional institutions of the type of the Nabuco Institute294 .

As can be inferred from what has been said above, Freyre understood the museum

as a research and education center, as a discursive field and producer of

interpretation, but not as a political arena, even though it was. So much so that, for

to survive, your museum project needed a constant political-cultural dialogue

with the leaders and professionals of museums and museology in the country. It was with that

spirit that took place in Recife, in 1976, during the military regime, with the support of

Ministry of Education and Culture, and promoted by the Joaquim Nabuco Institute of
 184

Social Research, the '1º National Meeting of Museum Leaders," where they spoke,

addressing the fundamental themes: Aloísio Magalhães295The Museum and National Culture

Lourenço Luiz Lacombe296Museums and Education; Augusto Carlos da Silva Telles297 –

Museum and Preservation of Cultural Heritage; Gerardo Brito Raposo da Câmara298 –

"Vocational Training" and Gilberto Freyre himself - "Museum and Research".

The document produced from this Meeting, known by the title of

Subsidies for the implementation of a Brazilian museological policy, sought to translate the

attempt to contribute from the Institute, in the field of museology, for a possible

National Culture Policy.

The museum conceived by Gilberto Freyre presented itself as a work, a

a document or an achievement of the human spirit. "In the Anthropology museums - he said

it - also expresses the knowledge of great masters; and perhaps, in certain cases, of a

more lively and dynamic than through conferences or courses299This

it would be the case of Paul Rivet who at the Museum of Man in Paris would have found his

better expression, 'the best of your achievements'; the same would have been attempted by

Roquete Pinto in the National Museum, in Rio de Janeiro, without having, however, achieved

whole success300.

The understanding of the museum institution as a work or ground of human expression

opens clues for the recognition that there is a certain narrative presented there, a

294
Freyre (1979/1980, p.42).
295
At the time, director of the National Center for Cultural Reference (CNRC), located in Brasília.
296
At the time, director of the Imperial Museum.
297
At that time, architect of the National Institute of Historical and Artistic Heritage.
298
At the time, director of the National Historical Museum.
299
Freyre (1979/1980, p. 12-13).
300
Same, p.13.
 185

speech about reality; that there a certain interpretation is produced of

socially relevant phenomena. Considering that this discourse and this interpretation

indicate a speech and vision, and that the museum field is open to other speeches and other

visions, the political arena dimension of this same terrain will also be understood.

what I want to emphasize is that the museum practices nourished by Freyre,

regardless of your will, they constitute a narrative field endowed with subjectivities,

they configure an interpretation center imbued with evaluative elements and delimit

a political arena loaded with tensions, from where the conflict, no matter how much one wishes, does not

can be banned for juggling.

Until the end of his life, Gilberto Freyre would maintain a faithful interest in museum themes.

In the mid-eighties he would write for a catalog project the text: "What is

museum of man? An example: The Museum of Man of the Brazilian Northeast301. In this

text, which remained unpublished until the year 2000, Freyre revisited, as usual, themes by

they have been discussed since the twenties; it mentioned national and international praise that the

The museum will receive; described collections; returned to the article from 1924; went through the Book of

Northeast; but took the opportunity to suspect a Eurocentric trend in museums like

the man, in Paris302, and to imply that the response from the Museum of Man

Northeast would be offering the problems of plastic illustration of the region, due to being

they are complex and difficult to solve, it would probably be incomplete303.

301
Freyre (2000, p.12-21).
302
Same, p.12.
303
Same, p.15.
 186

In 1984, the already established old man of Apipucos would hold an event at the Museum of Sacred Art.

from Pernambuco, in Olinda, the conference titled 'Culture and Museums'304and that would come to

to be, if not the last, one of your last interventions in the museum universe. With that

conference, Freyre provided important clues for the clarification of his imagination

museum

After reaffirming the educational role of museums and recognizing that many

they stop being necrophiles and become more vibrant and coexisting with the

visitors, Freyre highlighted the symbolic nature that they would be invested with

museum objects. The understanding of these objects as 'symbol-objects'305allows

the understanding that they are mediators between different worlds and times, between

subjects and diverse cultural experiences and, consequently, that museums are

likewise houses of symbolism or cultural mediation. Houses that allow themselves to be seen in

its three-dimensionality, however does not exhaust them. Museums require training

of the look. A look or a seeing - as Freyre indicated - capable of assimilating that which is

seen, "not only colors and shapes, but transmissions of knowledge, of messages, of

teachings, radiated by landscapes, by things, by trees, by streets, by houses, by

peoples.

In that same conference, the old man from Apipucos would remember one of his

trips through Europe and how upon entering one of those houses that provoke dreams it was

sent back to childhood:

304
Freyre (1985b).
305
Same, p.11.
 187

Once, in Nuremberg - said the octogenarian - I visited a museum of

toys. Wonders of trains, clowns, dolls, games, balls, of
wooden houses. I felt restored to my childhood days.

But one of my joys was to notice the way children behave

they playfully interacted with the displayed objects. As if they were almost touching

in them, the toys allowed themselves to be seen empathetically by

children306 .

In addition to what has already been examined, here is a key to understanding the

musealfreyreana imagination, a key that may be useful for understanding what

it has become customary to call it a museological gaze. In Freyre, the museal imagination,

configures from a special way of seeing and looking. See as one who touches, with whom

to empathize, to see with empathy, to see as one who imagines oneself in what is seen

and with the visa, one is dazzled.

We live immersed in a sea of symbolic objects with a peculiar social life,

these museable objects, although not musealized, identify us, characterize us,

favor our socialization, our communication, accompany our gestures, the

our ways and manners of being, loving, learning, teaching, knowing, and doing.

Beyond imagination

Apipucos Solar. The house where Gilberto Freyre lived the last forty-seven

years of his intense life is today named Casa-Museu Magdanela and Gilberto Freyre - to

306
Same, p.23.
 188

similarity to so many other houses (museums) scattered around the world. The old, the

sociologist-anthropologist, or social historian, or modernist-traditionalist, or regionalist-

universal, the founding father of the Institute and the Museum of the Man of the Northeast and, above all, the

poet and imaginative writer live there ironically seated, trapped, over a

old armchair surrounded by books on all sides. Sad end for someone at the end of life

he claimed to be a constructive anarchist. Sad end.

The house is filled with old rosewood furniture, china, wall sconces, and paintings of

Cícero Dias, Di Cavalcanti, Lula Cardoso Ayres, Pancetti, Vicente do Rego Monteiro and

many other artists. There are also family portraits there, including that of former slaves.

Each portrait and each piece of furniture has its own story, and the bed has its particular story, but the

the old man is there, trapped in the old armchair. Here and there appear the objects that recall

travels, in a special corner the many awards, all surrounded by books and he is there,

sitting in the old armchair. Free indeed is Magdalena, weaving like Penelope.

Weaving long carpets that freely circulate around the house. She has no bondage. Magdalena is

free. But equally free is the memory of those who visited and touched with their feet, with the

hands, with the lips and with the eyes - and that, therefore, contaminated - the aura of things

that are found there: Aldous Huxley, Jânio Quadros, Roberto Rosselini, Sérgio Buarque

from Holland, Robert Kennedy, Albert Camus, Mário Soares, Arnold Toynbee and so many others

others. Magdalena is free and therefore dreams, aligns worlds, joyfully circulates through hers

rugs, throughout all the rooms of the mansion and in the ecological garden.

Who would have, in a sort of revenge, wanted to imprison the old man of Apipucos?

a doll of questionable taste placed in a sitting position over your old one

armchair?
 189

For the student of museology who acted this way, it might be possible to evoke the

words that once were spoken by one who today finds himself imprisoned there:

The museology that agrees to present man, his life, his

culture, in solemnly static positions, betrays what it is, beyond science,

art. Art that is more agile in interpretation than merely descriptive307 .

307
Same, p.30.
 190

2.3. Darcy Ribeiro: museum, ethnicity and culture

Ci, the Mother of Things

She is the mother and the origin of things. The day, the fruits, the water, the fire, the rain, the

creatures, the canoes, the bush and the smile - everything has its respective mother. Ci - be it in what

it is essential for the conservation and perpetuation as it was for the

first production308 .

I evoke the mythical memory of Ci wanting to open a path with this.

approach with Darcy Ribeiro. Darcy lived intensely the protection, the beatings and the

mother's affection. He lived clinging to his mother who became a public school teacher and literacy educator

of recognized talent, becoming, in life, the name of a street, or rather, the name of

Avenue: Mestra Fininha Avenue. I evoke the memory of my mother for understanding that in

Darcy she has a special role, it was through her intermediation, as he himself noted, that

the educator was born in her309 .

For Gustavo Barroso and Gilberto Freyre, the father figure was a given.

common and long-lasting, in terms of physical life; for the first one,

the experience of the mother, who died seven days after childbirth, was a gap; for Darcy, the absence

The father was the differentiating factor. The father died at thirty-four when he was three.

308
Cascudo (1993).
309
Ribeiro (1997a, p.31).
 191

Happily - I would say later while ironizing fate - because I was not domesticated by it. And

Since I didn't have children, I never domesticated anyone.310 .

Raised and grown under the care of his mother, Darcy developed, over the course of

time, a peculiar way of looking at the world, in which there were present: a great

enchantment with the feminine of life, a desire to share experiences and riches,

a voluptuousness of freedom, a great passion for life and for people, an immense desire

to play at dribbling disease and inevitable death and to remain mischievous in the memory of

others and the things he did.

At one point, humorously reflecting on Eve, he informed his

interviewers about your new discovery: Eva was "the first revolutionary in history" and the

we must have "fundamental things", such as sex, communism, and death. "That's why -

I always want to honor Eva and I really like women.311 .

The presence of the feminine and of women in your life - as Helena observed.

Bomeny - constituted the key with which he opened all the windows: political, intellectual,

professionals, family members, domestic and emotional. "Because women personify the

seduction - this indeed is your passport to enter all worlds - and embody the

imaginary of passion, the yeast that shaped the personality of this

intellectual312.

The almost ethnographic description of Darcy's funeral, narrated by Zuenir Ventura,

evokes a Dionysian communion party, as if all those present were

310
Same, p.29.
311
Ribeiro (1997c, p.95-96).
312
Bomeny (2001, p.34-35).
 192

eager for an anthropophagic celebration: "Never has a funeral been seen so festive and

funny. Never laughed, sang, and drank so much in a cemetery, inside and around313 .

Dressed in the skin of the dead, he would continue in his duty of seducing, of

to outrage, to stir controversy and to invite everyone to live more and more life. "I am not talking about

name of no one. Nor of anything. / I am not the voice of any institution. / I speak only with the alone.

authority of being alive, / (...). / To all of you, I say: long live life314 .

The metaphor of skin is not gratuitous; it was created and used by Darcy to talk about the

multiplicity of professions, roles, and selves that he embodied throughout life. The first of

the ones he insisted on recalling were those of the son of a primary school teacher, the second was

from indigenous ethnologist, the third to educator, the fourth to politician, the fifth to

proscribed or exiled; the sixth one created in exile was that of a novelist and he would still wear the

This is the skin I have to display. In all and in each one

I have always exercised the same as myself, but also always varying.315 .

The metaphor of the skins is sometimes replaced by that of the spears that

poetically he imagined launching and embedding in the moon316There is, however, a drawback

in these metaphors317from which a danger of misunderstanding arises. A hurried reader

one could be led to think that the use of new skin would result in the loss of

function of the anterior skin. Or one could still believe - authorized by the creator of the metaphor

that the shedding of skins, in a manner similar to what happens with snakes,

would imply the radical abandonment of the old skin; or even that the skin that would only come to be

313
Ventura cited by Bomeny (2001, p. 35-36).
314
Ribeiro (1998, p.153-154).
315
Ribeiro (1995, p.303-311).
316
Ribeiro (1998, p.21).
317
The phallic character of these two metaphors: skins (of the snake) and spears thrown at the moon, in a study of another
nature deserves special attention.
 193

fully assumed in a future time, could no longer be somehow present

in a time past. The metaphor of the spears, adorned with a note of heroic bravery,

from my point of view, it is equally inconvenient and imprecise. The same reader, above

referred, one could be led to imagine that in the ethnologist's spear, there is no room for the

educator, that in the educator's spear there is no space for the reformist politician and that in the

In the politician's sphere, there is no space for the novelist and the poet.

Clearly, my suggestions are the following: 1ª that these metaphors

be accepted as an effort by the author of Maíra to understand and translate themselves, in a

a theme that for him was a whirlwind and a constant challenge, which was: to know-

being dissatisfied with oneself and dissatisfied with the standardized; 2ª that the acceptance of these

metaphors do not prevent the understanding that the poet, the novelist, the exiled, the politician,

the educator, the ethnologist, and the boy are not schizophrenic fragments, on the contrary, they are

I am without a defined border, I am one that mixes and that most of the time acts

simultaneously.

Admitting these two propositions as valid, I feel a little more at

desire to move forward. In any case, I must point out that I am aware of the challenge.

what represents the election of Darcy Ribeiro as a source of interest and investigation. Challenge

already anticipated and announced by Helena Bomeny, who recorded in the introduction of her

Sociology of a Disobedient: "If there is a reasonable consensus regarding Darcy, it is the

difficulty in dealing with this intellectual and political figure without controlling, step by step, the

many passionate, not impartial impressions, which have always provoked either of its faithful

admirers, those who had the greatest reservations about him318 .

318
Bomeny (2001, p.25).
 194

Throughout my research exercise, I was able to verify the observation of

Trees. When, at certain moments, I communicated to colleagues practicing museology

my interest in studying Darcy's relationship with the museum field, I received

fiery expressions of support and encouragement, as well as harsh and discontented criticisms of

the attention I intended to dedicate to the intellectual. On one hand, some claimed that the

Darcy's work in the field of museums needed to be publicized and recognized; on the other hand,

some claimed that he hated museums and that he would not have contributed anything to

this field is one that, therefore, did not deserve any attention. In both cases, what I could

to verify is that at the root of the expressions of support and the discontented criticisms were

passionate impressions, nothing impartial

Recognizing that Darcy's work is vast, complex, controversial and encompasses

differentiated fields, I opted, similar to what was done regarding Gustavo

Barroso and Gilberto Freyre, for focusing on what in it has a direct relation with the

the theme of museums. In this case, without disregarding written sources, I have an interest

especially in what he called "doings", among which I highlight the creation of

Museum of the Indian and the project of the Museum of Man, linked to the Federal University of

Minas Gerais, which did not come to fruition. These and others are sufficient evidence.

to help me advance in the examination of museal darcyan imagination.

Resuming the metaphor of skins. The Museum of the Indian, as will be seen later, was

created during the time when the author of O Mulovestia, preferably, the skin of

ethnologist. This statement, however, should not obscure the understanding of the Museum as

one of the arms of the indigenous policy of the former Indian Protection Service (SPI) and

much less its character as an educational institution, focused especially on

 195

children and youth audience. Strictly speaking, the political and educational dimensions of the Museum constitute

brands of origin that are still visible today.

According to the testimony of anthropologist Maria Elizabeth Brêa Monteiro, from the Sector

From the Museum of Indigenous Research, the work with schools, youth, and children is a hallmark.

very strong institutional, a kind of inheritance from Darcy:

And when the Museum somewhat neglected this area, it went badly, lost
public and importance, and I think it is recorded in the genre of the Museum that it
you have to cater to this audience and give them attention, there's no way to become a

erudite museum or something like that; it has to be a Museum, if possible

also erudite, but its origin is this: the reception of schools of various levels,
because according to Darcy that is how prejudices were being deconstructed; and I
I think it is, it’s kind of an extension of the school. The Museum can work.
as something fun and educational, because Darcy really liked this thing of
fun, things had to be fun and didn't need to be heavy and
chatbots to be well regarded or effective319 .

It is interesting to note that in the skin of the ethnologist who was interested in the creation of the Museum of

Indians were present, simultaneously, the educator, the politician, the novelist, and the poet.

imaginative, capable of being interested in the language of things, capable of collecting and

to musealize, as it actually did, collections of ceramics and painted leather from the indigenous people

Kadiweu - trip of 1948 - and plumage of the Urubu-kaapor - trip of 1950 -

identifying in these artifacts cultural expressions possessed of life, work, and beauty.

In fact - the man of many skins would confess - each object comes to be

319
Interview granted to the author in March 2003.
 196

caligraphically known by any other Indian. The true function of his

Achievements are about creating beauty, of which one is very proud.320.

I don't want to discuss concepts of beauty, I just want to acknowledge that there are also

poetry and emotion of dealing with the things in museums that are repurposed and that,

for this reason, they resemble what Manuel de Barros called "inutensílios".

Dealing with things and composing narratives with them does not mean speaking to things, but

talking through things with oneself and with others. This dimension of poetic narrative

can be observed, for example, in the testimonies of some Ticuna teachers

Regarding the tribal museum, located in Alto-Solimões (AM): for Valdomiro da Silva 'the

Magüta Museum is a document; it is a house that has music; it is a place to look

drawings; it's a place for everyone to appreciate; it's a house of joy for the Ticuna;

for Liverino Otávio "the Magüta Museum serves to guard our future"; for Diodato

The museum is "a place of everything; it is a place to color thought" and,

finally, for Horácio Ataíde, the 'museum is the place that holds the things of the world'321 .

"Casa de alegria". "Guardião do futuro". "Lugar para colorir o pensamento".

