By Bibiana Belisário
It was still early morning when Maria José de Lima Soares turned the key in her front door. She had returned from the village festival a few hours earlier, but rest was never part of her schedule for June 30th. An entire battalion was waiting for her arrival, and her body had known this route for decades. Sleep could wait. Saint Marçal, however, could not.
While much of the Northeast wakes up to take down the little flags and extinguish the last embers of the bonfires of Saint Anthony, Saint John, and Saint Peter, in São Luís the opposite happens. It is precisely when June seems to be coming to an end that the capital of Maranhão decides to extend it for another day, celebrating the patron saint and protector of Bumba Meu Boi.
Before six in the morning, Avenida São Marçal, in the João Paulo neighborhood, is no longer car-friendly. Held every June 30th for almost a century, the Encontro de Bois de São Marçal (São Marçal Oxen Meeting) will reach its 99th edition in 2026. Bringing together dozens of groups, especially those with a matraca rhythm, it has become the symbolic closing of the Maranhão June festivities cycle.
From the street corners emerge men carrying enormous leather tambourines. Then come the rattles. First one, then another, until hundreds of them begin to converse amongst themselves. Wood against wood, a dry, continuous, almost hypnotic crackling sound. Before the eyes even reach the first battalions, it is the sound that fills the city.
Then the colors appear. Hats embroidered with beads reflect the newborn sunlight. Ribbons dance in the wind, feather headdresses trace broad movements over the crowd, children hold small rattles with the same seriousness as the adults. There is no clearly defined audience, and whoever comes to watch ends up dancing. Until the early morning of July 1st, the avenue transforms into an immense, playful body that pulsates to the rhythm of the bumba meu boi.
That's where Maria do Maracanã arrives. Her given name has almost disappeared in the face of the prominence she has assumed within the popular culture of Maranhão. President of the traditional Boi de Maracanã, she knows every stage of the festival that shines before the public's eyes, but also those that take place during the other eleven months of the year.
“It’s a moment to celebrate all the work we’ve done in the workshop for 365 days. Today we’re here to consecrate this moment at São Marçal. It’s not easy to get here. There are many difficulties, but we manage to endure and resist in order to keep this tradition of Maranhão’s popular culture alive.”
The work doesn't end when the rattles fall silent. "We have fun all year round. There are visits to the communities, Easter Sunday, when we learn the new songs. Then come the rehearsals, the previews, and São João, which ends today here in São Marçal."
With documentary records dating back to the late 18th century, the Bumba Meu Boi Cultural Complex of Maranhão was registered as a Cultural Heritage of Brazil by Iphan. In 2019, the recognition transcended Brazilian borders when UNESCO granted it the title of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
In Maranhão, playing boi-bumbá is about making a commitment to a heritage that is transmitted through bodies and sound. For researcher Diana Taylor, there is knowledge that survives less in archives than in the repertoire: that which bodies repeat, sing, dance, and teach to one another.
The rattles continue marking the rhythm as the Boi de Maracanã enters the avenue, and the crowd advances as if they know exactly the weight of that moment. The embroidered mantle shimmers as the ox snakes its way through the streets, as if gaining human breath with each step. Around it, hundreds of people walk in the same direction, squeezed between vendors of typical foods, kebabs, and bottles of water balanced on styrofoam coolers.
“My story is full of juggling acts,” Maria summarizes. She started with the ox as a young girl, as a mutuca—a character who runs around the ox banging a rattle and cheering on the group. Decades later, she took on a responsibility she never imagined she would want. In 1996, her partner Humberto do Maracanã, one of the greatest figures in Maranhão's popular culture, decided he needed a trustworthy person to take care of the ox, and she became the group's president.
“What I really wanted was to be in the battalion, joking around, drinking without any commitments. 'Whoever rings the bell doesn't follow the procession,'” he jokes. He quickly adds: “It's a doubled responsibility. A responsibility born of affection, love, and responsibility.”
Those who manage a Boi (a traditional Brazilian folk dance) also carry their own constant worries. In the Boi de Maracanã, more than a thousand people participate directly in the performance, including musicians, singers, embroiderers, artisans, performers, and support teams.
“We arrive by bus, on foot, by hitchhiking. Everyone finds their own way to get here.” Ultimately, no one arrives simply because they were called up, but rather because they belong.
This idea permeates the entire day among the various groups that pass through the avenue, carrying with them their old neighborhoods, the villages of the interior, and an entire island of devotion. If Maracanã is one of the unavoidable names in the Maranhão accent, Maioba occupies an equally central place in the affective memory of Maranhão.
José Raimundo Ferreira Filho observes everything without hiding his pride. The director of Maioba, he speaks about continuity. “Everything starts with the generation. With my grandfather, my father, and now my son, my grandson. It’s a continuous generation of passion.”
Born in Paço do Lumiar, the group now occupies a central place in the island's memory. “The tradition has been sustained by the people. It's not just the ox. It's the people who create the tradition. The Boi da Maioba arrives with all that production, but if the people aren't there, it doesn't perform. Without the people, there's no Maioba.”
What stretches down São Marçal Avenue is an entire genealogy, where each participant carries with them someone who came before. As the afternoon progresses, the heat diminishes, but the avenue only grows larger. Tiredness appears on faces, in clothes soaked with sweat, in hands marked by the rattles. Even so, no one seems willing to abandon the procession.
There is something of a pilgrimage in that walk, a journey made of leather, wood, and song. "Faith is the ultimate name we give ourselves to endure this care. Because it's not easy. It's very expensive," says Maria. São Marçal has become the one to whom we give thanks for another completed cycle and before whom we reaffirm our desire to continue.
The Bumba Meu Boi tradition has not remained unchanged throughout more than two centuries of Brazilian history. It has incorporated new sounds, reinvented costumes, engaged with technology, moved to other spaces, and won over new audiences. It has remained recognizable precisely because it has never stopped transforming itself.
But even Saint Marçal doesn't completely close the cycle. "The death of the ox happens on the second Sunday of August," explains Maria. After that, there are still congresses, seminars, presentations, trips around Maranhão and other states. The calendar of the celebration only changes rhythm.
The idea of spiraling time, proposed by Leda Maria Martins, finds an almost palpable expression in São Marçal. The past reappears each time a child learns a tune, each time a master teaches the rhythm of a rattle, each time a battalion returns to occupy the avenue.
José Raimundo sees this future before his very eyes. "Nowadays, children are more loving towards the ox. It's a generation that will continue."
When Maria do Maracanã turns the key in her front door again, it will probably be night once more, and the party will have ended only for the moment. Perhaps she'll manage to sleep a little longer than the night before, or maybe not. But one thing is certain: in a few months, the shack will be full again.
And when the next June 30th arrives, the first rattles will start answering each other again before the sun even rises. As if, in Maranhão, June had never left. Or, perhaps, as if some forms of memory simply refused to end.
