A Folia de Santo e sua influência no dia-a-dia dos pescadores no Baixo Amazonas

Abstract

In the community of Silêncio do Matá, municipality of Óbidos-PA, located in the mesoregion of the Lower Amazon, there is a religious manifestation called Folia de São Benedito, characterized by what Galvão (1955) calls popular religiosity. The present work seeks to define the influences of this manifestation in the daily life of the residents of this community and thus contribute to the research line "Traditional Practices and Knowledge" under the RENAS project. The methodology was based on one of the traditional methods of anthropology, direct observation, for the elaboration of an ethnography of the Folia de São Benedito, based on Geertz, Galvão, Lourdes Gonçalves Furtado and Van Gennep, who work in this line of study. The techniques used for data collection were formal and informal interviews, photographic, phonographic, and videographic records. It was detected that in the period that precedes the festival of the saint in August, the residents of the community, through the payment of promises, donate part of the harvest of their fields and plantations to the "saint", that is, to the festival, as a form of reciprocity to obtain protection, abundance, and happiness. This promise is also made by fishermen who, in search for protection and good fishing, put on their canoes and motors (motorized boats) the names of saints, or even a phrase praising these divinities, usually São Benedito. However, there are external elements that have been changing this religious manifestation, one of these elements is the action of the city hall, which is de-characterizing this folia, with the intention of inserting it as a tourist attraction, and presenting it as a folkloric manifestation.