"Place that secures the things of the world". In my understanding, these expressions

founded on the museum imagination of Ticuna teachers constitute a challenge for the

contemporary Brazilian museums and, particularly, for the Museum of the Indian. And perhaps,

To achieve all this, it is necessary to accurately invoke, in partnership with the muses, the mythical presence of Ci,

Mother of Things.

]320Ribeiro (1997a, p.184-185).

321
Freire (2003, p.250-251).
 197

From the skin of a son of a bitch and other skins

The year 1922, marked by the celebrations of the centenary of independence,

due to the event of the Modern Art Week, by the founding of the Communist Party of

Brazil, for the uprising of the 18 from the Copacabana Fort, for the defense of the master's thesis of

Gilberto Freyre and the creation of the National Historical Museum by Gustavo Barroso, was

also the year of birth of Marcos Darcy Silveira Ribeiro, on October 26, at

Cedro Factory Farm, in Montes Claros, Minas Gerais.

Second child of Josefina Augusta da Silveira Ribeiro - primary school teacher - and

Reginaldo Ribeiro dos Santos - manager of the textile industry - Darcy started to

childhood in Montes Claros, at the maternal grandparents' house, where the mother had moved to

after the death of his father, still young. There among boyish pranks, church matters and the

From his mother’s lessons, he learned to read. He attended the School Group where his mother worked and

At the age of twelve, he entered the Diocesan Gymnasium.

Still in Montes Claros, around the age of fourteen, he developed a taste for reading and

through literature: "I read all the novels that circulated around the city from hand to hand, including

some with my father's signature. Then, I read almost the entire library of Uncle Plínio. They were

hundreds of books, including the works of Alan Kardec and other spiritualists, that me

impressed a lot322 .

Uncle Plínio - "intelligent doctor" and "the most cultured man in the city" - not only

inspired readings, was also the model of the professional whose skin Darcy wanted to wear,

322
Ribeiro (1997a, p.37).
 198

when, in 1939, he moved to Belo Horizonte and enrolled in the Faculty of

Medicine. Being a doctor - I would confess later - was "my wish and my mom's"323.

At the university, the attempt to date medicine didn't work out. In 1943,

dropped the course due to a lack of vocation, but before that, flirted with the classes of

college of philosophy and the college of law, made many friends, dated a little,

he tried his first steps in literature by scribbling tales and poems and started his

militancy in the Communist Party of Brazil.

During this period of university studies, after a conversation with the

friend Hélio Pelegrino decided to dive into the positivist church of Rio de Janeiro. In

Rio was enthralled first by the sea, and then came to know the rational order of the temple.

positivist. From that time, his admiration for Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon,

"the chair of astronomy at the Military School to practice positivism in

jungles" among indigenous peoples324

.

The choice for communism came after the Nazi army took Paris and,

arm in arm with literature, after reading the biography of Prestes, The Knight

of Hope, written by Jorge Amado. But, integralism managed to awaken its

attention:

I ran a great risk of falling into the hands of Plínio [and Barroso, I add
on my own account], because your people walked around with their hands full of books

novel. Stories scandalously telling what the Republic was

Brazilian. Vehement complaints about the suffering of Jewish bankers
we inflict on the world. The despotism of the English empire, which had taken over half

323
Same, p.72.
324
Same, p.76-77.
 199

of humanity only to explore it. Much more, highly informative, about

the minerals of Brazil, the oil and other misfortunes325 .

The experience of temporary indecision between integralism and communism, between

the right and left were not exclusive to Darcy. The black activist Abdias of

Birth, for example, reports that in the thirties, it was very difficult for a young person.

coming from the countryside to orient oneself in political matters. It was a puzzle.

Everything was happening in a confusing way and there were not many contacts with people politically.

clarified.

"Reflecting today, now - testified Abdias -, it is easy to say that the

the right path was to the left. But that's where it is. The thing is a bit complicated. (...)

I walked all around, and I had problems both on the right and on the left.
At that moment of perplexity, even before leaving the army, I already
"to enlist in the integralist movement!"326 .

In the integralist movement, the appeal to the national, the opposition to capitalism and to a

The determined bourgeois model exerted great fascination over young university students.

Furthermore, there was a significant encouragement from its educators for the study of

political, economic, and social life of Brazil. For all this, it was not so easy for the young

eager for political action to recognize the conservative, totalitarian, and racist nature of this

movement.

In 1944, Darcy moved to São Paulo and, with a scholarship,

enrolled at the Free School of Sociology and Politics (ELSP), where he graduated, in

325
Same, p.79.
326
Birth (1976, p.23-52).
 200

1946, with a specialization in ethnology. It was during this period that he came into contact with

foreign professors such as Donald Pierson, Émille Willems, and Herbert Baldus;

Brazilian professors like Mario Wagner Vieira da Cunha, Almeida Júnior and Sérgio

Buarque de Holanda and students, such as Oracy Nogueira, Florestan Fernandes, Egon

Damage, among others.

From Piersom's sociology, heir to the so-called Chicago school, learned the

American academic speech, some operational techniques of research

field" and wanted to retain, with greater interest, the professionalism, seriousness, and faith with which

the master was devoted to the profession of researcher, 'full of fear of theoretical interpretations

comprehensive327It was by the hands of Donald Pierson and Mario Wagner Vieira da Cunha -

involved in a project to produce 'a critical bibliography of literature and the

"Brazilian essay with sociological interest" - which delved into attentive reading of

Brazilian romances and studies. "While the social science classes dragged me

Outside in splendid theoretical constructions, that bibliography pulled me inward.

from Brazil and its cultural traits, providing us material to think about ourselves, as a people and as

History328 .

His greatest enchantment, however, was with Professor Herbert Baldus, 'the

Prussian poet and passionate ethnologist of our Indians." The trust between the student

and the master, besides being reciprocal, was lasting. From the romantic poetry and the ethnology of

Baldus, Darcy highlighted, among other things, the ideal of studying the human through observation

directly from the lives of indigenous peoples of Brazil329 .

327
Ribeiro (1997a, p. 125).
328
Same, pp. 124-125.
329
Same, p.125-126
 201

During his years of study at the Free School, the boy from Montes Claros wore the

the skins of attentive student and task-oriented political activist, fascinated by the fields of

possibilities that opened up before her eyes from both perspectives.

From that time - as Bomeny noted - it preserved not only an intellectual heritage and

a collection of experiences that was nurtured throughout life, also kept 'the

marks a confrontation that could never be resolved between academic activity and the

militancy330Swinging between the communist demands for revolutionary action and the

academic requirements of neutrality and scientific rigor, he would live the years in São Paulo.

Later it would dramatically conclude: "The sum of political activism with the legacy

Brazilianist and the interest in literature prevented me from becoming a

complete academic, perfectly idiotic. Those who only serve to put semicolons.

in the texts of your foreign masters331 .

During this period as a social sciences student, there is, to my knowledge, a

explicit reference to your interest in the universe of museums. Unlike

Gilberto Freyre, who had been advised by Boas to complete his studies in anthropology in

lengthy visits and observations in specialized museums, the student Darcy does not

he/she demonstrated a particular enchantment with these subjects.

I cannot say that he did not know about and had not visited the Museum.

Paulista, for example, in the company of Baldus, of Sérgio Buarque de Holanda or of

some other teacher or course colleague, but if these experiences happened, they did not

they were, however, able to mobilize their passion, nor to deserve a record of

330
Bomeny (2001, p.42).
331
Ribeiro (1997a, p.143).
 202

memory in your Confessions. Likewise, there is no longer, at this moment, any

remarkable reference to a possible interest in preserving traditions or celebrating a cult of

longing and the past. The hometown of Montes Claros, I would say in a letter to a friend,

It's a photograph on the wall. But it doesn't hurt332 .

Darcy did not seem destined for the nostalgia of lost time. His interest

I was focused on the present and was nourished by the utopia of a better world, more

solidarity and humane. The Communist Party made him an 'heir to the human drama'333,

but this drama was unfolding today with eyes on tomorrow. Knowing the past was

just a way to further fuel the desire for change in the present.

I do not intend to naturalize the testimonies of those who clearly adored the

controversy and all kinds of affection, praise, and adoration; from those who had a behavior

narcissist, liked to feel the center of attention and skillfully played the game of

seductions and contradictions; however, I acknowledge that even under suspicion, its records of

memories are important for the examination of your museum imagination. In this sense, even

the narrative that may eventually distort what happened is in my field of

interests, since I do not yearn to understand the supposed truth of an event

historical, but rather the repercussions of some events on the configuration of

called the museum imagination of Darcyniana.

Certainly, during student life, creating museums was not part of the plans.

of Darcy. Still, his political perspective, his interest in the world

contemporary and its self-perception as a 'responsible heir to human destiny'334 ,

332
Same, p.104.
333
Ribeiro (1997c, p.95).
334
Bomeny (2001, p.39-42).
 203

they will become seeds that will also germinate in the ground of your museal imagination.

in this context, which, from my perspective, should be the setting for the creation of the Museum of the Indian,

a museum that still works with contemporary societies and not with 'fossils'

human species living335.

The plans to pursue a master's degree in São Paulo and then proceed to a doctorate.

at the University of Chicago were abandoned. The desire to transform into a

The professional revolutionary was frustrated when the Central Committee of the Communist Party

dismissed his activism. Without a scholarship and without financial support, the future author

the novel Wild Utopia needed a new destination. One of the possibilities was

secretary Roberto Simonsem, who had just created SENAI; the other was to get involved in a

documentation project, through field research, of cultural heritage

technology that the Portuguese brought to Brazil during the process of

colonization. This project would be developed by the Historical Heritage Service and

National Artistic (SPHAN) directed by Rodrigo Melo Franco de Andrade, since 1936.

As an alternative route, he still had a letter from Professor Herbert.

Baldus recommending him to General Rondon for the position of ethnologist of the Council

National Indian Protection (CNPI), to which the SPI was linked. To astonishment and

surprise from friends and family this was the choice embraced by the newly graduated young man.

The personal meeting with Rondon took place in 1947, in Rio de Janeiro. At the time,

the young Darcy was introduced to the old positivist's office by Colonel Amílcar, his

loyal assistant and biographer. In addition to reading aloud Baldus's passport letter, Amílcar

Darcy subjected him to a series of questions. Rondon would listen to everything silently, upright and

335
Ribeiro (1955b, p.2).
 204

rigid, but - according to Darcy's testimony - "made a face that he liked it." Even

liking what he heard, the old general could not help but comment that the anthropologists

they seemed interested in the Indians as carcasses to analyze and write their theses.

that Darcy, aligning himself with the baldusian ideal, would have confirmed his connection with a

solidary anthropology and 'interested in Indians as people'336At this point the old man

the indigenist should have already been seduced by the young ethnologist.

Aware of her seductive power, Darcy who had prepared for the

I knew by the end of the interview that I would be hired: "Rondon would request the

Agriculture minister who would admit me as a naturalist. There was no other category in

public service for those who were going to study Indians in the woods. There was only that name, given

habitually to orchid and butterfly collectors337 .

Hired as a collector (of orchids and butterflies) and taking on the skin of

ethnologist Darcy would actively participate for almost ten years in the SPI and would live with

I like the paternal friendship of Rondon. That was a time of long seasons in villages.

indigenous people, but it was also a time: to date and marry Berta Gleiser; to elaborate

reports; write and publish books; receive awards; participate in conferences and

indigenous conferences; getting to know other countries in Latin America, namely:

Peru, Guatemala, and Mexico; to assume, in 1952, the leadership of the Studies Section of the SPI;

organize, in 1953, the Museum of the Indian; travel to Europe, in 1954, at the invitation of

International Labour Organization (ILO); created in 1955, together with Eduardo

Galvão, Roberto Cardoso de Oliveira and others, the first Improvement Course in

Cultural Anthropology (CAAC) of Brazil and participate, between 1952 and 1957, with the brothers

336
Ribeiro (1997a, p.149).
337
Same.
 205

Vilas Boas, Noel Nutels, and Eduardo Galvão, from the formulation of the plan for the creation of the Park

Indigenous from Xingu.

When Darcy traveled to Europe for the first time, his interest in

The museum universe was already agreed upon: the Museum of the Indian had been created the previous year.

Thus, nothing is more understandable than some observation visits and studies to the

European museums. He passed through Geneva, Bern, Frankfurt, Freiburg and then headed

in Paris. It is not known if he visited Swiss and German museums, but in Paris he made a point of

to visit the Museum of Man, where, unlike Gilberto Freyre, he was horrified.

He would take advantage of this passionate horror at various moments, he would talk about it in his

Confessions, in her book of poems: Eros and Thanatos in some lectures. In one of those

lectures held at the Museum of the First Reign - House of the Marchioness of Santos -,

time when he accumulated the positions of vice-governor and state secretary of science and

the culture of the government of Leonel Brizola surprised the audience and generated some embarrassment

talking incessantly, for almost forty minutes, about the buttocks of three hottentots

mummified that I had seen in the Museum of Man and of his horror with the speech

expographic work carried out, riddled with racial prejudice338.

As if his critical view on the Eurocentrism of the Museum of

Paris man, Darcy had a disagreement with one of the employees of the Institution:

"I also had an unpleasant fight. It's just that I had brought about two hundred"

photos from our files for them. I handed over the photographs and asked what

338
The denunciation of racist practices present in the Musée de l'Homme in Paris, evidenced in a way
emblematic in these mummified Hottentot women, was not an exclusivity of Darcy. She also
it appears in the specialized literature of the first half of the 20th century. When visiting the Museum of Man, in
In 2002, I did not find the referred hotentot women on display, but I noted that racist practices
continue in force.
 206

I had ordered from them - reproductions of photos they had of the mantles
Tupinambá of 1500. The young man handed me the photographs along with the bill for me to

I was furious. If I had to pay that bill for three photographs, how
I was going to give my things back? So I took them, removed the ones I had taken, and left.
pay the bill. The man was astonished, looking at me and talking to me. I did not
I said, I brought the photographs back to Rio339.

On that same trip, Darcy passed in front of the Museum for the first time.

Louvre, gazed for a long time at the sculpture known as the Winged Victory of Samothrace which, in the

occasion, stayed at the entrance, but did not dare to cross the threshold of the mystery: "I decided then

do not come in, that day or never again. He told me: 'People come here to stay

dumbfounded. If I enter, can I also come out dumbfounded?340.

These and other stories served to feed folklore within the museum context.

that Darcy had an aversion to museums. In my understanding, not

it was about antipathy towards any and every museum, as evidenced by the Indian Museum, the

Carnival Museum, the France-Brazil House and the project of the Museum of Man for the

Federal University of Minas Gerais; this was indeed an indignation in

regarding conservative politics and its elitist, imperialist, ethnocentric character,

patrimonialist and necrophiliac of some of these institutions.

Even criticizing the Museum of Man in Paris, he did not miss visiting it.

many other times, just as he did not fail to visit other museums and dedicate a lot

time at the Museum of Arts and Popular Traditions, created by George Henri Rivière.

339
Ribeiro (1997a, p.214).
340
Same.
 207

In 1957, after an institutional crisis, Darcy distanced himself from the SPI and the Museum.

of the Indian, but remained loyal to the old marshal341I visited Rondon to provide accounts

when I left the Indian Protection Service. Eduardo Galvão left with me, too.

angry with what was being implemented there. (...) I made other visits to Rondon already at his house.

When his death occurred, I was called by his daughter, Dona Maria, to be present at the

passing342 .

Strictly speaking, Darcy never completely disconnected from the Museum of the Indian. Like a father

zealous, he would return numerous times and would follow - sometimes closely, sometimes from afar - with

attention and interest the drama and political fate of the Institution. In 1992, he and Berta

Ribeiro was a founding partner of the Friends of the Museum of the Indian Association and

they respectively assumed the positions of president and vice president of their Council

Advisory.

Maria Elizabeth Brêa Monteiro, who met Darcy in 1978, at the time when

he intended to resume an old project of gathering demographic information

about indigenous groups, supports the previous statement:

He never distanced himself too much from all his projects, including the
Museum, and the impression I had of Darcy is that he was opening new fronts,
but always maintained some emotional bond, of some other nature, with the
his old projects, not turning his back. And I think that despite him not having children
he felt like a father to all these projects, which he never abandoned in any way
or another; for he always had an eye for it and looked at it as much as possible,
with what I could343 .

341
In 1955, Rondon received the honors of marshal through the National Congress.
342
Ribeiro (1997a, p.151).
343
Interview granted to the author in March 2003.
 208

Even though the paternal figure of Rondon dominates the garden and the imagination of the Museum

of the Indian, to the point of his mortuary mask being kept as a kind of relic

magical, powerful, and protective, remembering and challenging the very positivist thought;

even though there are resistances to Darcy's political and scientific positions; even though

there are those who want to question your status as a founding father of the Museum; still

thus, your passionate memory is embedded there, the navel of your museum-like imagination

it is there, reminding that the museum has power, that the museum has educational commitments

with children and young people, with whom the museum has political-social commitments

indigenous peoples and that he was born from the womb of these commitments.

Around the ethnographic museums in Brazil

Even in encyclopedic museums, often focused on the field of

natural history, there was, especially in the second half of the 19th century, a place for the

collections and ethnographic and anthropological studies, the construction of museums capable of

articulate specific speeches and dedicate oneself specifically to the problems of

ethnology and anthropology is, in Brazil, a phenomenon of the 20th century.

