Native sacred elements in the writing of Patrícia Melo e Giovana Madalosso

Abstract

This article focus the geographic/philosophic displacement experienced by the protagonists of two contemporary Brazilian novels – Mulheres empilhadas (2019), by Patrícia Melo, and Suíte Tóquio (2020) by Giovana Madalosso. Both narratives deal with questions related to maternity, from a mother’s or child’s perspective, social and familial violence and the possible coming to terms with these topics through an immersion in native religious praxis guided by female native spiritual leaders in North Brazil. Our purpose is to verify how those religious rituals, especially the one undertaken with the Ayahuasca tea, help them to leave their previous positions, making both of them more conscious about facts they experienced in their personal or professional relations which were never properly digested. Our reading, from a decolonial and feminist perspective, stresses the importance of the performed displacement by both protagonists so to enter a new philosophical, spiritual world that really help them to come out of their previous state of ignorance and paralysis.