“Pavulagem, the enchanted beings of the forest”: an Amazonian mission to rescue sacred orality through the podcast
Original Spotify, Pavulagem takes advantage of the immersive experience of the podosphere to put the listener face to face with enchanted
Credit: Disclosure
By: Renato Silva – Lupa do Bem / Favela em Pauta
It was the end of June 2022 when the mysterious voice of Maickson Serrão asked permission for the first time in the podosphere, to debut “Pavulagem, the enchanted beings of the forest”.
As the title says, the podcast headed by the journalist from Vila de Boim, on the banks of the Tapajós River, in the Paraense Amazon, has the mission of making the Stories (that, with a capital ‘H’) of the Amazonian peoples appear for a Brazil that more if you like foreign tales.
After asking for permission, and stepping into the woods, it is the hooting, humming, croaking, roaring and whistling of forest animals that help Maickson to take the listener on an intimate walk, in the light of the lamp and the dark of the forest. There it is possible to know the true tales about Curupira, the mother of the forest; Taú, the bird that eats people; Macaca Guariba; Ingereda and others.
The season has 12 episodes, which have the participation of storytellers, originally from the Amazon, without the colonizing influence of those who go there and tell the same stories, full of market bias, corrupting the sacred histories of the people of the region.
Growing up in a community without electricity, with few neighbours who had TV sets and power generators, Maickson says that, in addition to entertainment, listening to these stories represents an ancestral heritage and that she is at risk. “I realized that many accountants were dying and taking this baggage with them. Then the pandemic came and only reinforced this urgency to rescue, catalogue and, in a way, expand these voices through the podcast. The idea was also to tell about the Amazon from those who live in it”, he comments on the need to bring these stories to the world of podcasts.
The value of orality for Pavulagem and the ideal time to publish
By seeing the audio streaming service as the right place to make storytelling popular in the digital environment, Maickson rescues not only stories but the art of enchanting with the spoken word. “The podcast itself was very rich due to all this potential that is storytelling in the Amazon and also because each voice of each teller has its peculiarity, which makes the narrative much more beautiful, the way each one tells, the way, the issue of accent as well. So this is all very rich,” he adds.
Happy to discover the Pavulagem podcast, Maya Tupinambá, an indigenous communicator, born in Manaus and based in northeastern Brazil, says that the feeling of closeness was automatic. “While listening to some episodes of the enchanted ones, the feeling of childhood came to me, I was moved. It took me back to my childhood self. When my older ones came back from fishing, and hunting, about the care we should have with the enchanted ones, about respect, always asking for permission. The episodes brought me this, with the elders talking, I felt around a bonfire, lying in a hammock and hearing about the enchanted ones there”, reported the professional.
Regarding this, the person responsible for the research, creation and presentation also reports that it is common for people to feel this return to the past. “I think there is no money to pay for this, this issue of the very strong affective memory that Pavulagem has generated in people. This is our biggest gain as a team, as the work of those behind Pavulagem”, he says.
2022 of success and multiplication dream
The Pavulagem podcast gets the seal of being a Spotify original, through the Sound Up Brasil program. The goal of this program is to diversify the voices in the audio space by providing participants with educational opportunities, resources and access to industry experts to build and establish careers in podcasting and for their content ideas to become successful programs in the audio space.
In 2022, the product was listed among the top 10 new podcasts of the year, in addition to being the fourth most-heard voice on launch day. Important milestones for a new 12-episode show, launched in the middle of this year.
Maickson confesses that the greatest son with this project is not just the success of touching the people, but mainly that of inspiring many to count as many existing stories about the peoples of Amazonia. “I want this work to serve as a reference for many other stories to be told starting from the Amazon. We have a lot to talk about the Amazon, I think we need to leverage these Amazonian voices ”, he comments.
He concludes by arguing that it is not only about destruction that it is precisely to do it about a region known as the bus of the world. “It is important to talk about deforestation, land grabbing, but it is also important to talk about people, how they live, what they dream, what they want for the future. I think the more voices we have speaking, the more people will know about the Amazon in fact and by law”, he concluded.
Listen to Pavulagem on Spotify by clicking here and follow Maickson on Instagram, at @opavulagem.
