Santo de casa faz milagre: Luíz da Câmara Cascudo, o padroeiro literário da cidade de Natal

Assuming that the subject is a draft work in permanent invention, the biographical texts, memories written by Luís da Câmara Cascudo, between 1967 and 1969 were read as part of a discursive strategy created by the potiguar memorialist regarding the construction of a self-image profoundly connected to the space of his house, which decisively collaborated so that the province teacher and researcher after announcing his official retirement in 1968 was revered in the city where he had been born, grown up and lived throughout his whole life and considered as the prophet of his own country (or rather, as the literary patron of Natal). Our work begins with some reading about the manner as the potiguar memorialist selected, ordered and spatialized his childhood memories. In the following chapter, we problematized the meanings assigned by Câmara Cascudo to his house in Tirol - where the young prince Cascudinho (little Cascudo) used to live - transformed into the neighborhood principality. It finishes with memories from the retired old man with the purpose of making us think about the sacredness process master Cascudo s house has gone through. The space where he had lived for almost forty years of his life and produced a great part of his works, was elected as a monument in his memory, as his own incarnation, as guarantee of his eternity and perenniality, as a sanctuary and place of worship and have been kept by the actions that, still nowadays, institutionalize it as his sacred space

Experiências de inverno no seridó potiguar

The knowledge known as "winter experiences" has been developed for centuries among country people in the Brazilian Northeast hinterlands. It consists in the systematic observation of the nature to forecast and protect people against the effects of droughts. This knowledge is transmitted orally through generations. These experiences are guided by the observation of the behavior of fauna, flora, stars, the weather in the holy days and other very specific aspects of the lives of country people. Almost all country people living in the rural area know at least one experience, but the Prophets of Rain are known as the communicators of winter prophecies formulated from the observation of the experiences. The country person is identified as a Prophet of Rain because of his close relationship with nature and his ability to forecast. No matter if the prophecies are always right, he possesses a vital social role, as his practices contribute to prevent, ease and encourage other people. The main aim of this work is to analyze the role of the winter experiences for the country people in the Seridó Potiguar. In this sense, we sought to understand to what extent this knowledge still orients the productive practices of farmers living in this region and identify which factors instigate the observation of winter experiences nowadays. 241 questionnaires were applied to farmers in the rural cities of Acari, Caicó, Parelhas and Lagoa Nova and interviews were conducted with 15 Prophets in the Seridó. The methodological framework of this work is the analysis of content proposed by Bardin (2010). In this study area, the experiences exert influence and relevance to the country people in the Seridó, because they consider them as a way to ease their anguishes face the possible drought in the region. The major role of the Prophet is to feed the hope of country people for better days, rather than contribute for the organization of the productive activities. Among the interviewed people, the forecast from the observation of winter experiences have greater credibility than the meteorological and disseminated by media. The Prophets of Rain base their prophecies on the set of natural elements present in the environment. Many factors stimulate the winter experiences by the Prophets nowadays, as cultural transmission, age, relationship with nature, level of education, faith, among others, but specially the productive activities (agriculture and cattle raising) and the droughts. The winter means abundance and happiness in this region and the experience is one of the ways that people find to minimize the anxiety and, according to their possibilities, to prepare for a year of droughts or for winter