PORTAL VIRTUAL BARCELONA (RN

In this link in English language you will be able to know on what is this research that involves civic journalism, education, communication through web and preservation of the cultural patrimony of small Brazilian municipal districts. Soon afterwards, read some general information on our Brazilian municipal district of Barcelona and see the vision that the American writer Daniel Mason has of the sertão, ("Backlands" in English) area of the Brazilian northeast where locates our land.

The whole rest of the content of this virtual portal is in Portuguese. But you can still read the content with the help of a good translation software. To obtain more information you can get in touch with us through the e-mail info@barcelonarn.tk. Be very welcome!

Our project

The virtual portal Barcelona has a journalistic and education focus, trying to analyze the characteristics artistic, historical, geographical, economical, linguistics and sociological of the municipal district of Barcelona, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil.

Was she the answer for an intriguing question - as it would be possible, to use a site of Internet to supply bibliographical deficiencies on local themes in small Brazilian municipal districts?

What differs the site of Barcelona of others is that he is not tourist. Our concern is the one of to supply news and local information in way didactics for use in classroom through our database and to make possible that the students and for extension the small communities of the which are part if they know, be aware (in agreement with his culture) of the reality in that they live. It is an incentive and an important tool for the educators to prioritize the linked subjects to the local reality. So that aware of the problems, advantages and potentialities start to act for the improvement of their life conditions. That is, to use the Journalism as education instrument, change and of conscience.

Old School in Barcelona (inaugurated on March 14, 1935)

Our objective is also to use the web for the valorization of the small communities' peculiarities and minorities ethnic or cultural, there included the lacking ones, inside of the vision of her own culture. Therefore, the content and the aesthetics of this site has to do with the culture in the which she interferes so much in content terms, design, language and graphically of agreement the aesthetic values in which the small community can be recognized. We intended like this to put in prominence the identity of the municipal district. That is the reason for which the site has that different appearance, she is resulted of our commitment with the Armorial Movement, aesthetic movement idealized by Ariano Suassuna in the decade of 70 of rescue and revaluation of the culture of the Brazilian northeast and it represents the first attempt of gathering arts for the construction of a Brazilian classic culture. They are part of this movement personalities as musician Antônio José Madureira, the plastic artist Francisco Brennand, the multiartista Antônio Nóbrega, besides own Ariano Suassuna. Therefore, the magazine interests not only to the population of Barcelona, but it is also useful to anybody interested party in linked subjects to the interior of the Brazilian northeast.

Oral history

We want to value the oldest residents' memories and to rescue collective experiences of participation political, associative or religious person. We want to do to circulate histories of the past to reinforce bows, identities and dreams of the present. Therefore, for his accomplishment they were made interviews with some people of the municipal district taking advantage his knowledge of the local oral history, since the city has deficiency of bibliographical material on herself. The data supplied by the interviews were analyzed to the light of the bibliography. Made that, the collected information were written in the different branches of the journalistic practice: reports, goods, chronicles, matters, editorial. Later the material had to have adapted text the on-line reading, it was edited, distributed by the corresponding links, designed and cultured with engravings pictures, colors and graphic formats. Last, the site was sent for the Internet, where it is constantly updated.

Information’s Age

The virtual magazine Barcelona is born based in the conviction that it is not necessary a lot to have a good informative vehicle, especially today in that the media resources are countless, limitless and of easy access. The Internet is the most democratic way of information, however of access still very restricted. But the tendency is that it is diffused more and more with the decrease the prices of the computer science equipments. Such and which happened with the television set, inside of some time almost all of the cottages of slums for the world will be online.

There are so many voices in that world shouting for they be heard, that only the Net can amplify those that they are not heard, as the one of the microcosm "Barcelona", lost in the boundaries of the interior of the Brazilian northeast. Things of the Information’s Age. Here you can have access to the local news section, interviews instigates, chronicles, curiosities, cultural information. Many of the habits and of the vocabulary of the interior they evoke Iberian Europe a lot, above all the farmer and medieval.

Culture

The interested parties in linguistics have disposition a very rich database, the " Nobre como Camões - Pequeno Dicionário do Português antigo falado em Barcelona” (Nobleman like Camões - Small Dictionary of the old Portuguese spoken in Barcelona). Where there is the registration of archaic words, that they are becoming archaic or in disuse. Far away from being the registration of a dying language, there is in the vocabulary regionalist the verification of royalty of the Portuguese spoken in the interior of the Brazilian northeast.

