Trânsito do Sagrado: da Irmandade do Cercado de Boiadeiro – ICERBO, no Rio de Janeiro – RJ, ao Grupo União Espírita Santa Bárbara – GUESB, em Maceió - AL

Abstract

This research entitled “Transits of the Sacred: from the Irmandade of Cercado de Boiadeiro - ICERBO, in Rio de Janeiro-RJ to the Grupo União Espírita Santa Bárbara - GUESB, in Maceió-AL carries out a study of the author's transit and of physical and spiritual elements between two Afro-Brazilian houses of worship: the Irmandade do Cercado de Boiadeiro (ICERBO), located in the neighborhood of Sepetiba, in the west of Rio de Janeiro, and the Grupo União Espírita Santa Bárbara (GUESB), located on the outskirts of Cidade Universitária, Village Campestre II, Maceió, Alagoas, which both have the practice of Jurema Sagrada as one of the ritual activities. The study of the houses describes how the rites are performed in different geographical spaces, which have - according to a survey carried out through field research - similarities, without, however, being performed in the same way. In the course of the field research I came across similar contexts, which demanded a deeper understanding to describe the foundations of the practiced jurema, or of the juremas practiced in the terreiros in question. The transit of the Yalorixá Mãe Chica, from the Northeast to Rio de Janeiro, and its spiritual and social trajectory are questions that I present to identify and describe the relationship of Mãe Chica with the Yalorixá Mãe Neide, in Maceió and, consequently, to know which influences in practice GUESB ritual were incorporated/resignified from this contact. In this same perspective, I seek to understand how the transit of the Yalorixá Mãe Chica and the construction of the jurema at ICERBO influenced and influence my constitution as a spiritual being and an integral part of the two religious universes. In the same way, my transit in religiosity is also a source of reflections, since my trajectory began in Candomblé at the age of 14, which I migrated to Umbanda de Mãe Chica when I was 22 years old and then to Umbanda de mother Neide, aged 38, and in the middle of writing this research, I experienced a new transit: that of my return to ICERBO. As part of the ritual in both sacred spaces, I can visualize the Amerindian origins in the Jurema cult, and, in addition to influences and contributions from indigenous ethnicities, also African ones, in the constitution of this cult in Rio de Janeiro and Alagoas, in the aforementioned terreiros.