Rezadeiras da Paraíba: Etnografia de uma Crença Enraizada

Abstract

The search for the restoration of health through prayers remounts to faraway times and it is present nowadays, becoming an alternative of treatment, inserted in the so called “popular medicine”. In this work, we aimed to analyze representations and significations of pray practices and bless by woman in Paraíba State, Brazil, relating those practices to their life experiences. The work was structured as follows: first part, exposition of elements contextualizing the thematic; the second part brings the discussion on the prayers – rezadeiras – themselves. This is a qualitative research, characterized as an exploratory study, descriptive and transversal study. For the data collection, between 2002 and 2008, free interviews were used, and, in a second moment, semi structured questionnaires were carried out. Through the results achieved, it is observed that the universe of the rezadeiras is rich in symbology and cultural rites, their lines crossed the time and revealed in their gestures and supplications faces of Brazilian immaterial culture.