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Remarkable Personalities Luís da Câmara Cascudo
Cascudo was born on December 30th of 1898, in Natal. His father was one of the most important men in town. Still young, Cascudo found a club of writers and poets called ‘Principado do Tirol’. In 1920, he moved to the state of Bahia in order to attend the medical school. After four years, he had to go back home, because his father had financial problems. Then he decided to be an attorney. He moved to Recife and graduated in 1928. By that time, Cascudo used to teach History at Atheneu School, in Natal, and also used to write books about History and Literature comments. Also in 1928, he managed to bring to Natal the greatest writer of Brazilian Modernism, Mário de Andrade, who was researching about popular culture of Brazilian Northeastern region. Mário de Andrade stood in Cascudo’s house for a month and a half, and was deeply impressed about his knowledge of folkloric matters.
In spite of that, Cascudo only wrote his first folkloric book, ‘Vaqueiros e
Cantores’, in 1939, encouraged by his friend Mário de Andrade. He was 41 years
old then. After that, we wrote many other folkloric books, such as ‘Dicionário
do folclore brasileiro’, ‘Antologia do folclore brasileiro’, ‘Literatura oral’,
‘Cinco livros do povo’, ‘Jangada’, ‘Jangadeiros’, ‘Rede de dormir’, ‘História da
alimentação do Brasil’, ‘Civilização e cultura’, etc. The wideness of his work
in such a poor region as Rio Grande do Norte in that age, made of Cascudo a
worldwide renowned man.
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