"Experiências de inverno": a prática do roubo de santo e a sacralização de espaços sertanejos em comunidades rurais de Pombal-Paraíba (1950-2015)

Abstract

This work investigates how the theft of a saint, a practice carried out in favor of the rains in the Northeast of Brazil, constitutes the sertões as a sacred spaces. Based on the theft of Catholic images, especially that of the patron saint of rains, São José, in rural communities in the municipality of Pombal, we analyzed this winter experience, its meanings and everyday interests to understand the sacredness of rural spaces in the sertão of estate of Paraiba. In the theoretical field – based on Certeau (1998), Segaud (2016), J. Assmann (2016), A. Assmann (2011), Dubar (2006), Hall (2006), Tuan, (1983), Hobsbawm (1997 ), Geertz (2008), Ingold (2012), Descola (2015), Haesbaert (2007) and Zambrano (2001) – the research operationalizes the concepts of space, memory, identity, experience, tradition and territory in order to examine the socio-cultural aspects mobilized together with the practice to configure this sertaneja spatiality. As a methodology, from the analyzes of Meihy and Holanda (2011) and Delgado (2006), we used oral history to analyze the memories around this religious practice, constituted by the narratives of those who experience the local daily life, realizing how these memories act in the formation of spaces for remembrance and establish identities that territorialize socioreligious experiences in these locations. The iconological analysis of images and artifacts of faith linked to theft, based on Meneses (2003), and the appreciation of written documents about the lives of people who lived there, complement the methodological support of the research. Therefore, by showing that the theft of saints gave new meaning to community knowledge, memories and identities, we found that the sertões studied constitute sacred spaces.