GloboDOC São João do Nordeste – People in Festivity

During the month of June in the North East of Brazil, a party with deep roots flourishes. Sao Joao is traditional in the region. It commenced in Europe as a secular party, a ritual in the fields to pay thanks for the crops. With Christianity, the party was associated with the Saint that came to Brazil through Portuguese colonizers. In the lands in the North East of the country, which suffer from droughts and floods, the Sao Joao party assumes a typical and unique form. 

It maintains a mixture of its religious and pagan origins and assumed practices and beliefs of the natives. It has become a detailed and colorful mosaic, a perfect portrait of the region. Sao Joao, Santo Antonio and Sao Pedro, the three Saints of June, are celebrated in parties that mix catholic processions and mystique, harvest picking in the fields and music in the cities, explosions of gunpowder and ancestral dances. The result is a spectacle of rare and moving beauty, made from history, folklore and expectation. It is a manifestation full of surprises capable of making spectators laugh or take them to tears because, above all, Sao Joao is a party for the people.