Jurema is the body, not the head: Enchantment, learning and transformation between caboclos and caboclinhos

Abstract

In this article I discuss aspects that make it possible to highlight the connections between the tradition of caboclinhos and jurema, a religion of Afro-indigenous origin, made invisible for so long, due to the persecution carried out by racist and authoritarian political regimes. Through ritual practices, the transmission process, the fabrication of bodies and their relationship with the power of transformation of jurema, such connections are revealed through ethnography, carried out in Goiana, Pernambuco, in the light of an anthropology of dance, added from the analysis of sound and audiovisual records produced by the Folklore Research Mission, in 1938, about the caboclinhos and the catimbó, the name by which the cult of the jurema was known in the past, in the Northeast of Brazil. Believing that this reflection can contribute to the understanding of important aspects regarding the relationships between dance and religiosity, in the characterization of territories constituted by Afro-indigenous memories, I will address discussions about the nature of caboclos, his relationship with the caboclinhos, in situations that involve the notions of war and healing, through the experience of enchantment.