AS PRÁTICAS EDUCATIVAS ENTRE OS CARREIROS DE MOSSÂMEDES: FÉ E DEVOÇÃO AO DIVINO PAI ETERNO.

Abstract

This research paper proposes to investigate the educational practices of the Carriers (Carreiros) of Mossâmedes Goiás, to perpetuate the tradition of an annual pilgrimage in honor of the Divine Eternal Father in the city of Trindade Goiás. The thesis is proven by the educational practices which are transmitted by the older to the younger generations; these are responsible for the tradition of the pilgrimage of the Carriers (Carreiros) of Mossâmedes. The educational practices are not merely realized in the sphere of religion, but also through the other activities exercised on a daily basis by the group, such as: agricultural work in the fields, taking care of animals, domestic chores, principally the preparation of food, the help that members of the community give to each other to realize a specific enterprise, etc. However, these practices sustain the religious aspect which is preponderant in the tradition of the pilgrimage of the Carriers (Carreiros) of Mossâmedes. They are educational and religious practices exercised day after day as a life experience, transmitted in the social cultural relations, filtered and established as custom which, in their temporal duration are transformed into a educational, religious and cultural tradition. The fundamental set of problems that this thesis will attempt to resolve is: what educational processes are used to perpetuate the pilgrimage of the Carriers (Carreiros) of Mossâmedes, how are the devotion, the tradition and the rituals of the pilgrimage to the shrine of the Divine Eternal Father are transmitted to succeeding generations, who are the subjects and the institutions that contribute to maintain the devotion and who benefits from it. The object of this research paper is to explain how the educational practices are important for the perpetuation of the pilgrimage of the Carriers (Carreiros) of Mossâmedes, how they came into being historically, how they contribute for the preservation of the pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of the Divine Eternal Father in Trindade and why people would travel long distances to obtain a symbolic content of the sacred. In order to understand the educational practices that delineate the group of the Carriers (Carreiros) of Mossâmedes the methodology of oral history has been used by way of interviews, observation and ethnographic photography. This ethnographic study resulted in the understanding of the constitution of this group which, by means of culture, education, memory and tradition of the pilgrimage has maintained for more than half a century the religious tradition of the devotion to the Divine Eternal Father in the city of Trindade, Goiás. A distinct presence of the sacred can be found in the symbols, the daily cultural and religious practices of the differentiated universe of the Carriers of Mossâmedes. It is this tradition that maintains harmony in the cart drivers lives. Their security is in their faith in the sacred. Through their faith the daily practices of these men and women are transformed into means of arriving at an objective: the search for the religious and social integration of the group.