Hildegardes Vianna

Hildegardes Cantolino Vianna (31 March 1919 – 12 June 2005) was a Brazilian journalist and folklorist, professor at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), and General Secretary at the UNESCO Institute of Education, Science, and Culture in Brazil. She is known as "the lady of Brazilian folklore".

Biography Hildegardes was born on 31 March 1919 in Salvador, the capital city of the Brazilian state Bahia. She was the daughter of Amália Cantolino and of Antônio Vianna, a poet, writer, and folklorist. Hildegardes graduated from the Faculty of Law and from the School of Music and Performing Arts, both at UFBA, and later taught folk dance and musical folklore at the latter. She completed a specialisation in ethnology in Lisbon. As the most accredited person in the field of Bahian folklore, she was awarded the Silvio Romero medal (a prize for monographs on folklore and popular culture) in 1958.