Irmandades religiosas na Parahyba do Norte: espaços de luta, devolução e festa (1840-1880).

Abstract

The dissertation was presented, and the result of years of research and many readings, and now becomes a contribution to the paraiban historiography. In it we seek to analyze how the Religious Brotherhoods were configured in Parahyba do Norte in the period between 1840-1880. The objective is to present some discussions about the performance of religious Brotherhoods in the nineteenth century Paraíba and to understand how their spaces of sociability, devotion, processions and their festivals were built with society and the brothers (black, white and brown) who integrated as ours Our Lady of the Rosary of the Black Men, Saint Benedict and Our Lady of Sorrows, brotherhoods scattered throughout various parishes, towns and cities. In this scenario we still have religious quarrels between ecclesiastical power and the brotherhoods. We also see that the religious festivals occupy a prominent place, because the streets gave way to the colorful adornments, the processions and the joy of the music and / or drums and the choreography of the dances. The party, as an integral element of culture, and loaded with symbols, rituals and meanings that are reappropriated and internalized by brothers and sisters belonging to a brotherhood. The brothers inside the parties watch, interact, learn, express, conquer and "break free" - at least momentarily - of norms of behavior imposed by slave society and ecclesiastical power, but at the same time incorporate specific patterns of behavior present in their own culture. The body present at the party and the human, the sacred, the profane, the rhythmic, the sociable. We also discussed the funeral rituals involving the brothers and sisters, in which we can identify the traces of the culture of a people, their ethnicity, social groups. These groups, which seek in the midst of devotions, parties and burials to build spaces of struggle, sociability, exchange of experiences and the affirmation of their culture and identity.