Grotesque Amulets: An Analysis of Mestre Zimar's Cazumba Masks

• Grant number: 25/14552-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: October 01, 2025
• End date: October 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Art Fundamentals and Criticism
• Principal Investigator: Ilana Seltzer Goldstein
• Grantee: Laura Almeida Nobre de Sousa
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The object of this scientific initiation project is to study the "caretas" of the cazumba entity, made by the artist Mestre Zimar (Matinha, MA, 1959) for the Bumba-meu-boi festival. The "caretas" are masks that are part of the costume of the cazumba, a character with a hybrid and zoomorphic appearance, responsible for interacting with the public, provoking laughter and terrifying everyone, even death. Mestre Zimar's work stands out for its up-to-date materials and the originality of the misshapen and monstrous "faces", sometimes used to amuse, sometimes to protect, like amulets. They will be analyzed aesthetically based on the concept of the grotesque as developed by theorists Wolfgang Kayser and Mikhail Bakhtin, and interpreted in terms of their symbolic meaning based on the notion of "agency" coined by Alfred Gell to refer to artistic objects. In addition, the masks will be contextualized in a historical and anthropological approach to the ox festival.