While in Europe the ethnographic museums organized in the 19th century,

they leaned towards producing speeches about the people from 'overseas', or about a

colonial and imperialist museums; in Brazil, the issue has been and continues to be another
 209

order of problems. In the Brazilian case, "the requirements related to alterity have acquired

from an early age specific outlines344 .

What was built in Brazilian ethnographic and anthropological museums as well

it was a speech about an 'other', but it was mostly about an 'other'

internal to the nation or contained within the national territory. One could say that the museums

Brazilian ethnographers began to function as a mediation instrument of

nearby interests, although not always convergent. As Mariza G. S. highlighted.

Peirano: "The fact that indigenous research is carried out on national territory indicates

less financial resource problems - an argument that should also be considered - and

but the choice of a subject of study that presents itself or blends with a

concern with differences that are cultural and/or social (...)345 .

The Indian Museum, for example, would not serve solely as a way to

official presentation of the 'Indian' to the child, the young person, and the adult audience, it would serve

also as a space for negotiating the participation of the 'Indian' in Brazilian social life;

the main conditioning factor, in this case, would be the historical context of museum practice of

mediation.

These considerations recognize that museums in Brazil are not institutions

popular and are far from being a mass phenomenon, aim to underline the

importance of studies dedicated to your demiurgy and trajectory. Two moments can be

underlined in the trajectory of Brazilian ethnographic museums: at first,

they are places of building otherness, where trained professionals (especially

anthropologists, educators, and museologists) represent the "other" through objects

344
Peirano (1999, p.226)
345
Same, p.232.
 210

supposedly capable of synthesizing "cultural totalities"; in a second moment, they

they are places of cultural appropriation and the construction of identities and subjectivities.

Social groups, represented as 'others' in the previous narratives, begin to speak in the

first person and presenting their own viewpoints about their cultures. In that

direction, museum professionals adopt a new negotiation stance, making-

co-participants of the museum mediation.

The first moment lasted from the post-war period to the eighties, when the

the emergence of the interests of so-called minorities reshaped the role of museums

ethnographic. The second began in the 1980s, having been intensified in the years

recent. An example of this new role of the museum as a mediator and promoter of

construction of identities and as an institution that promotes respect for diversity

cultural can be found in the Museum of Folklore, more specifically in the Room of

Popular Artist (SAP), a mediation space between popular artists and the public

consumer of a large metropolis, Rio de Janeiro. Along this path, the Museum

becomes a place of dual mediation, between the construction of the self and the representation of

outro, between the artist (and their community) and a new emerging audience. In the case of

Museum of the Indian, its restructuring processes and experience can be cited.

recent from the Wajãpi exhibition that was conceived and mounted by anthropologists, museologists,

educators and architects, in partnership with the Wajãpi indigenous community.

Thus, by focusing on the Museum of the Indian, I am aware that I am dealing with

an institution that emerged in the fifties, continues alive and facing,

her way, the challenges of today, challenges that force her to operate with interests and

dynamics previously unforeseen. This awareness was also present when

 211

I dealt with the territories of expression of the museum imagination of Gustavo Barroso and Gilberto

Freyre.

A museum created on 'Indigenous Peoples Day' and within an indigenist policy

By decision of the participants of 1oInter-American Indigenous Congress

held in Mexico, in 1940, April 19 was chosen as a milestone of

memory of the 'American Indian.' Three years later, the Brazilian government, through a

decree-law, officially established the mentioned date as "Indian Day". According to

testimony of then General Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon, published in 1943, in

Public Service Magazine: the highlighted date, besides marking the day of installation of

referred Congress,

coincides with the birthday of President Getúlio Vargas, who, after Nilo
Peçanha has done more for the indigenous cause in the country, always honoring it.
this Council346and the Indian Protection Service (SPI) in its resolutions
related to the defense and protection of our (sic) indigenous people347.

346
It is the National Council for the Protection of Indians - an advisory and regulatory body - created in 1939 and
linked to the Ministry of Agriculture.
347
Rondon cited by Adalberto Mário Ribeiro (1943, p. 58-81).
 212

It is not meaningless the special deference of Rondon to these two heads of state.

On one hand, the foundations of Brazilian indigenous policy were laid during the short

Nilo Peçanha's government (1909-1910), with the creation, in 1910, of the SPI, which had in

Rondon himself, your founder, your first director, and your great ideologue; for

It was during the long Vargas period, including the governments of Getúlio Vargas.

(1930-1945 and 1951-1954) and the government of Eurico Gaspar Dutra (1946-1951) which, as if

You know, he was a Varguist candidate; it was during this long period - it should be repeated - that the

the indigenous policy of the SPI gained visibility, depth, and roots in social life

Brazilian.

In the 1940s, ethnographic studies intensified at the SPI. This dates back to

the period of the creation of the Studies Section, in 1942, with the objectives of documenting through

of ethnological and linguistic research, cinematic and sonographic recordings, all

348
the aspects of indigenous cultures and, at the same time, scientifically guide the

"protectionist" actions of the SPI. Likewise, the hiring dates back to this same period.

of professionals specially trained in the fields of ethnology, musicology, of

museology, cinematography, and linguistics, as well as the constitution and organization

of an expressive collection of photographs, films, sound recordings, and diverse artifacts.

Among the responsibilities of the Studies Section was, since 1942, the suggestion for the

the creation of a museum, which would only come to fruition 11 years later349. Thus, on the day

April 19, 1953, as part of the official celebrations of 'Indian Day', by

348
Paula and Gomes (1983, p.10).
349
Rondinelli (1997, p.16).
 213

initiated by Darcy Ribeiro, was inaugurated within the framework of the Studies Section of the SPI, with

backed by the ancestry and respectability of the old Rondon, the Museum of the Indian.

The newspaper Correio da Manhã, on April 21, in its first section, mentioned-

about the event and informed that in addition to three exhibition rooms, the Museum had

of a library, a record store, and a movie screening room. The description

The journalistic coverage of the Museum was done in the following terms:

In the first of the rooms, there is a gigantic panel, dominating the entire wall.
from the funds where the masks used in the celebrations of the rites were placed
various tribes, with identification of their origins. It still exists in the same
I set up a display case where sculptures (dolls and small animals) are exhibited.
shaped by the women of the Carajás tribe, with white clay from Araguaia.
Photographic documentaries of uses and customs are presented on the walls.
indigenous people of Central Brazil. In the main hall of the Indian Museum are the
collections of indigenous networks, magnificent handmade works, feather embroidery
of birds, and also, the reproduction of interior scenes of the malocas. In a
The works of pottery were placed on the platform of this salon.350.

This same publication reported that during the inauguration ceremony of

The institution, whose direction would be under Darcy Ribeiro, was attended by, among others,

other people, the old Rondon, the director of the SPI, José Maria da Gama Malcher and the

director of the Paulista Museum, the ethnologist Herbert Baldus.

In the previous year, Darcy had taken over the leadership of the Studies Section of the SPI and in

shortly resized its operation: encouraging activities of

350
Correio da Manhã, Tuesday, first section, p.15, April 21, 1953.
 214

research; reorganizing and updating the library and the film-photographic archive,

expanding the sonographic registration sector; increasing exchange with institutions

national and international and strengthening contact with old allies such as Oracy

Nogueira, Egon Schaden, Eduardo Galvão, Herbert Baldus and others. The report of the Section

of Studies regarding the year 1952 reported the forecast for the creation of a museum

"equipped with modern facilities" and also informed that what existed until then was

a simple deposit where the ethnographic material collected over ten years of activities

It was merely preserved.351In January 1953, the project to adapt the building

from Mata Machado street to the museum function, created by architect Aldary Toledo, already

it was concluded with the desire to represent "an innovation in the technique of museology of

"Brazil." According to the author of the report:

The Museum of the Indian was planned in all details to function

with rotating thematic exhibitions in combination with the photographic archive, the
cinema screening room and the auditorium. In this way, the visitor will have
opportunity to appreciate in the windows products from the industry of an indigenous tribe,
understanding its use and distribution through photographs, maps, and diagrams
and also to see in movies scenes of the lives of those same Indians captured under the
guidance from ethnologists, in addition to listening to their music.

In addition to these outreach activities for the general public, the Museum
it will serve as a research center providing scholars with solutions to problems
indigenous people the opportunity to examine the collection of artifacts, consult the archives

cinema-photographic, the nightclub and, also, to use, in the same place, a

specialized library352 .

351
Ribeiro (1952).
352
Same.
 215

Despite the news articles, the work plans, and the reports from the Section of

Studies of the SPI, the cameraman Nilo Veloso who collaborated with the SPI since 1942,

declared in 1985, in an interview with anthropologist Cláudia Menezes, that the Museum

the Indian started at the Benjamin Constant Institute, in Praia Vermelha, in the same year of

creation of the Study Section. In his testimony, Veloso stated that the Museum was

like a son, whom he saw born and raised.

It's a curious thing - said the cameraman - they created the legend that
It was Darcy Ribeiro who created the Museum of the Indian...

(...) This business that I founded or did not found, I did found, is
In my conscience, the name that appears matters little. He was born.

There was no founder (to receive money, buy parts, assemble). The
The Indian Museum did not have a day or hour. It was a process that led to what it is.

today353.

Even though Nilo Veloso's testimony does not change the course of my investigation.

I decided, due to the strength of his statements, to examine a little more what

there was no SPI in terms of museum practices prior to the official inauguration year of

Museum. In this sense, I was able to verify that there has been a registry book since 1949,

organized by Geraldo Pitaguary - museologist of SPI, trained by the Museum Course

National Archive - intended for the record of the material culture collection acquired by

Study section for collection or donation. In addition, there are reports from Pitaguary,

353
Interview granted by Nilo Veloso to anthropologist Cláudia Meneses [Museum of the Indian Archive], on 2
January 1985.
 216

dated from 1950, in which, signing as the curator in charge of the Museum, he

indicated the existence of practices of exhibition outside the walls, lending of collections for

individuals and visits from students and military personnel.

These data seem to prove the existence of a museological activity prior to

in 1953, but still, it seems undeniable to me that these activities constituted

just a kind of museum embryo, which would only gain broad development and only

would be assumed institutionally and publicly after the year 1953. The role of Darcy

Ribeiro in this context, in my view, should not be minimized. As a father

founder or adoptive father, he was the intellectual responsible for the organization and

institutionalization of the Museum of the Indian. It is due to its museum imagination the character

modern of the Institution and its profile as a research and education body, linked

organically to the so-called 'indigenous cause'.

It is worth noting that the emergence of the Museum of the Indian in the Brazilian museum scene

came with a significant differential compared to national institutions

congeners. For the first time, a museum unit emerged that explicitly took on

and without reservation its political, social, and educational role. Thus, it was emerging in Brazil,

with support from a state public policy, a modern museum in terms

museographic, but, at the same time, misaligned with the museological discourse of the

oligarchies and that clearly, or rather, passionately positioned itself in favor of a

cause. According to museologist Marília Duarte Nunes: The 'indigenous cause' was the very
 217

"reason for existence" of the Museum, which had among its objectives: "to combat"

prejudices or stereotypes against the Indian354 .

The study of the trajectory of the Museum of the Indian, however, indicates that many times it

was forced to fight for its own institutional survival, frequently

threatened. It is as if over the Museum itself, against the grain of its struggle, there installed a

preconceived image of an expendable institution. The traumatic relocation of headquarters in

the seventies, for example, is an emblematic moment of this struggle of yours for

survival. After the creation of the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) and the fire of

a large part of the documentation from the old SPI, both events dating back to 1967, the Museum

was thanked, already in the seventies, for abandoning the headquarters it had occupied since its

inauguration, on Mata Machado street, next to Maracanã. The stated reason for the

the abandonment of its former headquarters was the construction of the Metro. According to Darcy's testimony

Ribeiro:

(...) the power that this group [the subway constructors] had was so great that
they would expropriate any building, anything, and then they thought about doing a
station near Maracanã, something like that, they thought it would be underneath
Museum. But the station didn't pass there, the Metro passed beside355 .

354
Nunes (1983, p.7)
355
Interview with Darcy Ribeiro, conducted by the team of the Indian Museum, [Indian Museum Archive], in
1995.
 218

Today, the building on Mata Machado street is in ruins and the Indian Museum occupies,

since 1978, a small two-story house 356of the 19th century, located on Palm Street, in

Botafogo neighborhood (RJ). Surprisingly, the Museum has been facing and overcoming

difficulties, to the point of becoming a strong reference for researchers and

interested in indigenous issues, for regional museological initiatives and for the

indigenous peoples themselves regarding the preservation of their cultural heritage,

its memory, of its history and of its territory357 .

A museum fighting against prejudice: the first steps and other steps

The field of institutionalization of cultural heritage and museums in Brazil

went through, as seen, great transformations during the so-called Vargas Era.

These transformations, however, did not have a single ideological orientation. Ideas

different and not always convergent coexisted side by side and contested control of

institutional spaces and political orientations. The suggestion is that these disputes for

spaces and specific fields of production of heritage, memory, and culture do not

they implied threats to the constituted power; on the contrary, they expanded its scope of

356
The building was constructed in 1880 for the residence of the family of João Rodrigues Teixeira, a wealthy businessman.
the food industry of Rio de Janeiro. In 1940, it was sold by the heirs of the businessman to the
Union / Ministry of the Interior (MINTER). From 1956 to 1964, it housed the Higher Institute of
Brazilian Studies (ISEB). After the extinction of ISEB, it was occupied by MINTER and the Rondon Project.
357
In 2002, the Indian Museum published, under the coordination of Sônia Otero Coqueiro, the catalog Peoples
Indigenous people in Southern Bahia: Indigenous Post Caramuru-Paraguaçu (1910-1967), Collection Fragments of
History of Indigenism, 1. It is an expressive set of documentary references about the people.
Pataxó Hãhãhãe is a fundamental tool in this people's struggle for the reconquest and defense of their rights.
terraces.
 219

alliances. Thus, the same New State that established, in 1937, the Heritage Service

National Historical and Artistic Heritage (SPHAN), handing it over to the leadership of the modernists,

prestigious the National Historical Museum that was under the guidance of Gustavo

Barroso, representative of the conservative forces, also honored the Service of

Protection for the Indians (SPI), handed over to the humanist soldier Cândido Mariano da Silva

Rondon. These references highlight the existence of at least three different

political orientations and the production of three different narratives about heritage, culture,

memory and national identity. Different, but not contradictory.

As was seen, the transformations that the heritage fields were undergoing

Museums in Brazil accelerated after the Second World War; especially after the

creation, in 1946, within the framework of UNESCO, of the International Council of Museums

(ICOM). Publications have multiplied, new institutions eager to emerge have appeared.

establish a differentiated way of contacting the public and actions were developed

of cultural extension and educational nature. It was during this period that the activities of the Section

of the SPI studies were strengthened, resulting in the creation of the Museum of the Indian that,

From its earliest steps, it would articulate with modern trends in museology.

The news about the creation of the Indian Museum spread quickly, both in

national as well as international scope. The Activity Report of 1954, signed by

Geraldo Pitaguary indicates that this was a year

(...) significant for the life of the Museum of the Indian, not only for the work carried out,

like the personalities that visited him, such as coaches and directors of
Brazilian and foreign museums. The opinions expressed by these visitors,
 220

they were the most enthusiastic and this is the best reward for the employees of
Museum for the work and dedication with which they have performed their task358 .

Among the distinguished visitors, the said Report highlighted:

Mr. George H. Riviéré, from the Museum of Arts and Popular Traditions in Paris and
Director of the UNESCO International Council of Museums; Mr. De Angeles
d'Orssat, General Director of Antiquities and Arts of Italy; Mr. Paul Rivet,
founder of the Museum of Man in Paris, as well as directors and curators of the
Museums of England, United States, Sweden, Spain, Switzerland, Austria,
Germany, Mexico, and several countries in South America (...)359 .

After visiting the Museum, G. H. Rivière noted, in 1954, his

comment in the Guest Book: 'Not the Indian Museum, but the Museum of the Indian;'

the title had seized you with this noble intention, which everything that follows confirms. An achievement

unprecedented, built on taste, science, and heart360 .

No matter how kind it was, Rivière's comment struck without subtleties on the

main and always renewed challenge of the Museum, which is to remain as a

institutional process whose specificity was less in representing

museographically different ethnic groups, even though this representation was a

condition of the institutional nature, and much more in constituting itself as an instrument

358
Activity Report of the Indian Museum, manuscript from 1954.
359
The same
360
Visitor Book of the Indian Museum. Date of visit: August 11, 1954.
 221

of the so-called 'indigenous cause'. This challenge has been constituted over the last

fifty years in a permanent museum tension.