The ones that are today resistances of the archaic Portuguese arrived with the Portuguese settlers and they were preserved by the rural and uncultured populations of the Brazilian interior. Immune to the idioms and the cultural subservience of the metropolises, they conserved speaking Portuguese of the Medium Age. Many of these expressions, besides, they were used by Luis of Camões, priest Antônio Vieira and Gil Vicente in their works. That medieval Portuguese's lines, that is archaic, they were preserved inside the northeast thanks to the access difficulty to the area. Isolated in farms, the settlers and their descendants were immune to the new groups of Portuguese that appeared in the coast, bringing a renewed language. However nor every mistake is fruit of the archaic Portuguese's use.

Nor all the terms used in the Brazilian northeast are used in Barcelona. Many of the used words, besides, have her sense completely different from those used in other States and even close cities. In the dictionary they consist the meanings so much (additional meanings that the dictionary supplies besides the main definition of each entry), as the etymology (origin of the words) of most of them, curiosities on some words, expressions and bibliographical references based on great works of Portuguese literature, Brazilian regionalist and line pamphlets.

Why would you want to know of that? Well, navigate for this site while the answer doesn't come. For that, we advised that you use a good translation software, tends in view that practically the whole content of this site is in Portuguese language.

Academic researches

Be the sure that you are navigating in an independent publication, without lucrative ends and without any relationship with official organisms. We assumed the mission out of diffusing news and knowledge on Barcelona among the Barceloneses of his municipal district and to promote the cultural exchange between the Barceloneses and the world.

A lot of times, valuable researches and scientific-education progresses end shelved in the universities in the form of monographs, dissertations and inaccessible theories to most of the people, besides, to the own academical community's part. Therefore, idealized by Adriano Medeiros Costa, former-student of the course of Journalism - UFRN, this site begun in March of 2001 did part of a Project of Extension in the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte. In 2003 her if it turned an Experimental Project as work of end of the course. Now it continues his academic road in the Masters degree of the same university, in the line of research of Means of Communication and Education, of the Program of Masters degree in Education.

Through this magazine, we invited you to discover it the life in slowed down rhythm of the Barceloneses. We hoped this site gives him a sample of the municipal district of Barcelona - from the city thirst, until the picturesque rural areas. Repair in the hospitality of his people and the beauty of the mountains that surround the city that depending on the season is green-dark or grayish because of the drought.

The headquarters of the municipal district is located to 396 feet above the sea level.

This municipal district is only Brazilian Barcelona. To the whole Barcelona is name of 40 dispersed cities for the world, one more asteroid.

How to arrive

The municipal district of Barcelona is in an area internationally known like Backlands, that calls sertão in Portuguese. It is arrived in Barcelona by the highways RN 203 (saw São Paulo do Potengi to São Tomé). Of São Paulo do Potengi it will interconnect BR 304, access road to Natal; RN 093 (saw Rui Barbosa and Riachuelo). Of there, through BR 304, until the capital of the State.

The climate of the municipal district of Barcelona is semi-arid. Under the influence of the low latitude, the annual temperature oscillates between the low of 73.4ºF and the maxim of 91.4 ºF. It is salubrious, suave and dry (they will see) and cold (winter).

Barcelona is located in the boundary between the rural and the semi-arid of Rio Grande do Norte, but the characteristics of his climate are all of the semi-arid. Therefore, the concern with the time is very big. Of the rains they depend the pastures for the cattle and the sheep, well the provisioning of the dams where the cattle drink and the plantations. Unlike the one that a lot of people think, in the interior there is no problem of lack water, but irregularity. In certain months they can fall a lot of rain and in other none.

In Barcelona and in every Northeastern interior, winter is how the period of the rains is known. Not mattering the month in that they hurry. For that, let us see to follow some important information on the rain: as they are formed, types of clouds and a report that demonstrates the irregularity clearly with that the rains fall in Barcelona.

Relief and hydrographic

The Barcelonese relief is very uneven and the countless mountains that surround the city, seated on one is worth, they form a beautiful scenery, mainly during the winter that doesn't have specific date, happening when the station of the rains arrives. Among the mountains there is the one of the Arara, Vermelha, Mulungu, Sapato, Machado, Formigueiro, Barroquinha e dos Bois, além dos serrotes Boqueirão and Bonito.

The hidrografia of the city is marked by Rio Potengi (dammed) that cuts the municipal district in the sense west-east and the following streams: Salgado, Formigueiro, Santa Rosa, Camurim, das Cacimbas, Fundo, Onça, Formiga and of Umari. They deserve prominence the ponds of the Flores, Pedras and of the Caldeirões. In every municipal district there are also several dams.

On August 11, 2000 it was inaugurated the passage of the Water main that she brings for Barcelona drinking water of the pond of Bonfim, close to the coast of the Rio Grande do Norte. Officially this date mark the coming of the water channeled for the homes Barceloneses. Before, the only sources of provisioning were the car-pipes and the residential cisterns, besides the dams.

