A mística do catimbó-jurema representada na palavra, no tempo e no espaço

Abstract

Catimbó-Jurema is a religious manifestation, whose origins initially relate to indigenous groups, which once inhabited the Brazilian northeastern region. This study can be defined as an analysis on the imaginary and imagined construction of spaces, i.e. construction of the “supernatural geography” present in the Catimbó-Jurema mystic-religious system. As far as the analysis is concerned, we address multiple spatial aspects used in this religion: terreiros, the peji or altar, the body, the spiritual cities, the kingdoms and villages present in Jurema’s cosmogony. We additionally point out the spatial metaphors or spatializing notions present in Catimbó’s liturgy. In order to perceive the historical, social and cultural processes that shaped Catimbó-Jurema, resulting in its current format, this work revisits the pioneering literatures of the 1920s and 1930s, written by Mário de Andrade, Roger Bastide and Câmara Cascudo. This bibliographic review also searches on recent productions, with the main objective of presenting to the reader with productions issued by researchers of this religion in the contemporaneity. The documentary corpus of this work uses resources, such as interviews, analysis of ritual songs (pontos cantados) and textual material found in blogs, as underlying means to develop considerations about Jurema’s practice as observed in some terreiros in Rio Grande do Norte. Guided by the theoretical and methodological precepts of Oral History, we outline an analysis of the imaging-discursive construction of Jurema’s “spiritual cities”, based on the accounts of Juremeiros (adherents to the said religion). Our objective is to present a “supernatural geography” of Catimbó’s spatiality, cataloging the nomenclatures of the mythical sites enunciated by the Juremeiros. Such expressions, among others analyzed in the course of the research, work in a profitable way to contribute towards the production of descriptibility and visibility of material and immaterial spaces of the Catimbó-Jurema.