The year 1954, despite the political crisis that culminated in August with the suicide

President Getúlio Vargas was fundamental for the consolidation of the Museum of the Indian.

which had its collection increased by about "a thousand new pieces, mostly Karajá dolls"

besides 'small donations' 'made by visitors', what, in Geraldo's opinion

Pitaguary, "demonstrates the interest that the Museum has awakened."361

In its early steps, the activities of the Museum were divided into exhibitions.

thematic and rotating, technical care with the collection (conservation, disinfection,

protection, restoration and classification), production of audiovisual documentation, research

ethnological, loans of collections for schools and television programs, exchange

national and international museological, holding combined music sessions,

cinema and guided tours, which constituted the 'great success of the Museum'.362

As precarious and inaccurate as the data concerning activities and

museum visitors know that 66 cinema sessions were held in 1954, 25

Indigenous music auditions, 12 special receptions and conferences363, besides

countless guided tours. The visitors, although in a somewhat insignificant number: 6,716

people during the year 1954 received specialized care with

information about the S.P.I. its organization and work, about the functioning and

361
Activity Report of the Indian Museum, manuscript from 1954.
362
Same.
363
In the aforementioned report, the following stood out: "a) reception of Mr. Paul Rivet, from the Institute of Ethnology of
University of Paris, of the Society of Americanists and curator of the Museum of Man, with the collaboration
from the Embassy of France; b) conference by Prof. Alfred Métraux, from the Department of Social Sciences of
UNESCO; c) reception of the participants of the International Congress of Americanists, who went through
this capital; d) conference by Mr. Paulo Carneiro on the UNESCO Social Research program; e)
monthly meeting of ICOM, with participation of museum conservators from the Federal District etc.
 222

objective of the Museum", "about the uses and customs of our (sic) Indians, in general, of the

objects and tribes focused on the exhibitions, in particular.

The impact and international reception of the Museum of the Indian can be

confirmed by the publication, in 1955, in the magazine Museum, of the article 'The Museum of

"The Indian, Rio de Janeiro," signed by Darcy Ribeiro.

In this article, Darcy briefly presented the ideas that fueled the

construction of the Museum, conceived as a militant institution against prejudice,

as a humanitarian advocate for the Indians. In some way, the Museum embodied the

Rondon's ideology regarding the manner of contact with different indigenous peoples:

regulatory principle and in the article of the magazine Museum this ideology was revealed in many

moments. In the caption of photograph number 5, for example, the following text was included:

Maps, panels, and graphs show the situation of the Indians by

relating to the Brazilian population and aiming to awaken in the visitor a feeling
of solidarity in the face of the serious problems that Indians have to tackle364.

In the conclusion of the article, after describing the museographic procedures, the

the founding (or adoptive) father of the Museum stated clearly:

Special panels illustrate what the indigenous people have contributed to the
Brazilian company: equipment instruments thanks to which the populations
rural areas are the reason for nature, crops discovered by the Indians (maize, apple
of earth, tobacco, etc.). Thanks to these panels, we make ourselves, and
let's truly see in them human beings endowed with the same qualities

364
Ribeiro (1955a, p.9).
 223

essential, having the same rights to freedom and the pursuit of happiness as
that they conceive them365.

A museum in the fight against prejudice. This was the slogan insistently

inspired by Darcy Ribeiro to define the philosophy of operation of the Museum of the Indian. He

would appear explicitly in the subtitle of the article prepared for the Americas magazine

366
Pan-American Union in the last section of the last chapter of the book The Politics

Brazilian Indigenist367and also in the interview he gave to the team at the Museum of

Indigenous, in 1995, two years before his death. In this interview-testimony, speaking

practically alone and without interruption, Darcy took stock of his ten years of

I work at SPI and in this balance he realized that the best part of his work might be

it had been that your museal demiurgic exercise:

It was really a beautiful thing to take Rondon, who was very moved.
I sell the Museum of the Indian because it was the first museum in the world designed for

fight against prejudice, the prejudice against the Indian, which described the Indian
as anthropophagist, cannibal, lazy, violent, bad and ugly. So this is the
overall image that was had of the Indians. The museum was created to combat this
image368 .

The creation of the Indian Museum was preceded by a public opinion survey.369

what two issues were central to the concerns of those who

365
Same, p.10.
366
I use a typewritten copy of the original article [dated 1955] as a reference, authored by
Darcy Ribeiro, called 'Museum of the Indian: A Museum in the Fight Against Prejudice', sent to
publication in the Americas magazine, from the Pan-American Union.
367
Ribeiro (1962, p.169-170).
368
Interview with Darcy Ribeiro, conducted by the team from the Museum of the Indian [Museum of the Indian Archive], in
1995.
369
Nunes (1983, p.48).
 224

they were planning your organization: 1aWhat is the mental representation that the general public

from the Indians?aWhat does the visitor seek and find in traditional museums?

ethnology?

The result of this research that sought to listen, above all, 'children, young people

students and the public," highlighted the existence of mental representations that

they described indigenous peoples as "congenitally inferior beings", "as peoples

"brutish" and "lazy", without "any human quality", without "refinement".

"aesthetic" and other derogatory images. Alongside these representations appeared

also those that described these same peoples as living beings of a world

idyllic, full of adventures and bearers of the most "exalted qualities of nobility,

"altruism, sobriety and others." These two modes of representation, according to the father

The inaugurator of the Museum was anchored in prejudices that assumed the 'appearance

truly indisputable370 .

After mapping these representations, the investigations also looked into the

images related to the indigenous people, disseminated through the media, with an emphasis on

cinema, in the written press, on the radio, and on television. The result highlighted that "the most

long live the image of the Indian for many Brazilian children,” it was the “detestable caricature of the

'redskins' Americans, explored in 'far-west' movies371 .

Considering museums as opinion-forming devices, Darcy attributed

part of the responsibility for such deformation to the traditional museums of

Ethnology. These museums, according to the anthropologist, portrayed the 'Indians as peoples

"exotics," like "living fossils of the human species." For him, the museographic narratives

370
Ribeiro (1955b, p.1-2).
371
Same.
 225

these institutions did not raise "any human interest in the fate of these"

people" and, for this reason, evoked in the public "emotions of perplexity and horror,
372
making it difficult for you to understand .

However impressionistic the diagnosis was, it was based on it that Darcy

Ribeiro took on the mission of building a museum with a political alignment.

differentiated. Instead of emphasizing the "differences" between the "Indians" and "us", the Museum

it proposed to highlight the "similarities", presenting them as "human beings

driven by the same fundamental impulses, susceptible to the same flaws and

inherent qualities of human nature capable of the same yearnings for freedom,

progress and happiness373 .

What was on the agenda, therefore, was the construction of another narrative, in which

the otherness should give way to identification or, in contemporary terms, to

recognition that the 'us' and the 'other' share the same place of belonging

regarding the so-called 'human nature'. The construction of this humanist narrative

entailed the development of specific museographic practices that, at times, valued

the aesthetic point of view and emphasized the uniqueness of some objects, sometimes the

universality of some cultural solutions; at times highlighting the isolated object, at other times a

set of objects in "their functional contexts"; they sought to raise awareness of the

visitor by vision, as well as by hearing. In addition, among the museographic representation

and the public, the Museum imposed the figure of another mediating element: that of

"explainer." It was an entity specially trained to handle groups of

visitors, since the individual visitor was not being attended to. The mission of the "explainer"

372
Same.
373
Same.
 226

was complementary and guided the reading of the exhibition in the sense of combating

prejudice. Prepared and trained for the role, he - "the explainer" - should have...

exhibition circuit entrance,

(...) to show that the generic expression 'Indian' has very little content, being
It is impossible, for example, to talk about a generic indigenous music or art.
why many tribes differ so much from each other, like the Chinese from
Brazilians. On this occasion, it is also indicated that the most prominent common trait
of these peoples, it arises from the fact that they all had to face the invaders
Europeans, defend your territories, your lives and your families, from the fury with which
were pursued374 .

It seems that visiting the Museum of the Indian in its early days was a kind of

upon entering another territory, whose rules of reading and behavior needed to be

learned. By positioning itself as a legitimate defender of the 'indigenous cause,' the Museum

also presented himself as an authorized voice to speak for the 'other' and to say that the 'other' and

The "we" are not just different, they are also similar. Even relativizing the use

generic of the Indian category the Museum did not stop using it and did not stop rehearsing a

speech that in practice generically absorbed the Indian within the national scope.

Assuming a role as a house of information and training for new mindsets

The museum also said that reading should be done about the Indians. One cannot affirm

that the Museum was not a place of dreams for visitors, even under the beards of

"explainer" it was possible to dream, but the main evidence is that he was effectively a

374
Same, p.3.
 227

place of dreams and a space of utopia of its founding father, for some, and adoptive father,

for others.

With the distance I have in relation to the fifties, it is possible

understanding that the Museum of the Indian, even while rehearsing a romantic discourse, contributed

with expressive advances for the field of Brazilian ethnographic museums and operated

as a kind of museum of transition between previous models and experiences

that developed from the eighties. Today, the Museum is not the same anymore. The

crises he went through, the struggles he fought for his own survival, the clashes

politicians who faced the reorientation of indigenous policy and the new role

performed by indigenous peoples within the political field, demanded from him the

investment in new practices of museum mediation.

In the course of events that in the seventies marked a turning point

theoretical-experimental in the museum field, the museology practiced in Brazil, after the years

eighty, went through a renewal process that is directly related to the so-called

International Movement of New Museology. This does not mean, however, that the

the adherence of Brazilian practitioners to new ways of doing and thinking about the world of

museums, have been established in party terms, and have been fixed in standards of

option of the type: either this or that. In other words: what was observed in Brazil was the

exercise of hybrid, mixed practices, that sought recognition of the

expansion of the field of possibilities through the combination of this and that. If

on one hand, in the interstices of classical formations they mingled and, in some cases,

community, popular, and non-conventional museological practices have taken root;

besides, many of the calls for innovative, unconventional, and unforeseen practices by
 228

disciplinary orthodoxy, extensively made use of and helped themselves with procedures from

called classical and traditional museology.

This renewal, contemporary to the Quebec Declaration, dated 1984, and of

other echoes of the Round Table of Santiago de Chile, dated 1972, must be

understood in the context of the political and social changes that occurred in the 1980s, in Brazil,

marked the end of the military dictatorship and the restart of the redemocratization process. This

context allowed the National Historical Museum, for example, to carry out the

a deep, long-lasting structural reform that would have repercussions in various

other museums. During this same period, the creation of the Itaipu Ecomuseum in 1987, the

installation of the Center for Historical Guidance and Research, in 1983, which later

gave rise to the Ecomuseum of the Quarteirão do Matadouro de Santa Cruz and the organization of

tribal museum of the Ticuna Indians, named Magüta Museum, in 1988, located in

small town of Benjamim Constant, in the State of Amazonas, in the Upper region-

Solimões.

These new practices involved new relationships with the audiences, with the objects,

with public spaces and with time. In my understanding, it is within this atmosphere and

this effort of renewal, which accommodated diverse and divergent trends from the point of

political-museological perspective, in which the mega-exhibitions that took place in the years should be understood

Ninety have occupied and still occupy the agenda of some Brazilian museums.

The eighties also marked the Museum of the Indian. It is during this period that it

define as an institution of 'experimental character', which wants to reject the 'condition of

 229

repository of cultural assets" and affirm the alliance between the research function and that of "service

public375 .

The curious thing, however, is that a distant observer might assume that the

Museum of the Indian, with less authoritarianism in mediation practices and less romanticism

educational, would be returning to the ideals of the 1950s. The evidence of the return

can be found, although not exclusively, in the article 'The representations of'

Indian in the Textbook376, published during the celebrations of thirty years of

Museum. In this article, the author revisited the theme of "representations" concerning peoples.

indigenous people and focused on the analysis of the discourse of teachers and students from six schools

(three public and three private) and ten textbooks in use in the sixties

seventy. The result highlighted the marks of a 'negative stereotype'. The Indians

they continued to be treated in a generic way and seen as 'primitive', 'savage' and

remnants of prehistoric man377Besides the author's conclusions, what

the article seems to suggest that the fight against prejudice is far from over. They renew

if the instruments of struggle change, so do the strategies and technical procedures,

new fields of combat are established, but the fight is far from over.

After the euphoria of the early 1980s, the Indian Museum entered the years

ninety involved in yet another serious crisis: its collections were deteriorated, the

the building was abandoned and closed for renovations, the team was unmotivated and the

services aimed at the public were suspended. Subjected to a new process

of revitalization, the Museum gradually recovered and surprisingly by the end of the

375
Menezes (1987).
376
Menezes (1983).
377
Same, p.56.
 230

the nineties would be renewed. And most importantly, in tune with new trends

museological, would adopt new strategies for contacting the public, would develop new

ways of partnership with Indigenous communities and would reaffirm its position of

national prestige and international dialogue.

The available data indicates that in the seventies the annual visitor rate was

unstable and varied between 8570 attendees in 1979 and 19651 in 1975. However, in

from 1993 to 2002, as indicated by Arilza de Almeida, the annual growth rate of

the number of visitors reached 1653%, accumulating a total of 202,234 visitors378 .

Visitor board:

YES NUMBER OF VISITORS

1991 (closed to the public)
1992 (closed to the public)
1993 2495
1994 5082
1995 8626
1996 10547
1997 18076
1998 21220
1999 24526
2000 33362
2001 37046
2002 41254
TOTAL 202234

Even though it has had this significant growth rate, the Museum of the Indian,

as indicated, it is far from constituting a mass phenomenon and from approaching

two monthly indices reached by the mega-exhibitions. The vocation of the services of

The museum's service is of another order. It has welcomed researchers from different

378
Almeida (2003, p.2).
 231

areas and levels of knowledge, with an emphasis on human and social sciences, has

worked in partnerships with indigenous populations and has, in a unique way, served the

an audience primarily composed of children.

The studies for the characterization of visitors to the Indian Museum, during the period

It is noted that about 60% of the visitors are children in an age range

between 3 and 6 years and if this range is extended to children up to 10 years, the percentage

jumps to 91%. These data have contributed to the development of projects

special and for the alteration of museographic procedures in the exhibition circuit.

According to Almeida: "Presenting an ethnographic exhibition for children aims to make them

to realize that they are faced with a different way of seeing and ordering the world379 .

But the audience of the Museum of the Indian, since its early steps and as one of

accents of darcynian imagination, even being remarkably composed of young people and

children, also includes teachers, researchers, beneficiaries of research and

indigenous populations.

In a recently published interview in the magazine Museu ao Vivo, the current director

José Carlos Levinho emphasizes that one of the remarkable characteristics of the Museum is to have

a collection that is "related to contemporary populations that, therefore, may

be interlocutors in the interventions carried out." According to Levinho: "The Museum should provide

service not only to the visiting public, like other similar institutions, but also,

particularly, to indigenous peoples, whose ethnographic references are found in it

reunited380 .

379
Almeida (2003, p.5).
380
Levinho (.2003, p.2).
 232

This striking feature, however, is not exclusive to the Museum of

Indian. A good part of Brazilian ethnographic museums also operates with collections

related to contemporary populations and active communities. The differentiator is

in the museological principle of respect for the knowledge and work of the 'other', in the valorization of

cultural diversity and the renewed political commitment to the 'indigenous cause'.

At different moments in the journey of the Museum, indigenous communities

they had access to the exhibitions, donated collections, participated and engaged with

activities and projects. The fundamental difference today is the change in quality.

from the participation and practice of museum mediation. Today, different representatives of

indigenous communities are partners in projects and have a prominent place as

mediators between their own cultures and other sectors of the public users of

services of the Museum. They have a voice and speak in the first person, whether in the organization of

museographic narratives, in the conduction of educational-cultural projects, or in the execution

of technical procedures, such as: restoration of pieces and identification of photos,

objects and raw materials. According to Levinho's testimony:

There is a permanent institutional discussion about the role that the Museum
can and should perform, in light of the needs currently posed by some
indigenous leaderships, with regard to the efforts they undertake to preserve and
revitalize your traditions, consolidating the cultural heritage for new generations.
Many are also committed to working more positively on their
image alongside Brazilian society, promoting the value of its cultures
millennia381 .

381
Levinho (2003, p.2).
 233

A museum educator from the Indian Museum, in an interview that I was given

granted in March 2003, declared that many students and teachers when they

they come across Indians participating in educational projects, dressed in urban attire and

using clocks, they go through a feeling of estrangement, since the

the mental and generic representation they have of the indigenous people does not entirely match with the

singular Indian who stands before them, with all his humanity. According to this same

educator, it is still common on "Indian Day" to see children with the marks

characteristics of the Indians portrayed in North American western films; thus

It is commonly understood that all indigenous people have the characteristics of indigenous people.

from Xingu, widely circulated on postcards.

In a communication recently presented at the 1aFavela Museum Week

Maré, Arilza de Almeida clarified that even children aged 3 to 6 years,

they arrive at the Museum possessed by stereotyped images, widely disseminated by the

cinema, on television, and through children's literature. According to these images - she says -

(...) the Indians are overly valued as ecologically correct heroes, or

devoid of their real dimension and transformed into examples of manuals, like a

any word, or still related to a reality very distant in time - are

in the past – and in space – are in the forest382 .

Racism, prejudice, xenophobia, and stereotyping are not distant practices and

overcome with the turn of the 20th century, on the contrary, they are getting closer and closer

they continue to commit crimes against the cultural heritage of humanity. It's not difficult.

to surprise them in some contemporary museum institutions, just as it was not

382
Almeida (2003, p.5).
 234

difficult for Darcy Ribeiro, still in the fifties, to identify them at the Museum of Man,

in Paris:

"The whole museum – the anthropologist said in a joking confession – gave me the"

impression that it was made by Queen Victoria to show the greatness of the world
exaggerated significantly, displaying everything that showed the extra-Europeans as
savages. For example, the Maori, such beautiful people with such beautiful tattoos,
they were presented as a sample of savagery. I went from savage to savage,
very naughty with that way of setting up a museum383.

The novelty, as can be perceived, is not in the practices that nourish.

prejudices and stereotypes, but in the appropriation of museum mediation technologies and

the tools for combating racism and prejudice by different cultural groups.