Population

The municipal district of Barcelona has 3.990 inhabitants.

History

The area where today locates the municipal district of Barcelona was colonized in the second half of the century passed by country to come of Seridó, as well as of other areas of Rio Grande do Norte and of Paraíba. According to the historian Câmara Cascudo, "Salgado's" first house, name for which the area was known, it was built by Mr. José Maria do Nascimento, natural of Bodó in Cerro-Corá/RN, that beside two siblings were the first proprietors of lands. The farm Salgado was already known in 1864.

Salgado, first name for which Barcelona was known, is due to the high tenor of salinity of the lands of the municipal district.

The patron of the city is Maria, Mother of God, whose day is commemorated on August 2. The choice was made in 1918 by indication of priest Cícero in Juazeiro city. It belonged to him also the suggestion on which should be the day of the weekly fair, that is, Monday.

The public market of the city was built in 1931. On March 21, 2001 he was demolished and in his/her place a new market was built. Already the cemetery of the city was built in 1927.

In 1929 the mayor of San Tome, municipal district of which Barcelona was part, moved the name of Salgado's town to Barcelona. The choice was not inspired, as thinks her, in the Spanish city of same name, but in a rubber plantation of the Amazonian, where the mayor had worked.

Barcelona was elevated to the town category in 1938, through the federal intervenor's ordinance no. 603 Rafael Fernandes Gurjão. It was him that was in the government from Rio Grande do Norte during the communist insurrection of 1935 in Natal.

On December 17, 1958 the municipal district obtains his political emancipation becoming municipal district, through the law # 2.331 (Official Diary of the State of 28.12.1958) of governor Dinarte de Medeiros Mariz.

Flora

The flora Barcelonese is typically the same of the Northeastern interior. However, the deforestation represents a serious problem caused by the indiscriminate retreat of firewood for Natal, where she is used as source of fuel.

Among many other, they make part of the flora the trees oiticica, catingueira, aroeira, pau-d´árco, quixabeira, caibreira, umbuzeiro, marmeleiro, pereiro, mulungu, juazeiro, angico, imburana, boã, algaroba, castanhol, coconut tree, carnauba and cashew tree. There is several cáctos as the macambira, xiquexique, facheiro, palmatória and cardeiro.

Fauna

In Barcelona the fauna is historically very diversified. But the lack of a more rigorous control on the part of the government organs of defense of the environment has been causing along the history serious cases of ecological unbalances, with the extinction of several species of animals in the municipal district. The indiscriminate hunt in reproduction periods and the capture for the commercialization constitutes the main problems.

Fabião das Queimadas - The popular poet Fabião das Queimadas (born in 1848). Born slave, very young the poet bought his/her enfranchisement, of the mother and of the niece. For that, he composed and it declaimed typical poetries of our area accompanied of the sound of a rabeca (the instrument that originated the violin).

In their verses Fabião spoke about the arid landscape of the area, of the habits of the time and overcoat of the "vaqueiros'" hard life, the cowboys of the Brazilian northeast. He of the Burning left countless romances on oxen and horses of his area, as "A Vaca Malhada" and the "Boi Mão de Pau", among others that he sang and always accompanied of his inseparable rabeca. In the link culture, there are some poetries of Fabião in Portuguese.

Fabião was illiterate, for that it liked to dictate for somebody to write verses of his authorship. It is made calculations that has misled 90% of his production. It is lamentable, but unhappily the folklore of Rio Grande do Norte a lot lost of the cowboys' famous poet's pamphlet literature.

Fabião das Queimadas died to the 80 years of age, in 1928, victim of the tetanus to the he/she got hurt in a thorn when it traveled mounted in a donkey. The poet is buried at the local cemetery of Barcelona. He had 26 years of age.

José Mauro de Vasconcelos – José Mauro de Vasconcelos, the famous author of "Meu Pé de Laranja Lima" (My Foot of Orange Lima) romance (adapted for soap opera of Globo TV) of great success not only in Brazil also in other countries as France and all over the world. Born in Rio de Janeiro, he studied in Natal and it was on vacation for some time in Barcelona. In the ones which, he wrote "Barro Blanco". Para that book, he was inspired by the landscape and in the population of the municipal district.

Several parties are represented in Barcelona, among them there are PSB, PMDB, PP, PSDB, PPS, PFL. The executive power is exercised by a mayor and a vice-mayor that accomplish 4 year-old mandates. The legislative power is exercised by a City councils composed by nine elect citizens for four year-old mandates. The municipal district of Barcelona is judiciary district of São Tomé.

Economical aspects

The economy of Barcelona is based on the agriculture, livestock and trade. One of the branches that more has if developed is the creation of goats.

In the city there is an industry of the section of makings, MURIBACK, whose production besides assisting to the local consuming market is also destined to Natal.

