Data updated on 2025-07-29 23:00:04 UTC
Formerly a history teacher, folklore researcher, union representative, culture secretary and children’s author - “I never thought I would be a singer” she claims - Onete recorded her debut album Feitiço Caboclo at 73. A cult figure in Brazil and an ambassador for Amazonian culture, the music she sings is a unique mix of rhythms from native Brazilians, African slaves and the Caribbean - epitomised in the joyous carimbós that are her trademark.
Born in the Amazonian region of Pará in 1938, Onete is a mix of native Indian from her mother’s side and African from her father. She first started to sing after a chance riverside encounter: “I was washing clothes by the river and one day I saw a dolphin and sung for him. The next day I sang again, and two dolphins came, then a whole family!”.
She became an ardent researcher of the rhythms, dances and traditions of the Amazon’s indigenous and black people, which inspired her to begin composing songs herself. Unable to sing at home, she began to incorporate her compositions in her work as a history teacher, using her songs to explain the history of the region to her students: “Nowadays indigenous people can be proud of their heritage but years ago this wasn’t the case.”
Born in the Amazonian region of Pará in 1938, Onete is a mix of native Indian from her mother’s side and African from her father. She first started to sing after a chance riverside encounter: “I was washing clothes by the river and one day I saw a dolphin and sung for him. The next day I sang again, and two dolphins came, then a whole family!”.
She became an ardent researcher of the rhythms, dances and traditions of the Amazon’s indigenous and black people, which inspired her to begin composing songs herself. Unable to sing at home, she began to incorporate her compositions in her work as a history teacher, using her songs to explain the history of the region to her students: “Nowadays indigenous people can be proud of their heritage but years ago this wasn’t the case.”
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