This is the case, for example, of the First Museum Management Workshop for Peoples

Indigenous peoples, held at the Indian Museum in December 2000. In this Workshop, during

five days, Pataxó Indians and museum workers focused on the examination of practices and

appropriate museological techniques for the better management of the Indigenous Museum of

Coroa Vermelha, inaugurated in August of that same year, located in the municipality of

Santa Cruz de Cabrália, in Bahia, where a community of 2300 indigenous people lives.

people, distributed among 380 families, occupying an area of 1492 hectares.

Another example was the installation process of the "medium duration" exhibition.384 ,

inaugurated in March 2002, called "Time and Space in the Amazon: the Wajãpi"

and presents the cultural heritage of this people who live in Amapá, on the border between the

383
Ribeiro (1997a, p.214).
384
Expression used by the team at the Museum of the Indian; possibly to suggest a touch of change.
(short duration) on the agenda of permanence (long duration).
 235

Brazil and French Guiana. The experience involved the participation of Wajãpi Indians.

anthropologists, museologists, educators, architects, and many other people bearing

specific knowledge and practices. In an interview granted to the journal Museu ao Vivo, a

A month before the opening of the exhibition, anthropologist Dominique Gallois described part of the

process:

(...) the Wajãpi mobilized to produce a collection of over 300 objects and
all the materials necessary for the house that would be built in Rio. With support
of the young people who lead the Council of Villages/Apina385, the producers
they communicated via radio, circulated lists, worried about the
deadlines and the quality of the objects. This is the first time that a group
Amazonian indigenous peoples participate so intensely and, above all, collectively in the
preparation of an exhibition. (...) For three months, they worked hard on
all the villages, selecting the best pieces, transporting everything from
very distant places. Then, they chose the people who would come to build
At home, they indicated those who will come to guide the setup of the exhibition and the musicians.

that will play flutes at the opening party386 .

The exhibition of the Wajãpi developed a museographic narrative that articulated

multiple voices, it was not a monologue about the 'other', but a

combination of speeches made in the first person, where the main characteristic was the

respect for the diversity of knowledge. When presenting in a medium-duration exhibition

aspects of the worldview of a specific indigenous group the Museum of the Indian held a

385
According to the description of the Wajãpi Teachers (2002, p.3): "APINA is the Council of the Wajãpi Villages. It was
marked on August 25, 1994. All the chiefs came. They were the leaders who gave the name
APINA. It is to help the Wajãpi people, to support our relatives and sell crafts and products, for
example: cupuaçu, copaíba, chestnut. For this we created the APINA.
386
Gallois (2001/2002).
 236

criticism of the stereotypical thinking that hides in the generic use of the term Indian and

updated and reaffirmed to the visiting public its commitment to the fight against the

prejudice.

In celebration of its fifty years, the Indian Museum is coordinating

various projects among which stand out: the recognition by UNESCO of the standard

Kusiwa, graphic art of the Wajãpi Indians, as Oral and Immaterial Heritage of

Humanity; the agreement with UNESCO aiming to make available through the internet

basic vocabulary of indigenous languages and the Museum of Villages, which constitutes a

space intended to house different Indigenous cultural manifestations, starting from

local demands.

The relationship of the Museum with its different audiences - children, researchers,

students and indigenous communities - poses challenges. Understanding its scope

Sociocultural is a task that goes beyond quantifying visitors. It is necessary to take into account

its character as a house of excellence and a museological reference for other institutions, the

your place in the neighborhood, your scientific production and the impact on those who benefit from it

in national and international terms, as well as its political role and its action of

partnership with Brazilian indigenous populations.

The Indian Museum is in motion. Created to combat prejudices, such as

a kind of late child of the Brazilian modernist movement, it developed

based on a museal discourse that combined romanticism and a civilizing project. To

long ago, went through various crises, was well-liked and was overlooked, was

valued and was stigmatized, was done, undone and redone, and as happened with

some indigenous populations, after being nearly extinct, began to grow and reaffirm
 237

your museal identity; an identity that is also not given, that is made and remade

permanently, even if it remains in some way linked to the imagination

musealdarcyniana and the so-called "indigenous cause", now reconfigured. In this game of

changes and permanences it is and is no longer what it was before. With the renewal of its

mediation practices and their museological and museographic procedures the Museum

aligns with the institutions that move in the hybrid arena, resulting from

crossing classical museology with new museological stances. Without abandoning

its political role, it reaffirms itself as an institution of social memory that works with

contemporary cultural diversity.

Around a museum of the man that was not realized

When in 1957 the ethnologist came down from the SPI boat, his new destination or his

the new skin was already visible; its approach with Anísio Teixeira had already been completed.

Darcy did not shed his skin in the dark and did not even venture on a journey without a guide.

Just as Baldus and Rondon guided their steps in ethnology and indigenism, Anísio

he was your safe guide in the forest of education.

In the same year of his departure from the SPI, Darcy began to lead the division of

social research of the Brazilian Center for Educational Research (CBPE), linked to

Ministry of Education and two years later, during the government of Juscelino Kubitschek,

I was already involved with the creation of the University of Brasília (UnB), inaugurated in

1961, in the void of Jânio Quadros' resignation. The rectorship of UnB was under the responsibility of Darcy.
 238

since its inauguration until August 1962, when then, already under the government of João Goulart,

took over the leadership of the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC). The time spent at MEC was

meteoric, because in 1963, with the return of the presidential regime, Darcy would take over the

Chief of Staff of the Office of the Presidency of the Republic387.

The military coup of March 31, 1964, ended the government of João Goulart and, in

April of that same year, Darcy - who tried to organize a defense front for the regime

democratic - went into exile in Uruguay. In exile, deprived of political rights and dismissed

of public office, expanded its network of relationships with intellectuals and politicians from America

Latina. In 1968, with the annulment of lawsuits that had been filed against him, he returned to

Brazil and in December of the same year was arrested, shortly after the Act was decreed

Institutional n.5. After being indicted, interrogated, judged, and acquitted by the Audit of

The Navy of Rio de Janeiro embarked in 1969 for Venezuela, where it became involved with

the reform of the Central University of the Republic, in Caracas. From Venezuela, it went to

In Chile, in 1971, to advise Salvador Allende in the leadership of the socialist government of

Popular Unit; where he also worked as a researcher professor at the Institute of

International Studies. He left Chile for Peru in 1972, where he became involved with

integration programs of universities and with the organization of the Center for Studies of

Popular Participation, sponsored by the UN. After the diagnosis of cancer, returned to

Brazil, in 1974, for the surgical removal of one of the lungs, to soon after

return to Peru and make work incursions in Mexico, Costa Rica, and Algeria.

After twelve years of hustle and exile, Darcy returned permanently to Brazil.

1976, and settled in Rio de Janeiro.

387
Bomeny (2001, p.47-49).
 239

In the skin of the returned, Darcy would experience a new kind of estrangement,

some doors that he helped to open were now closed, the time was different and his

generation was from another time. Surprisingly, at this delicate moment of

return, he found refuge precisely in the exercise of his museum-like imagination.

In the end - I would confess later - I managed to find a landing, which was the burden of

plan a Museum of Man for the Federal University of Minas Gerais.

I conceived the museum in a few months, which would be an exhibition of the evolutionary line.

that I unfold in the civilizational process. I achieved more and better: the entire project

beautiful by Oscar Niemeyer for my museum, which allowed to publish both

the projects in a beautiful book388 .

The process of implementing the Museum of Man, coordinated by Gilka Alves

Waistein had been thought of at least since 1975, when the then rector of the

UFMG, Professor Eduardo Osório Cisalpino, formed a commission made up of José

Armando de Souza, Wilson Mayrink, Wolney Lobato, José Murilo de Carvalho, André

Pierre Prous-Poirier and Roberto DaMatta, in addition to the implementation coordinator.

The museum's master plan indicated that its main objective would be collection, the

study, the exposure and dissemination of cultural expressions "of the populations that lived or

they live in Brazilian territory, especially in Minas Gerais, situating them in the context

general of human evolution." Three operational axes guided the conception of this

ambitious project, according to which the Museum would be: 1oa center for higher studies

in different branches of anthropology, needing to have resources for research on

field and for undergraduate and postgraduate education; 2oan institution of studies of

388
Ribeiro (1997a, p.466).
 240

mining and Brazilian history, focused on the examination of the civilizing processes in which

these stories took shape and for the comparison with other civilizations; 3oa

exhibition open to the general public, but mainly aimed at the population

school in Belo Horizonte, which would find there elements that would allow him to 'relate

your experiences with those of Brazilians from other areas and situate both in the course of

civilizations, in order to highlight the challenges of self-overcoming and development

autonomous with which we are faced389.

The critical aspect of the project draws attention. Right in the introduction, it is stated that

importance of distancing from two risks or dangers: 1º or to build a museum of

accumulation and storage of knick-knacks, collector's curiosities and 2º or to reproduce

an imperial museum that showcases for Eurocentric eyes the bizarre creations of the peoples

colonialists," which would correspond to the imitation of the "underlying guideline in the structuring of the Museum.

British, from the Musée de l'Homme in Paris or from the Smithsonian Museum of

Washington390.

For the project author, a visit to any of the mentioned museums could

to verify what preconceived views exist in them about the peoples that do not...

part of the European civilizing process, are considered as primitive people,

uncivilized or like fossils - more or less interesting - of the human species.

"Fortunately - would say the author of the project - the development of

applicable technology to Museology and the sciences themselves in recent decades, already
enabled the creation of a new type of Museum of Man, freed both from

389
Foundation for Research Development (FUNDEP). Project of the Museum of Man [Archive
Darcy Ribeiro Foundation]. Belo Horizonte, p.3-4, 1978.
390
Same, p. 5.
 241

looting colonialism as seen from the Eurocentric perspective and prejudices

imperialists. It is true that there is not yet a fully established ...
Museum that realizes all these possibilities. Its creation is, however, very
present in the spirit of those who dedicate themselves to this field as a possibility
concrete action that will have to be implemented somewhere in the coming years391.

The author of the project follows an argumentative line that approaches that of

was outlined for the Indian Museum, that is: the Museum of Man of Minas Gerais

it would also have a political-pedagogical character, it should also be a tool for

combat against prejudice and affirmation of the dignity of the 'new people' that has formed in

Brazil. The mission of the Museum would be derived from this character:

to reconstitute the ancient paths by which we came

building as the ultimate sprout of a Romanity, of a blackness and of
a mixed Indian identity in race and culture, first in Iberia and then in
Africa and, finally, in the Beyond-sea. A reconstruction that will not be done to affirm
past glories of others of which we were the victims, but to become
able, tomorrow, to express better than our matrices, the potentialities
common humans by the creation of a society that is ultimately more creative and more

solidary392.

There were utopia and romanticism in Darcy's museal imagination, but I wouldn't say that

there was naivety. The museum for him was a precious tool of pedagogy

militant. Politics, education, memory, and culture were allied there. Your narrative,

however, it was still crossed by the ambiguity of what Roberto

391
Same, pp. 5-6.
392
Same, p. 13.
 242

DaMatta referred to it as 'the fable of the three races'393, even if renamed with the epithet

of ethnic matrices. With different perspectives, this fable was also present in the

museum narrative of Gilberto Freyre and Gustavo Barroso; in the first, the focus was on

regional and in the second, at the national level; but in both, in the background, there was a

conception of a society where each of the three races in a triangular system had its own

specific place.

Clearly, the conceptual proposal of the Museum of the Man of Minas Gerais

constituted a form of museumification of the book The Civilizational Process by Darcy Ribeiro

whose first edition dates back to 1968. The summary description of the exhibition circuits

idealized could be partially accompanied by the index of the mentioned book, where there are

rolled out the stages of humanity's sociocultural evolution. In this way, the eight

circuits were presented like this: 1oThe human phenomenon and the emergence of homo

humans; 2oThe cultural evolution of man and his successive revolutions: 'agricultural',

"urbana", "do regadio", "metalúrgica", "pastoril", "mercantil", "industrial" e

thermonuclearo The American man: his origins, his levels of development

evolutionary and its civilizations; 4oThe Brazilian Indian: their degrees of development, their

languages and cultures; 5oThe Brazilian civilization: its Lusitanian and African matrices and its

civilizational cycles; 6oThe civilization of gold: Minas Gerais in the historical context, the

baroque expression in the arts and modern industrial economy; 7oBrazil in the world is 8o

The caipira culture and the technology of rural life.

All of this - I would proudly confess - shown visually in the most

beautiful and expressive, that allowed one to see the splendors of India or Egypt,

393
DaMatta (1981, p.58-85).
 243

Greece or Arab civilization. As if everything had existed with a fixed purpose.

to create Brazilian civilization. It displayed itself as the great Luso adventure
Brazilian to create a tropical and mixed civilization. The project does not
it materialized, unfortunately. But it is so thought out and exposed in my texts and
in Oscar's drawings that I have founded hopes that one day it will come
to bloom394.

Darcy remained involved with the Museum of Man, which was also

referred to in some documents as the Museum of Civilization, until 1979, when it was

Sanctioned the amnesty law, which provided him with new perspectives for action. In the same

Gilberto Freyre was creating, as seen, the Museum of the Man of the Northeast, adopting

a completely different museological standard from that of Darcy.

The project for the Museum of Man of Minas Gerais did not succeed, but its text

constitutes one of the most expressive written documents regarding museum imagination

darcyniana. It is an advanced document for its time and above all

tuned in to the discussions that were part of the museology agenda in the years

seventy, especially after the Round Table in Santiago de Chile, which took place in May of

1972, in which the museologist Mário Vasquez from the Museum had a prominent role.

National Anthropology Museum of Mexico, one of the invited advisors to participate in

Darcy's project. In addition, there is a set of analytical opinions about the project,

notable among them are those of Gilka Alves Wainstein, José Murilo de Carvalho,

Roberto DaMatta and André Pierre Prous-Poirier, who greatly enrich it.

394
Ribeiro (1997a, p.467)
 244

Between 1979 and 1997, Darcy would return numerous times to exercise his imagination.

museum. During the first government of Leonel Brizola in Rio de Janeiro, in the period of

From 1982 to 1986, he was involved in the creation of the Casa França-Brasil, the House of

Culture Laura Alvim and the Carnival Museum.

After experiencing the bitterness of electoral defeat in 1986, Darcy

collaborated, at the invitation of Governor Orestes Quércia, with the cultural planning of

Memorial of Latin America, in São Paulo, whose architectural design was entrusted to

Oscar Niemeyer. At the time, he traveled through Latin America collecting recordings of music.

erudite and popular, gathering books for a specialized library in history and

Latin American culture and buying artifacts for the Center of Popular Creativity,

one of the units of the Memorial. In an exaggerated way, he even came to think and write in

his confessions that the aforementioned center "constitutes one of the most visited museums in São

Paulo, who has so many fantastic museums.

In 1990, Darcy was elected by the Democratic Labor Party (PDT) for the

a seat in the Federal Senate and two years later for another seat, now in

Brazilian Academy of Letters (ABL). Dodging its own contradictions, dressing

in the skin of ambiguity, he dressed - just like Barroso - the fantasy of immortality.

Dissatisfied with the immortality of letters and words, he decided to musealize himself and

founded the Darcy Ribeiro Foundation (FUNDAR) which would come to house its library of

thirty thousand books, the documentary file Berta/Darcy, their paintings and their art objects.

With this museum-like gesture, he was somehow building a new skin. A skin that is also

door, window, and bridge. A tangible and intangible skin, at the same time. A skin of
 245

contact with pasts, presents, and futures. A skin that would outline the memory of

dead and would mediate between distinct worlds, between the visible and the invisible.
 246

III - Within the limits of imagination

You are not machines! You are not animals!

You are men!

You seek love and humanity in your hearts!

You, the people, have the power to create this life.

Free and splendid... to make this life

A radiant adventure.

Charles Chaplin - Speech from The Great Dictator.

 247

Weaving the adventure of the three narrators

Throughout the study conducted so far, I have felt, in many moments,

like a narrator who collects fragments of stories from other narrators, with whom

composes another narrative, not entirely anticipated by those who left fragments, traces and

traces scattered along the way. Sometimes, I have also felt like a craftsman.

what pedals a spindle and spins, a long thread with which one imagines making a fabric. And, in theory,

with the fabric imagine...

I have been focusing on three qualified museum artisans. Gustavo

Barroso, Gilberto Freyre and Darcy Ribeiro are - as Michael Pollak would say - three actors of the

framing of memory395. With different notions of time, with perspectives

differentiated policies and encouraging distinct pedagogical practices, they operate with

material fragments of culture through which narratives are woven, as if to weave them.

it was a vital necessity. Assuming the role of interpreters, they speak for the other,

with which they are more or less identified. They speak on behalf of history and of

nation, in the name of tradition and the region, in the name of ethnic and cultural groups; they speak of

name of collectives that they represent or think they represent and behave as

if they were social amalgams on which communities depended to strengthen

sense of belonging. But the narrative they set in motion has a

clear signature. These three social actors are authors of personalized narratives and

personalists are central characters of the story they tell. This feature is not

395
Pollak (1989, p.3-15)
 248

a exclusivity of these three authors. As highlighted by José Reginaldo Santos Gonçalves

in dialogue established with Walter Benjamin:

The narrative, as a specific mode of communication

human, blooms in a context marked by personal relationships. The narrator is
someone who brings the past into the present in the form of memory; or who brings to
near an experience situated at a distant point in space. The narrative
always refers to a distance in time or space. This distance is mediated
through the narrator's personal experience. (...) The narrator always imposed his mark.
people in their stories396.

