Feitiço e agenciamento: o terecô de Codó-MA e o campo religioso afro-brasileiro

Abstract

This work addresses – based on anthropological literature and diaries produced during fieldwork – how terecô, the name given to the encantaria of Codó-MA, has been represented in the field of studies on afro-brazilian religions. The construction of the theme, from an anthropological point of view, demonstrates the representations that were created about the supernatural powers of the Codó region as the “capital da macumba” and land of great sorcerers. In developing this thesis, the spell is seen as an opposition to the paradigm of ritual purity, as an element in the market for religious goods and as a mischaracterization of jeje-yoruba traditions. In afro-brazilian cults, diversity and agency counterpointed these ideas of purity in the most different traditions. Even cyberspace serves the terecô agency, through channels on the YouTube platform, which reinforce the spell, the intense sociability between the different tents and the doctrines of this Codoense tradition. Terecô, therefore, by associating traditionality with spells, determines its place in the field of afro-brazilian religions.