Fartura e festejo: comida, canto e dança no circuito de trocas da Festa de São Benedito em Almerim/PA

Abstract

Saint's feasts are traditional popular celebrations quite common in the Amazon, which value, besides the religious rites themselves, practices of exchange and reciprocity that circulate various types of material and symbolic gifts in the various spaces where they take place: residences, squares, sheds, chapels and others. In order to map the meanings of the exchanges carried out in the feast of São Benedito in Almeirim/PA, the present work elected the circuit of lunches and dinners held during the eleven days of celebration, which extend from June 20 to June 30 annually. An ethnography of the exchanges was proposed by means of direct observation, interviews with party participants, and audiovisual recording of the ritual stages of the festive cycle, in order to subsidize anthropological analysis. In focus are the scenarios, the characters and the material and immaterial goods exchanged during the abundant meals offered to the revelers of the saint as payment of promises or proof of devotion, for which the revelers give thanks and reciprocate, offering music and dance to the hosts and their other guests. Following the performances, such meals propitiate the circulation of food, music and dance, constituting a festive practice that (re)affirms the bonds among humans, and between them and Saint Benedict, at the same time potentiating kinship, affinity and friendship relations that mark the historical trajectory of the feast and of the gambá in Almeirim.