From a religious tradition to exoticism: balangandãs, a history of representation (presentation) of a cultural practice (1947-1970)

Abstract

 The purpose of this article was to reflect on how the balangandãs (an object that integrates the religious practices of African matrices), was interpreted by the folklorist Paulo Afonso de Carvalho, but not only, and to discuss the social imaginary built on this utensil when it was integrated to folklore studies (area of ​​knowledge that became institutionalized as a discipline in the country, in 1947). To answer the question, we used interviews with folklorists in newspapers as a source, as well as the narratives elaborated on this liturgical object when it was incorporated into Brazilianness through the museographic “writing” of the Édison Carneiro Folklore Museum. Discourse analysis and the relationship between text and relevant contexts were the methodological resources used in this study. Thus, this investigation considers that folklorists, although they understood this devotional instrument as something connected to the religious experience of enslaved Africans, they treated it as exotic at the time when a place for an African-based religion was being built in the design of a national identity.