How is a saint born in the cemetery? death, memory and history in Northeast Brazil

Abstract

The article analyzes the conditions for the appearance and social reproduction of popular canonization, which can be defined as a spontaneous process of sanctification, neither institutionalized nor formally organized that typically emerges in cemeteries. I will do that by exploring two cases in Rio Grande do Norte, a state at the Northeastern Region of Brazil: A cangaceiro called Jararaca, in Mossoró; and an assassin called Baracho, in Natal. My aim is to understand which criteria determine the selection of these saints among the deceased buried in a cemetery; and to inquire why an outlaw becomes a saint, but not the former mayor of the city who led the victorious resistance to the invasion plotted by these same outlaws. I analyze the representations of the outlaw’s life as it is remembered and presented mainly through verbal and ritual transmission, and the representations on its posthumous existence and sainctity. I will, therefore, explore the verbal aspect of the rituals around the tomb, and the ways through which they grant symbolic efficacy to the cult (the miracles) and elaborate a memory of the outlaw’s life history. Such memory inevitably leads to another version of the history of the events that led to his death; hence, it also creates another way of telling the history of the town and its local community.