In the museum narratives of Gustavo Barroso, Gilberto Freyre, and Darcy Ribeiro the

your personal brands are present, like an indelible and peculiar handwriting, to

similarity of the basket that in the making of its basket is entirely reflected in it397.

Furthermore, contact with these narratives also implies the experience of

approaching a territory distant in time or space.

I have been focusing on three different demigods of museums. As much as

different as their demiurgical processes may be, there are many aspects among them

common. The examination of the museum imagination of each of them indicates, for example, that creating

And organizing museums does not simply mean arranging concrete things in a space.

three-dimensional, but investing in things of feelings, thoughts, sensations, and intuitions

and to activate, through it, a communication process that after

Once activated, it can no longer be fully controlled.

396
Gonçalves (2003).
397
Ribeiro (1997a, p.160).
 249

Looking through another window: museum communication is a dialogical process that

Having been set in motion, it left the control of those who imagined themselves demigods.

exclusive: the museums of complex societies are, above all, social practices

equally complex. The user, the audience, the participant in this process of

communication is not an inert object devoid of power and memory; on the contrary, it

interacts or can interact in very varied ways and even silencing words can

open cracks and gaps in the seemingly most closed discourses. If there are

participants who want to gather information in museums, more or less

there are also those who are open to awe and admiration. To

these can be revealed as experiences of poetic narratives,

capable of making 'the new appear in the always the same and the always the same in the new'398, like

Benjamin would say about Baudelaire's poetry that, it should be noted, was exercised in the

museum imagination when he worked, from 1861 to 1863, on a project about

disappeared museums and museums to be created399.

The three narrators on whom I focused my attention were men of

letters and action. As writers produced abundant work, they exercised in different

literary genres: essays, novels, short stories, diaries, memoirs and even managed to

to venture into the misty terrain of poetry.

Contrary to literary trends, the three were also men of action.

They got involved in the creation of scientific and cultural projects and institutions. Among

among these projects and institutions, those that allowed them to exercise the

398
Benjamin (1994, p.165).
399
Buchloch (1996, p.59).
 250

museum imagination, in which I identify an innovative character, uncommon among intellectuals

of their respective generations, as the exercise of this imagination implies, as

I sought to demonstrate a desire and a power to express oneself through language and

poetics of things.

Darcy, Freyre, and Barroso also wished to be and were, in their own way, interpreters.

modern ones from Brazil. Each of them, however, looked at a different Brazil, they saw

different pasts, lived different presents and dreamed different futures. The

projects and the museum institutions in which they were engaged also depict different

Brazil and different ways of looking at it. At some point in their lives they

they were interested in the field of education, but beyond this common interest,

the differences stand out: Freyre delighted in the hypothesis of a pedagogy of

empathy is of seduction and he considered himself an anarchic and constructive seducer;

Darcy, who also excelled in the exercise of personal seduction, seemed to lean towards

a militant and politicized pedagogy; Barroso, who was equally charming, but more

discreet, it seemed to exercise a militarized and authoritarian pedagogy, the pedagogy of the finger

It is true. The museums they created, each in its time, depicted these different

pedagogical approaches. Certainly, the question for them was not whether museums

They should or should not have an educational dimension, the fundamental issue was the orientation.

vector of educational practices that would be developed in these institutions. In this

In a sense, Freyre's proposed constructive anarchism was not so far removed from

Barroso's pedagogy. With the finger pointed and disarmed, what remained was the interest in

preserving traditions (national or regional), it was the worship of the past (extraordinary or

ordinary, bravely heroic or routinely domestic) and the nostalgia of time

 251

lost, completely stripped of critical perspective and desire for social change. Darcy, upon

on the contrary, he was interested in contemporary societies, weaving social utopias, embodying

As a medium, the human drama was debated by him: 'Three fundamental rights'

must be returned to Brazil excluded: the right to satisfy hunger, the right to have

a decent house and the right to school for all children400 .

Not shying away from party political clashes, each of them, in their time,

experienced victory and defeat at the polls, acceptance and popular rejection. Barroso was

elected in 1915 to a seat as a federal deputy by the Republican Party

Conservative (PRC), representing the Ceará bench. At the end of his term, in

In 1918, he ran again and was defeated. Freyre was elected as a federal deputy in 1945.

by the National Democratic Union (UDN), representing the state of Pernambuco in

Constituent National Assembly. At the end of its term, in 1950, it ran for re-election.

he was defeated. Darcy was elected in 1982 as the vice-governor of Rio de Janeiro in

Leonel Brizola's campaign for the Democratic Labor Party (PDT). In 1986,

headed the ticket for the government of the State of Rio de Janeiro and was defeated.

For Freyre and Barroso, the electoral defeat marked the end of the party political career and

it implied the removal of any desire, if it ever existed, to become politicians

professionals. For Darcy, the defeat - which he claimed had an almost demolishing effect on him

did not prevent him from submitting, in 1991, to another popular election, from which he would come out

established as a senator. The senator's term was interrupted by death.

Among the three intellectuals examined here, Darcy was the one who most ...

approached the professional politician and also experienced the most dramatic life

400
Ribeiro (1997c, p.150-151).
 252

tension between the intellectual and the political, between political culture and culture of politics. From

anyway, the three were men who were apparently free from what Max

Weber, when examining politics as a vocation, identified two mortal sins: 1o

or not to defend any cause and 2oor not having a sense of responsibility. Be it in

field of politics, whether in the field of culture, Darcy, Barroso, and Freyre, exercised the

passionate devotion to certain causes, to God or to the devil - in the words of

Weber - what inspired her401And for having defended causes with passionate devotion,

they paid the required price and contaminated their works with this passion: the Museum of

The Indian had as a cause the indigenist policy; the Museum of the Man of the Northeast, the tradition and

a certain way of looking at the region; the National Historical Museum, the worship of a

determined national past, marked by great acts of heroism and military bravery.

The approximation, in different situations, of certain political and social forces

made them experience setbacks and go through the experiences of losing positions

command and exile. In the case of Barroso and Freyre, the revolutionary movement of 1930

removed them, respectively: from the direction of the National Historical Museum and from the leadership of

cabinet of the government of the State of Pernambuco, launching them into a short-term exile.

In Darcy's case, the military coup of 1964 removed him from the head of the Civil House.

Presidency of the Republic, casting him into an exile that, strictly speaking, lasted twelve years.

The museums envisioned by Barroso, Freyre, and Darcy only became possible through

that they fed a complex network of relationships with lines that intertwined

friendship

public power, worldview, personal development, etc. Journalism, both for Barroso,

401
Weber (2002, p.106-109).
 253

As for Freyre, it became a practice that allowed to convey ideas, to illuminate the

your own actions and solidify your respective personal relationship networks.

Darcy, Freyre, and Barroso were seductive, vain, and narcissistic intellectuals. They

they loved compliments, admired themselves and the work done; they spoke of themselves with enthusiasm and

pride. The Catholic modesty was not the virtue they appreciated the most. Perhaps, in this

sense, Barroso would have been less forceful and explicit, or more conservative and

disguised; but, still, he loved to puff out his broad chest loaded with

decorations and medals. While Freyre and Darcy delighted in the narratives of

romantic cases, Barroso maintained a discreet silence on the matter, which was not

sufficient to prevent them from circulating through the mazes of the National Historical Museum

apocryphal comments on adventures with young admirers.

The desire to wear the costume of eternity was common to the three intellectuals, they

they wanted to ride the memory of the future, they wanted to know themselves immortalized in memory

social, both through the mediation of words and things. Barroso and Darcy yielded to

mermaid charms and wore, with more or less comfort, the imperial robe of the

Brazilian Academy of Letters (ABL). Freyre resisted the calls of the ABL and never became

he applied for an eternal seat. This does not mean that he did not desire this

fantasy, he himself confessed that he didn't want to be an academic, as a candidate, because it

he liked the idea of being acclaimed, as he was by the Academy of Arts and Sciences of

Boston402In addition to all this, these three interpreters from Brazil were also interpreters.

or "ideologues of themselves" and through their diaries, testimonies, and personal memories,

they produced what Pierre Bourdieu called "biographical illusion"403 .

402
Freyre (1985a, p.32-33).
403
Bourdieu (1989, p.27-33).
 254

The desire to have a physical presence in future memory was also revealed in

agreement that, while still alive, the three celebrated with admirers and preservers of their

memorabilia in the sense of the acceptance of the musealization of oneself. Barroso was

museumified at the National Historical Museum; the miner from Montes Claros was museumified

at the Darcy Ribeiro Foundation and the author of Casa-Grande & Senzala through the Foundation

Gilberto Freyre and the Magdanela and Gilberto Freyre House-Museum.

Barroso - born in 1888 - and Freyre - in 1900 - were children of families of

rural gentlemen of the northeast, of a declining oligarchic tradition. Darcy - born in

1922 - was born into a family with a tradition in mining and in the textile industry. Still

that the three participated in different generations and circulated through political means and

there were also different intellectuals, between the forties and fifties, a period in

that the three had, with distinct orientations, a presence in the Brazilian cultural scene.

When Freyre conceived the idea of creating a museum of anthropology linked to

Joaquim Nabuco Institute of Social Research, established in 1949, Darcy was already active in

The Studies Section of the SPI and Barroso continued to lead the National Historical Museum and the

Museum Course; when Darcy created the Indian Museum in 1953 and the Course of

Improvement in Cultural Anthropology, in 1955, Freyre was still persistent in the creation

from your anthropology museum and Barroso was still in charge of the MHN at that time in

decline phase. It is quite evident that the three intellectuals knew each other, at least

through referrals from friends and completed works. Darcy and Freyre even exchanged

correspondences and mutual compliments. Barroso, older, seemed, from the beginning of the

fifties, a prisoner of his own creation, a being bound by the shackles of

your own worldview.

 255

The fact that I have not found references from Barroso about Casa-Grande &

Senzala, which, as is known, had a great impact in the intellectual milieu of the thirties and

forty, or about the creation of the Joaquim Nabuco Institute for Social Research, or

even about the Museum of the Indian, does not authorize me to dispel the suspicion that it

had been following with some attention and possibly with some apprehension the

transformations of the political and cultural life of the country.

 256

2. Borders and limits

The understanding that museology deals or should deal with the 'scientific study
404
about everything related to museums and that these, in turn, are places

privileged places where objects - items of material heritage - are stored, preserved

and exposed; this understanding constitutes what is conventionally referred to as a paradigm

a classic of museology, whose roots are planted in the European world and in the 19th century.

Having been born in Europe, the aforementioned paradigm would soon gain new airs and

would project itself onto other continents; having been established in the 19th century, it would enter

vigorous in the 20th century, it would go through the two great wars and reach the seventies.

Indicators of a change in the paradigmatic postulate, even having precedents here and there.

that date back to the fifties, would only be clearly outlined at the end of the years

seventies and early eighties.

In Brazil, it was in the period between wars and after the creation of the Museum Course, in

1932, when museology established itself with the desire to be a science and, along this path,

sought to establish itself as an erudite, positive, scientific tradition, heir to Europe and of

19th century, all of this under the shadow of the strong hand, raised and spread of Gustavo

Barroso. However, although the Barrosian museal imagination has dominated, with

areas of victory, the Brazilian museological panorama two decades after his death,

various other forms of imagination participated in the game and contributed to the

formation of the kaleidoscope of current museology.

404
Barroso (1951, p.6).
 257

Gilberto Freyre and Darcy Ribeiro are two examples, among others, of intellectuals

Brazilians who, maintaining independence from Barroso, set in motion

differentiated forms of museal imagination. In this regard, it is worth noting that:

1oBarroso wanted to hold at the National Historical Museum, starting with some objects,

the great synthesis of the nation's history. Its museum imagination - geared towards the past

monumental, heroic and grandiloquent - was casting a bridge towards the 19th century and

conceived national history as the history of dominant and victorious groups, belonging to

to the Museum, from a classificatory and evolutionary perspective, the role of preserving the

historical relics of that glorious past.

2o- Freyre also wanted to carry out an operation at the Museum of the Northeast Man

synthesis, even though its focus was anthropological and culturalist, and its gaze was

focused on regional tradition. Freyre's museal imagination was oriented towards the

valorization of long-lasting regional traditions. These traditions should be

sought, above all, in the sphere of culture, in everyday life and in intimate history, that which is

does 'touching on nerves'. Therefore, it would be the museum's role to preserve them, aiming to

your better understanding and harmonization with the present.

3oIn Darcy's case, the problem is of another complexity; since it does not

it aimed to present a synthesis of all indigenous cultures at the Indian Museum

existing in the national territory and much less to situate them in a distant past, but

to build a discourse of resistance and political-cultural struggle against prejudice

generalized against indigenous peoples, to do this it would be necessary to avoid the anticipated danger

in the very name of the Museum, which refers to it being a generic Indian.

Notably, however, is that the Museum of the Indian was not created solely to preserve.
 258

fragments of Indigenous material culture, what would be, at best,

reproduction of patterns present in traditional ethnographic museums; it emerged - the

starting from the identification of a problem - with the mission to study different societies

Indigenous people and use their cultural fragments as tools for mediation in the struggle.

against prejudice: a problem of universal character.

Clearly, Barroso and Freyre developed and encouraged museum practices.

that although differentiated were aligned with what is conventionally referred to as:

classic paradigm of museology. Its museum narratives were based on a

preservationist speech of memories and traditions (national and regional) that, for

supposedly, they would be in danger of being forgotten and destroyed. However, the gesture

preservationist, being a selective gesture, expressed the appreciation of certain items

patrimonial matters to the detriment of others. The problem was not in the hierarchization of

values, but in the apparent naturalization and depoliticization of the procedures

conservationists. Barroso's museum perspective, with all its authoritarian emphasis, was

of the one who was planted on top of a fortress; that of Freyre, with his longing for

empathy, it was of those who swayed in the porch of a mansion. They were

different and modern, and they were far from exhausting the field of possibilities of museums.

Darcy's imagination museum was also located within the frameworks of the paradigm.

classic of museology. Beyond its diffuse preservationist interest, it is identified

she has a voice of authority, commander, seemingly invested with a power to say, with

security and truth, what the other was, what the other thought and did. In this sense, the

The Indian Museum was also a traditional museum; however, it penetrated into a territory

new when it was assumed as a place for action and combating a problem of a character
 259

universal, when it was inserted into the dream of a new and more supportive society. It was the

museum imagination of Darcy, informed by very clear political guidelines, which

allowed the Museum to enter this new territory and opened a dialogue with practices

museums that would come into effect in the seventies and eighties.

In another way: in my understanding, the museum imagination of Darcyniana,

patented in the Museum of the Indian, can be considered as a Brazilian bridge designed for

front, towards the new museological practices, such as the construction of museums

by the indigenous peoples themselves.

This understanding does not imply, in any way, the assertion that in Brazil

only the Museum of the Indian would have assumed this innovative character in the fifties. That's enough.

remember, for example, that in May 1952, as a result of the pioneering work of

Nise da Silveira, the Museum of Images was inaugurated at the Pedro II Psychiatric Center.

Unconscious that, strictly speaking, also fought against prejudices against the mentally ill and

broke with the rigid and reductionist parameters of traditional museums, especially

not referring to the notion of public and inherited cultural heritage. Another example of

The innovative museum practice was the experience of the Museum of Black Art.405carried out by

Abdias do Nascimento.

In 1955, Abdias welcomed Guerreiro Ramos's suggestion and held a contest.

of plastic arts on the theme 'Black Christ', in which more than a hundred artists participated.

The victorious work was "Christ on the Column," by Djanira, evoking a "black man in

405
It seems that the experience of the Museum of Black Art, for political reasons, did not succeed. It would be
interesting to investigate your trajectory: How was he born? How long was he in operation? How and
Why did your apparent death occur? Where would your initial collection have gone? What is your relationship with the
other art museums in the country, namely with the National Museum of Fine Arts and with the Museum of
Modern Art? I acknowledge the importance of the subject with the hope of seeing it.
deepened through specific research.
 260

slave-holding pillory. This competition resulted in the idea of creating the Museum of Art

Black, whose first public exhibition would take place in May 1968, at the Museum of

Image and Sound. Eight years later, Abdias would evoke the memory of this project.

innovative, saying:

The Museum of Black Art suffers from a deep ambiguity.

black, but also includes works by white artists. More serious is the very
the nature of the museum, a static thing only known and visited by people of the upper class

average upwards, only appreciated by the 'informed'. To fill its meaning, the
the museum had to be mobile, go up the hills, travel through the interior of the country. Collect

the material created, to exhibit it for discussion, dissemination, enriched with others
experiences. valuing Afro-Brazilian art considering the Afro-Brazilian people:
we did not have the means for this type of aesthetic and cultural revolution406.

The memories of the Museum of Images of the Unconscious and the Museum of Black Art

evoked here, next to the Museum of the Indian, serve a special role, which is:

highlight that the field of museums in Brazil continues to be open to different

experiences of creative imagination, not entirely aligned with classical museums

traditional; and also that the challenge of what to do and how to cultivate this field continues

renewed, especially in a country where processes of social exclusion are also renewed.