Mineral resources

In Barcelona there is talc, several granite types, quartz (amethyst), beryl, metallic minerals, pegmatite and sea water.

Transports

Barcelona is linked Natal by BR 101. Daily, several lines of bus of the Empresa Alves link Barcelona the to a lot of cities, besides to the capital of the State.

The first public transportation of Barcelona was a mixed one (it transported loads and passengers, for that it was called of mixed) of property of Mr. Juvino Guilherme of Souza.

In the decade of 40 the transport in Barcelona was made mainly through ox cars, donkeys and horses. In that time the municipal district counted with only three bicycles of the German mark NSU, a car Ford 29 and a van. There was also an onlooker "motor-cycle" that was a type of motorcycle according to depositions. It was the only, in the whole area, and it belonged to a certain Oliveiros.

Religion

In all his history, the municipal district always had a very big predominance of Catholics, they are approximately 95% of the population. There is also a small Protestant minority, all belonging to the church “Assembléia de Deus” (Assembly of God). Other religions are not practiced to the that it is known.

Parties

In Barcelona, the “Festa das Rosas” (Party of the Roses) that takes place in May it is very known in the State. The Party of our patron Maria, Mother of God on August 2 it was already very larger, but today it is basically of religious stamp with several days of masses and processions. Without commercial exploration of the faith, it is a party typically country. During the carnival some blocks come out to the streets and irreverent carnival balls choose all of the years the queen of the carnival. In the city there are still “vaquejadas”, tournament species where the cowboys demonstrate their abilities in the dropped of bullocks. Other parties in uncertain dates during the whole year.

In Caruaru, I met my first "cordelista", an astute salesperson that he said goodbye to me after selling me copies of all of the pamphlets that he had.

On that night, among "Caruaru Today and Yesterday" and “The Girl that turned a Snake", I discovered that most of the histories treated of a name with a funny nickname and a frightening glance, that it seemed to have captured the narrators' imagination.

If that the titles said deserved trust, that Lampião had "struggled against a boy that turned pig", he had made love with a woman whose name is worthy of a fairy tale and it had visited as much the sky as the hell.

Although the histories on the pig maybe are questionable in his truthfulness, the one of Maria Bonita was not. And the same could be said, as soon as I discovered on their 20 years escaping from the law, on the visits of him to the sky and the hell, at least in metaphorical terms.

It is saw like this myself alone with those poetry books and to crescent suspects that it is had when we know somebody that if it will turn a constant companion.

Have just returned of more six weeks in Backlands. What enchants me more than the adventures of Lampião, histories that persist in the lips and in the few researchers' books dedicated that they face the heat and the sun, it is it as his history is alive.

In the United States we have our great thieves, as Jesse James and Billy the Kid. But their histories are in general static legends, fastened in his place by the history and for the time, as well as for a rich literature group and films.

In Lampião, however, it is possible to notice the process actively of as the history becomes legend, an only and precious thing for a writer, especially a fiction writer.

The seniors that I knew and I interviewed, that they were walking shaky of their farms to talk about the life during the cangaço, they told histories of last nights in the bush, set on fire stores, abandoned cities when it appeared the news that the bandits were for close.

Of the youngest generations, I heard a different history, a poet's legend and dancer (and, to the eyes of some, a rebel) that cm the rifle and the fishwife turned impossible that a part of the country forgotten by a long time continued to be ignored.

I stopped Backlands with the same feeling that I had during my first departure, with nostalgia and plans returning. I remember of, during my first visit, why to have imagined, in spite of the drought, of the heat and of the tireless poverty, the country ones continued to sing songs on returning home.

Maybe it is the open sky, the hospitality of a people that offers his last coffee cup to a thirsty traveler, or the fleeting moments of the end of the day, when the earth cools, it wins a gold tone, and the savanna shines with a color that never in I saw in another place. Or maybe be the ghosts that astonish the place, the counted histories in the cold nights, that cause astonishment and the will of returning.

Daniel Mason, 27, he is American writer, author of "The Tuner of Piano" (Published in Brazil by the Companhia das Letras). It´s premiere work, a history adapted in the century XIX ma southern Asia, it burst in critic and public in the United States and in England. It was already thrown at 20 countries, including Brazil. It is on the country, in fact, that Mason writes now. From July of 2003, he is traveling the Northeast of the country to collect information on the cangaço. The text the top was written by the writer the at the request of the newspaper Folha de São Paulo (Ilustrada, p. 4, 4/8/2003), in which he counts his experience for the Brazilian Backlands.

* Cangaço: The term tells respect the a time in that malefactors strongly armed they walked in group for the Backlands of the Northeast of Brazil, especially along the first three decades of the century XX.

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