Drama, morte e vida dos órfãos de Pau de Colher: rito, memória e identidade - uma história do percurso de voltar à terra.

Abstract

This thesis pursues to reflect about the trajectory of a group of orphan boys of a movement denominated Pau Colher occurred in 1938, in the northern of Bahia. The empirical reference is the group of thirty-two children taken from their region of origin and placed, by the Government, for a long time, in the liminaridade. The understanding of such a trajectory and, in it, the organization, by the orphans of its communitas, doesn't intend to be limited to a trajectory unprovided of meaning and doesn't even intend at a period of suspension of roles whose everyday has been superficial, banal or an escape to a disillusion. Thus, the nowadays of the liminaridade, in this study, shows a social production in which the memory with the apparatus of the ethos was the orphans' strategy for the maintanance of their origin. The understanding of the memory as a socio-anthropological matter, in this thesis, intends to point out its function not only as social, but also of intervention in the constitution process of a way back for the orphans that, in the isolation, get hold of the memory in order to keep being individuals. That aspect is the orientation axle of the analysis, and of the passage rite of the orphans of Pau de Colher to which I am directing as follows and, for so much, the collective memory was able to be evocated and draw a strong preliminary quotidian life in the orphans trajectory. Thus, a possibility was showed, through the memory, detail awareness, uniqueness in little probable places such as love, pride, ethical, and honor, the memory role in the practices and institutions of society and its social role. The quotidian life of the thirty-two orphans of Pau de Colher, at the Escola de Menores, denominated afterwards, Institute of Preservation and Reform, in Salvador is defined, in this work, as a place of formation of the communitas of the group, depository place of the ethos, after the repression undergone by their parents and consequently by the Government in the action of the children's dislodgement for that institute. The narratives, as references of the group's memory, discourse about the land, their tradition, honor, and fight for recovering their dignity, respect and return to their land of origin. The day by day lived by the orphans, at the Escola de Menores, composed of thousand ways, was constituted of a challenge and permanent fight viewing to take the "trip back" to their homeland, in which, triumphant, they would make up with their people, with their own history. The study hereby suggested is part of the mote - "Drama, death and life of the orphans of Pau de Colher: rite, memory, and identity in the history of the course of getting back to the homeland and plead the following idea. The orphans were subtracted from the cultural and social acquaintance they took part. They remained for a long time in the liminaridade. On the other hand, got inserted in a communitas, which we assure was conceived in the Institute of Preservation and Reform, place where got constituted in the depository of their ethos. Therefore, more than a passage rite, what the history of the orphans shows is a rescue of the lost dignity, as long as subtracted from the repression, goes being consolidated in the desire of returning, for the love for the homeland and for their ancestors. I have gone through the dislodgement way, the aggregation and the return the children traced, what made it possible get out of the insignificance, with no affection and dogmatic of the official document. Here, it has been possible plan one of the main meanings of the experience that the orphans had through that trajectory, specifically at school, strengthened by the will of taking the trip back to the land where they believed they had buried their souls.