406
Birth (1976, p.42-43).
 261

3. From the necrology of museums to the radiant adventure

The museological heritage of the 20th century presents itself as a testament and challenge to

require readings and deciphering exercises, with the prior certainty that multiple

answers are possible. At the dawn of the new millennium, museums - whether of art or science,

public or private, popular or scholarly, biographical, ethnographic, local, regional

or national – still surprises, evokes dreams and flights on the wings of imagination. Here it is

what they continue to be: songs that can dissolve the present into the past,

how to make it bloom in the future; ambiguous dens that can serve interchangeably

to two or more lords; fields that can be cultivated to serve interests

personalists, how much to favor the social development of local populations;

spaces that can be solitary cells or open areas illuminated by

sol; houses inhabited, at the same time, by the gods of creation, of conservation and of

change.

Museums continue to be privileged places of mystery and narrative

poetics that is built with images and objects. What makes this narrative possible, what

the fable is that the air of mystery is the power of using things as devices of

cultural mediation between different worlds and times, different meanings and functions,

different individuals and social groups.

Reading and narrating the mystery of the world through a world of things is a challenge that

it imposes itself even before the learning of the first letters and the first numbers.

Understanding and knowing how to operate in space (three-dimensional) with the power of mediation that

things are possessed is the basis of museal imagination. There is no possible museum without
 262

this imaginative power comes into motion, it is what updates the museums and gives them

confers life and socio-political meaning.

The recognition of the capacity for updating and renewing museums by

the contest of this imaginative power was what led me to focus on and examine the work of

three Brazilian intellectuals who moved within the so-called paradigm

a classic of museology. Strictly speaking, its projects and museum institutions continue to have

the ability to foster new practices and stimulate new reflections, despite its

historical and geographical conditioning.

The emergence of new paradigms, as is known, does not entirely invalidate the

the previous paradigm only opens new fields of possibilities and provides new

(or old) tools for facing new (or old) problems. Besides

Therefore, it is important to emphasize that the complexity of social dynamics does not authorize the

naturalization of the belief in rigid marks that aim to make tabula rasa

previous processes and developments.

In the case of museums, this understanding is of great importance, as they

and their collections, even when organized within the classical paradigm of museology,

can be seeds capable of exploding, at a certain now, with the vigor of a

narrative that outlines the intention to build walls separating times and

spaces. Moreover, the classical paradigm of museology in Brazil and in Europe,

for example, it dominated most of the 20th century and remains robust, like a

an additional component of the contemporary cultural spectrum.

For all this, I suppose it is not without sense to understand that

the investigation of the museal imagination of Barroso, Freyre, and Darcy is valid for the
 263

contemporary museological universe, in local and global terms. The exchanges between center and

peripheries are more intense, complex, and unknown than is normally imagined.

It is worth emphasizing that anthropophagy is not an exclusivity of Brazilian modernism. In

museum field it has been a practice that often takes place in the national plan and

international. It does not sound strange to this field the hypothesis that what is here

produce not just copy, but also be original and, therefore, subject to being

anthropophagized. It should also be noted that Brazilian museal imagination, for better and for

oh bad, seems to easily adhere to the new, without that preventing hybridity, without that

this represents large commitments or significant breakups.

In the 20th century, in Brazil and around the world, museums multiplied greatly.

speed. And this numerical multiplication came accompanied by a significant

expansion of museodiversity; moreover, its mythical appeal also seems to have

grown, without prejudice to its political and playful-educational dimensions.

The assumption that had been gradually germinating since the eighteenth century: that

everything would be subject to musealization, seems to have been confirmed in the 20th century. And this

confirmation came through various paths, museums of everything emerged around the world:

museums that are called museums; museums that are called houses, spaces, and centers

cultural; museums that are called gardens, cities and historical, ethnographic sites

archaeological; museums that are called buses, ships, and trains; museums that are called

streets, sewage networks, and forest reserves.

The writing of museums has returned to the interest of artists, philosophers,

anthropologists, sociologists, educators, historians, politicians, etc. And all of this, in my

understanding, for at least two relatively simple reasons: 1st - the centrality of
 264

the power of mediation of images and objects in the cosmos of culture and 2nd - the capacity to

renewal of museal imagination.

When in the sixties and seventies of the twentieth century, some sectors of the avant-garde

the Western culture announced the death or, in the best case, the disappearance

next to the museums, supposedly did not take these two simple reasons into account.

In August 1971, as reported by Hugues de Varine, during the IX Conference

General ICOM, held in Paris, Dijon, and Grenoble, the Beninese Stanislas Adotévi and the

Mexican Mario Vásquez openly proclaimed: the "museum revolution will be radical,

or the museum will disappear407 .

The necrology of the museum, translated from a certain political desire,

it appeared accompanied by a speech that set in motion severe criticisms of the

aristocratic, authoritarian, uncritical, conservative, and inhibiting character of these institutions,

considered an endangered species and thus nicknamed 'dinosaurs' and

of 'white elephants'. Twenty or thirty years later, what was observed was that the museums

not only did they not die, but they proliferated and gained prominence in the cultural scene

in the social life of the contemporary world.

Some examples of the proliferation of collated museums in the work "La

Museology according to George Henri Rivière408are enlightening and indicate that in the period

From 1975 to 1985, the number of museums increased significantly in countries such as the

former Federal Republic of Germany, Canada, the United States, Japan, and France.

At a seminar recently held in the city of São Paulo, Timothy Mason

informed that in Great Britain there were, in 1962, about 900 museums and, in

407
Varine (1979, p.23 and 2000, p.63-64).
408
Rivière (1989, p.62-68).
 265

2003, approximately 2500, of which 1100 are small museums that survive.

independent of financial resources obtained directly from the spheres

governmental409.

In Brazil, the proliferation of museums corresponds to this general picture.

Once, as Benny Schvasberg noted: in 1972, it was estimated that there were a total of 391.

museums and, in 1984, this number was increased to 803410.

In any case, the criticisms directed at the dinosaur-like character of some

museum institutions had some effect and seem to have stimulated reformist winds

the modernizers who in the eighties and nineties went through some of them. The

modernization brought greater concern for services aimed at the public and greater

attention to pedagogical practices, in addition to the enhancement of expographic resources

and the refinement of technical-scientific procedures in the areas of preservation,

conservation, restoration and museographic documentation.

In a world that has come to adopt spectacle as the measure of all things, the

dinosaur-like character was, itself, transformed into a spectacular element. Like a

corollary of the spectacular culture absorbed and developed by classical museums and

traditional ones have established the so-called mega-exhibitions, some dealing with arts,

others of historical treasures and others still of sciences and dinosaurs, always all

spectacular. The museumized dinosaurs and the dinosaur museums have come back in fashion.

The reformist winds, however, did not intend to abolish and did not abolish the accents.

authoritarian, aristocratic, colonialist, and imperialist of many of these institutions. What

409
Seminar "Museum Management: Challenges and Practices", taught by Professor Timothy Mason, in
September 15, 16, and 17, 2003, at the Pinacoteca of the State of São Paulo, sponsored by VITAE and
by the British Council.
410
Schvasberg (1989, p.115-116).
 266

it was intended to be avoided and it was avoided that a museum like the Louvre, considered as

prototype of the warehouse of a bourgeois estate411, it was set on fire, like

symbolically and ironically they said that it was necessary to have some representatives of the rebel generation

of the French social movement of May 1968.

My suggestion is that the diagnosis of death or near disappearance

of museums - considered as places sanctified by the cultural tradition of the bourgeoisie

Western - should be read as part of the socio-political movements of criticism and

the contestation that in the sixties and seventies hit various values hard

institutionalized. If on one hand, these criticisms seem to have contributed to the

invention of a new future for classical and traditional museums; on the other hand, they seem

to have set in motion the desire to establish a new museal imagination, until

then not foreseen.

In the early 1970s, this new museal imagination began to gain

visibility through experiences developed in various parts of the world, without

among them there were, initially, visible channels of exchange. It is in this context that

places the emergence of the ecomuseum which, according to the creator of the term, was nothing more than

an attempt, an invitation to demonstrate imagination, initiative, and audacity412.

According to the testimony of Hugues de Varine, one of the participants of the generation of

1968, it was in a restaurant in Paris, in the spring of 1971, at a lunch to discuss the

organization of the already mentioned IX General Conference of ICOM, in the company of George Henri

Rivière, former director and permanent advisor of ICOM and Serge Antoine, advisor

411
Menezes (1994, p.11).
412
Varine (2000, p.62).
 267

of the Minister of the Environment, who he (Hugues de Varine) would have coined the neologism

ecomuseum. During this lunch, George Henri Rivière and Hugues de Varine, aiming at

opening a new field for museological research, they expressed the desire to listen

the minister to publicly express himself about the relationship between the museum and the environment

environment. However, the minister's advisor was hesitant:

G.H. Rivière and I struggled in vain to convince our

interlocutor of the vitality of the museum and its usefulness. Finally, by
Just kidding, I said: 'it would be absurd to abandon the word; better to change its
brand image... but one can try to create a new word from it
museum...'. And I tried various combinations of syllables from the two words.
'ecology' and 'museum'. On the second or third attempt, I pronounced 'ecomuseum'.
Serge Antoine sharpened his ear and declared that he thought perhaps this word could
offer the Minister the opportunity to open a new path to his strategy
Ministry413 .

As can be understood, the term ecomuseum was born from a play on words and

entirely linked to political interests. One should not be naive about this.

It was about imagining a new possibility of museum action free from 'pastism.
414
dusty is open to the connections between culture and nature, between museum and environment

environment. The theoretical-conceptual formulation of this new type of museum - involving the

notions of total or integral heritage, community participation, local development and

environment (or territory) - was the result of a later work. At the root of this

a new type of museum was present the importance of using the 'language of things'

413
Same, p.64.
414
Same.
 268

as a mediation device of sociocultural practices and relations, including there

issues of use and preservation of so-called natural resources.

In September 1971, the French Minister of the Environment officially launched,

in Dijon, the idea of the ecomuseum as an institution guided by an education of the environment

environment and, most of the time, inserted in natural parks415At that same time,

Hugues de Varine was invited by Marcel Evrard, who was active in the Association of

Friends of the Museum of Mankind in Paris, to participate in the installation project of a

museum in the municipality of Le Creusot. According to the testimony and the memory of

Hugues de Varine, it was in November of that same year that the project took shape.

Museum of Man and Industry of the Le Creusot-Montceau-les-Mines community. Three

Years later, this museum process, fragmented and scattered in an urban area of 500

km2 and 90,000 inhabitants would officially receive the designation of ecomuseum. However,

between the ecomuseum announced in the context of the government policy of the French minister

of the environment and the ecomuseum housed by the Museum of Man and Industry of

communityLe Creusot-Montceau-les-Mines, there were clear differences 416A principal

it was the urban character and the sense of participation of the local population that informed the

reflection and action process of the Museum of Man and Industry.

Following other theoretical and practical paths, a group of museologists and

museum professionals gathered in Santiago, Chile, in May 1972, for the

holding a round table on the role of museums in Latin America.

In 1970, Salvador Allende had been elected president of Chile and had given

the beginning of the socialist government of the Popular Unity, a process that would be interrupted in

415
Same, p.68.
416
Same, p.68-69.
 269

1973, with the military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte. It was, therefore,

in the belly of this socialist and democratically elected government, at a time of tension

policy for all of Latin America in which one of the most emblematic meetings was conceived

and seminal works of museology in the second half of the 20th century.

Contrary to the current trends, all the experts invited for the

The Round Table of Santiago de Chile was Latin American and, for this reason, it was

Spanish has been adopted as the official language of communication; in addition, they were invited.

also to intervene in debates experts in education, urban planning, agriculture,

environment and scientific research. During the preparation stage of the meeting, it was considered-

if the delivery of the direction of the work to Paulo Freire, which, for political reasons, was

banned by UNESCO by a delegate of the Brazilian government, who at that time was living

under a military dictatorship.

In doing an exercise of recalling what he called the 'Santiago adventure',

Hugues de Varine recorded, as innovative results of that meeting, two notions:

1ato the "integral museum", that is, a process that takes into "consideration the totality of

society's problems and 2athe understanding of the 'museum as action', that is, how

a "dynamic instrument of social change". The combination of these two notions

allowed to be thrown into the field of oblivion, that which for more than two hundred

years presented itself as an identity paradigm of museums: "the mission of collecting and

conservation. Along this path, the concept of global heritage to be

managed in the interest of man and all men417 .

417
Varine (1995, p.18).
 270

At the meeting in Santiago, Chile, there was no mention of ecomuseum, what was in

the agenda of the museological debates was the notion of the integral museum, but with

surely, there was a needle and thread sewing connections between these different paths of

renewal of museal imagination.

Started around 1973 and interrupted in 1980, the experimental project of

House of the Museum developed in popular neighborhoods of Mexico, starting from the Museum

National Anthropology is a clear example of the application of the resolutions of Santiago.

in Chile, having, at the same time, connections with the theoretical principles of ecomuseums

community418 .

The military coup that ended the socialist government of Salvador Allende contributed

for the silence that has arisen around the memory of that emblematic meeting. The

desire to silence the construction of a new museal imagination, with a popular accent,

participatory and utopian, with a leftist political face, was not effective enough to

to prevent that ten and twenty years later the main themes of that memorable table

round occupied the agenda of other local, regional, national, and

international.

The silent development of experiences guided by new perspectives

museological issues erupted with vigor and some noise at the first international workshop

made in 1984, in Quebec (Canada), on which occasion they were explicitly resumed

the resolutions of the Round Table of Santiago de Chile and the foundations of what were laid

it has become customary to call it the International Movement of New Museology (MINOM).

Second testimony of Mario Moutinho:

418
Varine (2000, p.67-68).
 271

It fell to the group of ecomuseums of Quebec, in particular to the action of Pierre

Mayrand and René Rivard, to launch an international meeting project where one
to bring together museologists from various countries, representing diverse experiences,

analyzing what is common in your actions could serve as a link to a

closer collaboration, simultaneously stating that museology was treading
new directions419 .

When I direct my gaze towards the museological heritage of the twentieth century - especially the

that was built after the Second World War - what seems clear to me is that the years

The seventies and eighties were characterized as a period of effervescence and turbulence.

museum-like, unprecedented. Various and innovative experiences were carried out and

new theoretical approaches were developed. The museums that until that time

they proclaimed their own political neutrality and celebrated their distancing from

social problems were shaken and challenged to face concrete situations that do not

they concerned only the traditions of an idealized past; but yes, to the daily life and the

contemporaneity of the societies in which they were inserted. Working with museums

stopped being just an exercise of occasionally dusting off things, of

occasionally create obvious labels, to record in a disciplined and docile manner the

acromegaly of the collections and of counting - sometimes in an euphoric manner, sometimes in a depressed one - the

number of visitors. Working in museums has also come to mean having an interest in

social and political life: of people, of collections, of cultural and natural heritage and of

spaces and, through this path, became an explicit exercise in operating with relations of

memory and power through the mediation of concrete things.

419
Moutinho (1989, p.55).
 272

The classic paradigm of museology has been called into question. But, that does not mean

to say that he has disappeared or succumbed after the battles fought in the years

seventy and eighty. The classic and traditional museums, just like the other museums, are

gifted with a mimetic power and a great capacity for adapting to the new

times. This also does not mean, as I have tried to demonstrate, that they do not have

they were forced to activate mechanisms of reform and modernization. But, when activating

these mechanisms they took care to keep intact the foundations upon which they

they agreed.

When I settle down with a magnifying glass to better observe the museological heritage of the 20th century.

it is evident the great proliferation of museums of various types and the establishment of a

innovative museal imagination: the one that feeds on misaligned cultural practices

with the idea of wealth accumulation and instead of orienting itself towards the grandes
420
narratives, eager for great syntheses, turns to the 'modest narratives' e

values the relationship between beings and between beings and things. Modest narratives, but

with discursive strength and the ability to promote other possibilities of identification.

This new museum imagination is at the origin: 1oof the appropriation of knowledge

museological specialized by certain ethnic and social groups that, in

combination with their own knowledge generates hybrid knowledge capable of producing

innovative practices; 2othe museographic experiences that take place in the first

person and allow the other to take the floor and speak for themselves; 3oof multiplication

of local museums of collective participation, without disciplinary specialization, and oriented

for the appreciation of counter-memories that have been silenced for a long time or

420
Kumar (1997).
 273

placed on the margins of the official processes of institutionalization of national memories

the regionals and 4oof the museological procedures that operate simultaneously with the

material and spiritual heritage composing poetic narratives, weaving practices

policies and pedagogies that were not anticipated in the first museum manuals

mid-twentieth century.

The innovative character of this museal imagination that developed in

confrontation with the classical paradigm of museology is not enough to distance from

museums and processes that inspire some risks and dangers, among which I highlight one

setenary set, some of which were previously identified by Hugues

of Varine: 1oor to be considered a threat to the classical museum and all action

spectacular culture, from which its socioeconomic emptying may arise or

simply the authoritarian intervention; 2o- or being considered as an "other" and,

therefore, in the logic of the 'same', without identity with the museum universe, of what can

to run the denial of the right to be just a different museum; 3oor to be a hiding place

the mask of the representatives of the classical and traditional model, from which the following may arise

confusion and disbelief; 4othe lack of maturity of the participants in the process

innovative, especially regarding the confrontation of internal crises; of what

both a return to the classical paradigm and the establishment of multiple can occur

rebellious and reckless procedures; 5oto control the entire museum process

for a single family or a single group, from which the reproduction of can occur

authoritarian, egocentric, exclusionary, and antidemocratic models; 6oabout abandonment

of the specificity of the language of things and poetic narrative, from which may arise

transformation of the museum into something else; 7othe breaking of the channel of
 274

contact with the other, with the different and even with the universal, from which may result the

cultural paralysis, the sterile exercise of saying the same thing to the same person. This last

danger can lead to autophagy which is, in every way and in all respects, the opposite of

cannibalism of the old modernists.

