Transits of the Sacred: from the Irmandade do Cercado de Boiadeiro - ICERBO, in Rio de Janeiro - RJ, to the União Espírita Santa Bárbara Group - GUESB, in Maceió-AL
Jurema; Cultural Transits; Afro-Brazilian religions; BrotherhoodCercado de Seu Boiadeiro, Rio de Janeiro-RJ; Santa Bárbara Spiritist Union Group, Maceió-AL.
This research entitled “Transits of the Sacred: from the Irmandade of Cercado deBoiadeiro - ICERBO, in Rio de Janeiro-RJ to the Grupo União Espírita Santa Bárbara -GUESB, in Maceió-AL carries out a study of the author's transit and of physical andspiritual elements between two Afro-Brazilian houses of worship: the Irmandade doCercado de Boiadeiro (ICERBO), located in the neighborhood of Sepetiba, in the westof Rio de Janeiro, and the Grupo União Espírita Santa Bárbara (GUESB), located on theoutskirts of Cidade Universitária, Village Campestre II, Maceió, Alagoas, which bothhave the practice of Jurema Sagrada as one of the ritual activities. The study of thehouses describes how the rites are performed in different geographical spaces, whichhave - according to a survey carried out through field research - similarities, without, however, being performed in the same way. In the course of the field research I came across similar contexts, which demanded adeeper understanding to describe the foundations of the practiced jurema, or of thejuremas practiced in the terreiros in question. The transit of the Yalorixá Mãe Chica, from the Northeast to Rio de Janeiro, and its spiritual and social trajectory are questionsthat I present to identify and describe the relationship of Mãe Chica with the YalorixáMãe Neide, in Maceió and, consequently, to know which influences in practice GUESBritual were incorporated/resignified from this contact. In this same perspective, I seek to understand how the transit of the Yalorixá MãeChica and the construction of the jurema at ICERBO influenced and influence myconstitution as a spiritual being and an integral part of the two religious universes. In thesame way, my transit in religiosity is also a source of reflections, since my trajectorybegan in Candomblé at the age of 14, which I migrated to Umbanda de Mãe Chica whenI was 22 years old and then to Umbanda de mother Neide, aged 38, and in the middle ofwriting this research, I experienced a new transit: that of my return to ICERBO. As partof the ritual in both sacred spaces, I can visualize the Amerindian origins in the Juremacult, and, in addition to influences and contributions from indigenous ethnicities, alsoAfrican ones, in the constitution of this cult in Rio de Janeiro and Alagoas, in theaforementioned terreiros. .