I ONLY SEE THE SEA, I ONLY SEE LAND!Sailors on the “battlefield”: celebrating peace and diversity!

Abstract

This article presents both the historical and contemporary aspects of the Cheganças and Marujadas movement in Bahia, which is not exclusive to this state, but forms a large network of around 30 groups, which are now recognized as intangible heritage of Bahia (IPAC). For 25 years, they have been portrayed in several TVE documentaries by the Bahia Singular e Plural project. most of the Cheganças and Marujadas did not know each other and were often on the verge of giving up when a major movement began based on the work of Marujo and researcher Rosildo Rosario de Saubara, where in this small town there was already a concentration of three cheganças, including the first female chegança in Brazil. After a historical excursion into the phenomena of these groups, inspired by the narrative of Nau Catarineta, among others, the text goes on to present approximately twenty diverse Bahian groups, designated as Cheganças, Marujadas, and Battles of Moors and Christians from northern Bahia to the extreme south. It ends with a reflection on the obsolete place of folklorist and nationalist thinking, showing the complex diversity and profound structure of the Cheganças, which in their aesthetic, poetic, musical, and scenic aspects reveal African foundations, combined with Iberian and transatlantic historical elements, without seeking a place of purity and single origin, in the freedom to reinvent itself, revealing the diverse possibilities of Bahian culture in this great state.