Narrativa e cultura: a festa do Bumba Meu Boi de Juçatuba/MA

Abstract

Bumba Meu Boi is one of the largest popular festivals in Brazil, being possible to find it in most regions of the country. Among hundreds of groups found in the state of Maranhão, we chose the folguedo carried out in the quilombola community of Juçatuba, located in São José de Ribamar (MA) as locus of this research. Over the centuries, different narratives are produced about the Ox Auto. Our objective is to investigate narratives that constitute the Bumba Meu Boi de Juçatuba/MA. In the research, we give visibility to the characteristics of the party, the communication strategies produced, we conducted a survey on the folguedo in the Brazilian scenario and produced a visual chapter as an exercise of experimentation with images of the party. We use cartography as a research path, because it is a method that privileges experimentation in research, in which it offers clues for guidance rather than predetermined rules. We conducted semi-structured interviews, narrative analysis and exploratory research. We used ideas from authors of photography, such as Roland Barthes (2015), Susan Sontag (2004), Boris Kossoy (1989; 2009); communication, memory and narrative with Vera Veiga França (2001), Marialva Barbosa (2016) and Luiz Gonzaga Motta (2013); cartography, based on Deleuze and Guattari (2000) and Virginia Kastrup (2015); Bumba Meu Boi, from Américo Azevedo Neto (2019) and IPHAN (2011a). Finally, the images, interviews and the game proposed with the literature on photography were able to experience the folguedo in different ways. We perceive the coexistence of many narratives in the composition of the Boi de Juçatuba and how the tradition of the Boi's play continues to change over the years