Flame, your name is woman: ethnopsychological analysis of the feminine in the light of umbandas pombagira in Brazil.

Author(s)

Mariana Leal de Barros

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Ribeirão Preto.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (PCARP/BC)
• Defense date: 2010-11-26

Examining board members

Jose Francisco Miguel Henriques Bairrao; Véronique Marie Boyer; François Laplantine; José Jorge Pessanha Santiago; Manoel Antonio dos Santos; Liana Maria Salvia Trindade

• Advisor: Jose Francisco Miguel Henriques Bairrao; Vagner Goncalves da Silva

Abstract

In the history of the western women, female bodies, especially governed by their sexuality, were conceived in opposite pairs: the mothers and the prostitutes, the saints and the demoness. The umbanda, an afrobrazilian religion that holds the discourses and practices of Brazilian society, included this duality in its religiosity, but in a peculiar way: the pombagira is embodied in the figure of a sacred prostitute and is worshiped in prominent place by faithfuls of this religion. In umbandas terreiros in the state of São Paulo, we interviewed spiritualist mediuns as well as embodied pombagiras to understand the meanings associated with the cult of the pombagiras. The data were analyzed from a combination of the ethnographic method and the lacanian psychoanalytic listening to investigate how pombagiras participate in the life of the supporters of this religion. This work presents how, through the relationship with the pombagira, the woman being is associated with the seduction, the strength, the beauty, the sex, the desire, the intelligence and even the maternity, integrating the decoupled senses with the mentioned dichotomy. The pombagiras meanings produce senses that build the personal experiences of their faithfuls. Using a narrative that concerns the sensible and by the researchers experience in the relationship with the surveyed groups, this work presents an ethnopsychological comprehension of the gender and considers the senses that are elaborated in the umbanda and that circulate socially. (AU)