Tá na água de beber: culto aos ancestrais na capoeira

Abstract

Capoeira is a dance-fight-game that is part of the set of traditions coming from the heritage of blacks kidnapped in Africa and subject to the system of slavery in Brazil. In capoeira, the ancestors are the object of deference and admiration throughout the ritual of the wheel and the transmission of knowledge. The research aims to understand the ancestor worship practiced in the Centro Cultural Capoeira Água de Beber (CECAB), a nonprofit association that operates by spreading this cultural manifestation. From an ethnographic perspective, participant observation presents itself as the main methodological approach, emphasizing a qualitative analysis. To perform a bibliographic review, we turn to the scientific literature produced mainly around the themes of capoeira, the collective memory, and concepts of field, habitus and class in Pierre Bourdieu. We observed the devotion to the ancestors, in the daily CECAB along the transmission of knowledge, the ritual of the wheel, narratives and discourses of the master, power relations and treatment of the theme of religion. The memory of these characters, places and events in the history of capoeira is designed on contemporary experiences, offering support to the feeling of belonging to the group and the trajectory of black culture in Brazil. The ancestors are presented as true representatives of the relationship of capoeira with other African-Brazilian culture, a relationship that, in day-to-day practice, the wheels and events, the capoeiristas of CECAB affirm your commitment to continuity. The masters are the guardians of the memories of ancestors and primarily responsible for the preservation of tradition. However, in the ancestor worship, the memory is shaped so as to consolidate the social order and legitimize the power of its current officers, the masters of this. The representations about the past and its characters undergo a process of selection from power relations, interests and concerns present in poultry in the universe when they are articulated and expressed.