Como a nação Oyó produz sua história? os fundamentos negociados na prática do batuque

Abstract

This research aimed to investigate a religious group composed by two terreiros (temples) of the religion called Batuque of the Oyó people in the city of Alegrete, in the south of Brazil. The central objective dealt with the way in which the community of the terreiros produces their own history through mechanisms of negotiation of the tradition. Such a negotiation process occurs when religious fundamentals need to be flexibilized in reason of different factors. Tradition has its own mechanisms of codification and decoding. It has been verified that in the terreiros which I observed these mechanisms work in a triangulation of forces, in which are implicated different agencies: The agency of the invisible, that are the orixás (the deities) and the spirits of the ancestors deceased; the agency of the elders, who hold authority within the terreiros; and external factors, which can be prohibitive laws to worship practices, poverty and price fluctuations, and market availability of items necessary for rituals. When these forces are aroused, tradition can be modified and these changes, imprinted in people's memories, producing the individual and collective stories that shape the identity of the terreiros.