In addition to all these risks and dangers, it is important to note that museums today

constitute a phenomenon much more complex than what was imagined in the years

sixty. To critically understand them, it is no longer enough to reduce them to the role of
421
bastion of high culture and of legitimizers of the interests of the dominant classes,

even though these roles continue to be developed by many institutions. When they are

understood as a field of action and discourse, museums are no longer of interest only

to the collectors of the memorabilia of the oligarchies. And if this is true, more than

the need to understand this phenomenon and learn to is never highlighted

use this mediating instrument that interferes in contemporary social life.

One of the challenges to critical thinking about museums is the development of

specific investigations that take into account a more dialectical process

more complex than that which is reduced to the game between the past and the present, the old and the

new, the tradition and modernity. This challenge involves, for example, the consideration of

that museums are plural, that there is a great diversity of museums, that they can

they can be taken as tools for work and can therefore serve various interests,

And that even within a single museum there are multiple lines of force at play.

Another challenge is to understand museums as social practices and centers of

interpretation, from which the possibility of understanding them as fields of relationships arises

421
Husseyn (1994).
 275

objective, subjective, and intersubjective. Thinking of museums as spaces of relationships is

accepting your human dimension, your condition as the "house of man" in process of

construction, and, consequently, its state of permanent tension.

In 1980, Waldisa Russio Camargo Guarnieri developed the project for the Museum of

Industry, Commerce and Technology of São Paulo, conceiving it as an embryo of a

ecomuseum with multiple locations. In this project, it proposed the musealization of factories and

companies and adopted the 'Chaplin-like discourse as a basic theme' 422At the beginning, in the middle

and at the end of the project's promotional document, she repeated the motto of Charles Chaplin:

You are not machines! You are not animals! You are men! You bring love and the

humanity in your hearts! You, the people, have the power to create this free life and

splendid... to make this life a radiant adventure423. In my understanding, this

universal and humanizing speech of Chaplin appeared there as the guiding thread of a

utopian narrative that anchored a new museum imagination. This narrative seemed

suggest: museums can be understood as machines, technologies or

tools; but we are not museums, we are not things, we are humans. We

we bring love and humanity in our hearts; we have the power to create

artifacts and museums; we have the power to create this free and splendid life... to make life

a radiant adventure.

422
Russio (1980).
423
Charles Chaplin quoted by Russio (1980).
 276

Final considerations or keeping the doors open

Now that the cosmic dust has dispersed

And now that the whole universe is gone
It's time to start over and try again.

Viktor Henrique Carneiro de Souza Chagas

In the last sentence of his theses on the concept of history, Benjamin - referring to

to the future as a time that would be neither homogeneous nor empty - conceived each

second424. A

image of the "narrow door" evoked as an allusion to the passage of time opens a series of

possibilities for the understanding of the present that is made being. Through this door, the

Messiah, as the embodiment of a future and a new seed, could enter; but,

as a channel of passage, it could also serve to activate and recall a

past, equally distant from the idea of emptiness or homogeneity.

The image of this 'narrow door' opens other doors.425I am led by it to

reestablish the notion that museums and cultural heritage (material and spiritual) can

being (poetic) doors capable of promoting an erosion of barriers, of bringing closer and

separate worlds, times, beings, and different meanings. Through these other doors one can

424
Benjamin (1985, p.232.)
425
The reference to the 'narrow door' mentioned by Benjamin is also found in Jacques Derrida (2001.
p.89).
 277

establish channels of contact with the past, future, and especially with the present, where

they themselves are planted like seeds of an 'now'.

By insinuating that museums and cultural heritage can be understood

like doors, windows or bridges what I intend to underline are their characteristics of

mediating bodies in motion, from which the understanding that they are can derive

homes of human communication and that, therefore, are places where language is made

presents itself as the sowing of the new. In this sense, it is possible to say that the heritage

cultural and museums result from language; or, more precisely, from a

language that is constituted through the things placed in motion. Would it not be

possible to set in motion a museal narrative without a minimum understanding of it

language, without knowing at least the rudiments of reading and poetic writing of the

things and space, in its various dimensions. At this point, I think I am excused.

to insist on the inseparability between the tangible and the intangible, the visible and the invisible, the fixed

and the volatile.

As notions of museum and cultural heritage, as seen, sometimes approach and sometimes

they intertwine, now they separate and feel alien to each other. The dividing line between them is coated with a

certain opacity that, from my point of view, must be respected. Depending on the

the perspective adopted by museums can encompass and embrace the notion of cultural heritage,

as much as, cultural heritage can host and contain the notion of a museum. Whether in a

perspective, whether in one or another, often trigger preservationist discourses

aimed at cultural assets, broadly considered as resources in danger of

destruction and investment of certain values. What many times, and in practice, these

speeches seem to obscure is that preservation is not an end in itself, but rather,
 278

is at the service of specific power relations. Relations that permeate the

processes of musealization and heritage preservation and assert themselves as promises of

communication. The recognition of these promises leads me to the following proposition: only

What is invested with some power of mediation is preserved.

What I am trying to emphasize is the precedence, not always given to see with

sharpness, of the power of mediation over the preservationist longing, particularly in what

that refers to the universe of museums. From this perspective, the main characteristic of

museum imagination would not be preservation, as one might suppose when the

understanding can be deceived by the veils of illusion, but, yes the possibility of

articulation of a certain narrative through things, taking into account the

historical, political, and social injunctions involved. This particular narrative both

can be triggered through objects inherited from any past, as well as through

of new and constructed objects426specifically with the aim of giving body to a

communication process.

When my youngest son told me: "I'm going to keep my little black hat"

forever, so I would never forget the little music school,” he was, in some

mode, manifesting a preservationist desire, but the main motive of your interest

as a child, I resided in the recognition that that artifact, imbued with a power of

mediation would be able to sidestep forgetfulness and that through it he (the boy)

could communicate with yourself, with other beings, with another time and with the

426
To deepen the debate around inherited objects and constructed objects, one can consult the
The construction of the museum object, authored by Mário Moutinho (1994).
 279

memory of the music school. That little black hat would be used to tell

stories, he could be a bridge or a door.

The image of the 'second' or the 'now' as 'the narrow door through which one could

to penetrate [the seed, the new, the promise] the Messiah," when applied to museums and the

cultural heritage can illuminate the ground: 1oIt contributes to deconstruction.

the idea that cultural heritage is merely a paternal inheritance or something that is

transmits from "father to son," in a linear and diachronic manner; 2oShe favors the

understanding that if there is a paternal inheritance, there is also a maternal inheritance (a

marriage), without which the patrimonio is not established, even if only considering the

diachronic perspective; 3oShe opens up space for the possibility to be admitted of a

social sharing of cultural assets that occurs synchronously within the same

era, of the same generation (a fratrimony) and 4oShe also suggests that from a child or

daughters also pass on seeds, experiences, knowledge, values to fathers or mothers,

promises, affections and much more.

I am convinced that these different possibilities of understanding the

cultural heritage and museums find support in everyday social practices and

value the complexity of the relationships maintained with the so-called supports of

memory, as long as it is accepted, without attempts at absolute imposition and control, the flows

and the refluxes of the "nomadic meanings"427The attempt to control and discipline

integrally the meanings of objects and erase the marks of their nomadism in
428
time and space, as Santos observed, have produced 'show-museums'

427
Santos (1989, p.153)
428
The same.
 280

subjected to a logic that reduces culture to the condition of a market product,

sanitized and cleaned of the marks (of sweat and blood) that confer upon it humanity. This

attempt can be translated as a renewed effort of depoliticization of some

museums and the closure of their doors to the dangerous contagion with the new virus,

as much can come from the past as from the future. The museal imagination, however, does not

it seems to be exhausting, as I have wanted to demonstrate, in a single museum pattern. And if that

In truth, there is still room in the universe of museums for memory, for dreams, and for

the unexpected.

Throughout the study conducted here, I sought to focus on various perspectives what

I have referred to it as museal imagination, whose roots can be visibly traced back to the century.

XIX, even though there are, as has been observed, prior experiences dating from the centuries

XVIII and XVII, like those that were carried out, respectively, in Rio de

January (House of Xavier of the Birds) and in Pernambuco (Museum of the Great Park of)

Vrijburg Palace). It was in the 20th century, however, that Brazilian museal imagination

it had its greatest development, especially after the Revolution of '30 and the

procedures for the modernization and reorganization of the State with notable interventions in

land of politics, culture, education, health, and labor.

It was from the 1930s onwards in Brazil that the number of museums multiplied.

rapidly in relation to previous years, that museodiversity has expanded and that

the museum imagination renewed. They date from that same period, in Brazil, the

initial procedures for the institutionalization of museology, which evenMaintaining

a peripheral position in relation to the field of social sciences did not fail to

constitute a more or less organized body of knowledge and did not fail to
 281

affirm your desire to be science. In this context, the role played by Gustavo

Barroso, as the founding father of the National Historical Museum and 'adoptive father' of the first

Museum courses are of significant importance. They are undeniably responsible for

first major effort to systematize the classic paradigm of museology in

Brazil.

The recognition of this important role played by Barroso does not want,

in no way, to cover up and even less to justify your political conservatism and the

his declared anti-Semitism. The exhumation of his museal imagination, which also

was contaminated by her worldview, constitutes a necessary rite for the

depotentialization of the ghost.

Even being, as I think it is, a bridge thrown in the direction of the century

XIX, the National Historical Museum of Barroso continues to represent a novelty

for its time and a source of inspiration for many other museum processes. The Course of

Museums, for their part, have contributed to education and development.

professional vocations misaligned with the canon of classical and traditional careers

of medicine, engineering, and law, for example. In this sense, both the Historical Museum

Nationally, how the Museum Course stands out in the Brazilian cultural scene when

examines, in the first half of the twentieth century, the field of museums, memory, and the

cultural heritage.

429
Like the 'man with the magnifying glass' I focused my attention on three intellectuals from

outstanding importance in the Brazilian cultural scene of the 20th century: Gustavo Barroso,

429
Bachelard (1993, p.164).
 282

Gilberto Freyre and Darcy Ribeiro, gathering some abandoned nails in their works,

looking for small details, small fragments and traces that would allow me - to the

their revelation - to build my own narrative and with it demonstrate the existence of

a Brazilian museum imagination, rich and complex, that cannot be fully captured

for preconceived ideas and schemes. I tried to avoid these traps. However, I know that

I did not start from scratch and I did not completely free myself from my prejudices, from

my images and mental habits built throughout my life in my relationships

social430 .

Barroso, Freyre, and Darcy were characterized here as three narrators.

modern, three leap year poets, three demiurges of different types of museums. Thus

like the museums they created, they are capable of provoking dreams and even nightmares. The

the examination of the imagination museum of each of them revealed that among them there are

similarities e differences, approximations e detachments, singularities e

universals. The three modes of museum imagination, represented by museums

invented by the three mentioned intellectuals, can be considered museological matrices

that focus on: the nation and history, the region and tradition, ethnicity and culture. I speak of

matrices with some reservation and without any intention of identifying in the museal imagination

of these three intellectuals ideal types or even canonical characteristics of musealization.

Possibly, if I focused on demiurges of art or science museums that are eager

the final picture would be altered or gain another color.

The important thing, as I believe, is the perception that there are multiple forms of

museum imagination that they are not the prerogative of a chosen few. As I have

430
Bachelard cited by Chagas (1996, p.19)
 283

sustained, even before the learning of the first letters and the first numbers

one learns to read and to deal with the world of things, only then one tries to fit in -

Without definitive success, I would like to suppose - the world of things (and the ideas that they

they embody) in the world of letters and well-written, organized words. It is worth emphasizing,

that reading in these last lines of a reckless rebellion against the letters and the

written words are not authorized. My intention is different. What I want to emphasize is the

importance of the social life of things in everyday practices. Things have power to

mediation and continue anchoring feelings, thoughts, intuitions, and sensations.

Although it has been widely disseminated in Brazil, at least until the years

seventy, the museum imagination of barrosiana was far from being the only line of

strength of the complex universe of Brazilian museums. As I tried to demonstrate throughout

In the present study, Gilberto Freyre and Darcy Ribeiro are two examples, among others, of

intellectuals who developed specific modalities of museal imagination

independence more or less significant in relation to Gustavo Barroso.

Freyre valued the preservation of certain regional traditions and was concerned with

a certain everyday life stripped of spectacular character. Its museal imagination, supported by

the museographic arm of Aécio de Oliveira spread across the northern and northeastern regions, and,

for a time, it served as an alternative model for practices that were not

entirely aligned with the discourse of national homogeneity. This did not prevent, in

Meanwhile, the Northeast Man Museum of Gilberto Freyre would undergo a

billiards, common to museums that attempt great syntheses. When trying to musealize a

idealized man situated in the region, Freyre skirted tensions, problems and
 284

memories of many other men and women from different northeastern regions. The regional

it also serves to trap thought in the meshes of a naturalized fiction.

The museal imagination of Darcy Ribeiro, in comparison with that of Barroso and

Freyre was the one that spread the least in the national territory until the early nineties,

even though it has visibly gained national and international notoriety in the years

fifty. But, its critical and political dimension linked to the 'indigenous cause', equipped with the

explicit desire to combat prejudices, gave him a remarkable ability to

survival and dialogue with the new forms of museum imagination that arise from the

The seventies and eighties gained importance in the field of museology. This capacity of

survival and dialogue can be observed in the renewal of the museum practices of the Museum

of the Indian and in the collaboration that he has been providing to the organization contemporaneously

some indigenous museums.

Michel Thevoz and Mario Moutinho - this is one of the founders of the Movement

International of New Museology -, they would possibly sign with enthusiasm the

proposal for a museum designed to combat prejudice, a character issue

universal. According to Thevoz, cited numerous times by Moutinho, defender of a

unsettling and disturbing museology:

Exporting is or should be, working against ignorance, especially

against the most refractory form of ignorance: the preconceived idea, the prejudice,
The cultural stereotype. To expose is to take and calculate the risk of disorienting - in the sense

etymological: (to lose orientation), to disturb harmony, the evident, and consensus,
constitutive of the common place (of the banal). However, it is also true that a
an exhibition that would deliberately seek to scandalize would bring, through a perversion
 285

the inverse or the same obscurantist result as the pseudocultural lust... between the
demagoguery and provocation, it is about finding the subtle itinerary of communication
visual431 .

What was not said in Thevoz's text, nor mentioned by Moutinho, is that

just as there are different species of museums and different modalities of

museum imagination, composing a complex museum diversity, there also exist

different expographic possibilities within a single museum, and that is good. Finally,

museum communication is not a one-way street and cannot be placed in

movement without the participation and consent of the one to whom the exhibition narrative

is directed. Communication in museums is within the scope of social relations. And these

relations - involving power and memory, resistance and forgetting, sound and silence - not

are given and controlled only by the narrators, demiurges, administrators, technicians and

museum specialists, they are much more complex. The visitors or the participants

a museum's objects are not beings stripped of power and memory and are also not

entirely devoid of any form of museum imagination.

All of this points to the understanding that right there in the midst of an exhibition

ancient and traditional - like that of the Pátio dos Canhões of the National Historical Museum, by

example -, a visitor or a participant can read and hear the poetic narrative of things,

you can be moved and dazzled, you can find a door and through it find the

explosive seed of the new and of life, no matter if it comes from the past or the future.

431
Thevoz cited by Moutinho (1994, p.6; 2000, p.65).
 286

Perhaps this explosive seed of now was informing the search of the poet Paulo.

Leminski, whose poem that follows I would like to sign:

Pickle
the door that was forgotten to be closed.
The alley with an exit.

The keyless door.

Life.432

432
Leminski and Pires (1990)
 287

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 120

preferred chosen among state and municipal servers with exercise in

museums180.

The fact that the Course was created by Rodolfo Garcia was not any

obstacle for him to have, after surgical operations, in a short time.

successful, the face of the "adoptive father"181It was through him that Barroso prepared

followers, established a school and formed a group of heirs who for a long time

they stood out in the museum institutions of Brazil.

The image of the museum curator - as they were called at the time

specialists in this field of knowledge - designed by Barroso, assumes a range

enormous singular knowledge, a 'great sum of erudition, patience, and acumen'

of spiritual sharpness182It is not difficult to read one's own professional image in this drawing.

of the founder of the Museum. If there was an innovative character in the Course, given by the encouragement to

learning the language of objects183In a world dominated by beautiful letters, there was

also a clear conservative and traditionalist accent in political terms, given by

own Barrosian ideology.

Elevated to the status of higher education institution in 1943 and re-

structured in the following year, the Course began to have a duration of three academic years, divided

in two parts: a general one and a specialized one; with the latter divided into two

sections: historical museums and artistic museums.

180
Ministry of Education and Culture/National Historical Museum. Museum Course, Instructions for
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181
Nazareth (1991, p.39).
182
Barroso (1951, p.18).
183
Same, p.14.
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