The ''Barbarous Game'': Entrudo and Its Critics in Rio de Janeiro, 1810s-1850s.

This article examines the pre-Lenten festivities labeled entrudo in early nineteenth-century Rio de Janeiro and traces the efforts to repress them, which enjoyed a measure of success by the mid-1850s. During this period, the predominant form of pre-Lenten revelry involved various forms of water play that transgressed the boundaries between the sexes but tended to respect other social hierarchies. After independence, authorities and members of a self-proclaimed ''civilized'' elite sought to repress what they condemned as a ''barbarous'' game. These efforts obtained some success in the 1840s and 1850s as masked balls and parading by elite carnival societies came to dominate middle- and upper-class forms of celebration, although entrudo persisted longer among the lower classes. Based on travelers' accounts and the extensive newspaper debates about entrudo and its repression, this article analyzes a major cultural change among the Brazilian capital's elite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]