DEVOTION AND HEALING AT THE MONTE DO GALO RELIGIOUS GROUP – CARNAÚBA DOS DANTAS - RN

Abstract

The Monte do Galo religious group, located in city of Carnaúba dos Dantas in Rio Grande do Norte state, micro region of the Seridó, has been stage of the most diversified demonstration of faith and devotion by the people who retrace to him since the begging of the twentieth century. Notably, the meeting of a significant portion of pilgrims and devotees indicates the research or the thanks of realized blessings, with emphasis on the healing of ills, in the majority, set by physical and mental illness. By joining lenses of the Oral History and Ethnic History, we undertook a historical analysis of the narratives of cure presents in the written springs, oral and iconographic, which occur in this sanctuary. From the methodological point of view, the research is present as exploratory, documentary, bibliographic and ethnographic. Our bases were the contributions of Paul Thompson, Jacques Le Goff, Gwyn Prins and Antonio Montenegro, with regard to oral sources, Clifford Geertz, Carlos Alberto Steil and Sylvana Brandão, on which refers to the ethno historical records. Were also primordial the concepts of Pierre Bordieu for understanding what is field, subfield and the relationships established by the agents of the administration of religious and symbolic capital, both lay and religious. The work is linked to research groups “História e Religiões”, from Graduate Program in History of UFPE, and “Gestão Pública e Espaços Públicos: conflitos e intolerância religiosa”, from the Professional Master's Degree in Public Management for the Development of the Northeast, from UFPE.