Guiné berra-bois for the wandering souls

berra-boi

berra-boi (literally 'bellow-ox'): a Brazilian name for the bullroarer.

Every Friday of Lent, after ten at night, a small band of foliões left the farms of Guiné to sing for the wandering souls. At each farmyard the matraca sounded first, then the bamboo réu-réu rattled like a burst of machine-gun fire, then came the berra-bois, as many as anyone cared to swing, each a small board spun on a strong cord until it droned like a gale. Inside, the family put out the lights and sat silent in the dark through the prayers for the drowned, the lost and the violently dead; alms pushed through a crack in the window might be repaid with a flower left on the sill. "It was like a pact with the other side," a former réu-réu player remembered. They sang and played for the souls, and the souls left the houses alone. Many people, he said, saw others walking with the band, dressed in white.

Era como se fosse um acordo com o 'outro lado'. Cantavam e tocavam para 'elas' e assim 'elas' não incomodavam as pessoas, as casas.

It was like a pact with the 'other side'. They sang and played for 'them', and so 'they' did not trouble the people, the houses.

José Alves Nascimento, former réu-réu player, in Genio Nascimento, Encomendação das Almas (Intercom, 2007), pp. 5-6

Particulars

Object

A small board tied to one end of a strong cord, with a short handle tied to the other; spun hard, it gives a deep drone like a strong gale.

Function

Third instrument of Guiné's Lenten Folia das Almas, after the matraca and the réu-réu: as many berra-bois as players wished were spun at each farmhouse during the night-time songs and prayers for the souls of the dead.