Brasília – Maranhão, Brazil’s Bumba Meu Boi Cultural Complex has been listed as Intangible Cultural Heritage during a ceremony in Bogota, Colombia this Wednesday (11). The folk festivity was unanimously recognized by the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Maranhão’s Bumba Meu Boi “constitutes a cultural complex, comprising a variety of styles, multiplicity of groups and, mainly, because establishes an intrinsic relationship between faith, feast and art, based on devotion to the Catholic saints of June, on the beliefs of deities of African worships and on the cosmogony and legends of the region,” a UNESCO press release reads.
In 2011, the Bumba Meu Boi Cultural Complex in Maranhão got recognition at the national level, and a year later an application was made towards UNESCO. The Bumba Meu Boi Cultural Complex is the sixth Brazilian heritage item added to the Intangible Cultural Heritage list – the other five are Wajãpi Body Painting and Graphic Art (2003), Samba de Roda from the Recôncavo Baiano area (2005), Frevo: artistic expression of Recife’s Carnaval (2012), the Taper of Our Lady of Nazareth (2013) and the Capoeira Circle (2014).
Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
