CORPO ENCANTADO: a (in)corporação de caboclas e caboclos no Templo de Umbanda Pai Oxalá

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on terreiro bodies, specifically the (in)corporation of caboclas and caboclos in Umbanda terreiros. Conceição Evaristo's writing is used as a methodological tool, since the reflections presented evoke my body-memory and intersect/add to the bibliographies, building, questioning, creating and understanding concepts and historical-social constructions linked to the Umbanda religion, the (incorporation, its elements and its subjects). The themes covered permeate the terreiro, both in its physical and symbolic dimensions, and explore the relevance of the body in Afro-Brazilian religions, especially in the context of (in)corporation. Additionally, the research discusses the importance and identity of caboclas and caboclos in Umbanda terreiros. The research adopts a decolonial perspective, aiming to return/reconstitute the body, and religion as a whole, which have historically subalternized their own notions of meaning. I use a bibliographic review as a research methodology, participant observation in the caboclas and caboclos tours at the Templo de Umbanda Pai Oxalá, located in Campo Grande – MS, and interviews with (in)corporation mediums and some caboclo entities based on a pre- structured. The main authors and concepts used are Graziela Rodrigues with a strong body, experience and cohabitation; Luiz Rufino and Luiz Antonio Simas who discuss colonial occupation, survival, caboclos and enchantment. Given the observation that coloniality was based on the discrediting of different ways of being, knowing and doing, as well as domination, persecution and death, both physical and symbolic, this study reveals that (in)corporation represents a subversion of this project of disenchantment. (in)corporation enables contact with different memories of existence and vital energies, with the body being the place where axé is present, thus allowing a break with the discipline of bodies and cults, defying the imposed logic.