Por uma poética amazônica da fé:promesseiros, ambulantes e in(fiéis)no festejo de Santa Teresa D'Avila em Tefé (AM)

Abstract

This interdisciplinary study proposes to investigate the configurations of Amazonian popular religiosity present in the feast of Santa Teresa Dávila, patroness of the city of Tefé, in the interior of Amazonas, considering poietic, sacred and playful issues. We also aim to weave an ethnography of the sensitive of the feast of the patron saint of the people of Tefe, focusing on its processes of organization and realization that involve a series of people and social groups; discuss the historicity and cultural hybridisms that flourished in the context of the Feast of the patron saint of Tefé, based on the cult of saints in Brazil;and verify the poetic, ludic, sacred and Dionysian aspects that constitute the “raw material” of the Amazonian festivities in which subjects and participants are immersed.The methodology is based on the perspective of decolonized thinking, as postulated by Albert Memmi (2007) who urges us to (re)build such an epistemic posture, as well as in the writings of Morin (1990, p. 9) on the complexity woven and compared by aspirations of knowledge in the midst of possibilities and impossibilities, of certainties and uncertainties in search of overcoming simplifying thinking. This framework was the basis for conducting field research in the city of Tefé, along the lines of Geertz's (2003) “dense”ethnography, bibliographical research in the archives of the Prelature of Tefé and in the writings of memorialists in the city, conducting interviews with the subjects participating in the event on screen, using a camera and voice recorder. The interpretation of the Festejo led us to study the cultural and festive history of the people of Tefe who, through their indigenous ancestry, present a “party soul”, submerged in customs, rites and popular beliefs. And even though the religiosity of the party interacts with the political and the social and goes beyond the sacred, building bonds and dictating the rhythm of the socialization of the space in which it takes place, of the existing aggregation in the urban space in the feeling of belonging to being and being together.