ROMARIA DE NOSSA SENHORA DA ABADIA DA ÁGUA SUJA

Abstract

This is an analytical nature dissertation. It is about a research about the phenomenon of the pilgrimage of N. Sra. da Abadia from Dirty Water, this which happens in Minas Gerais. The study seems to be relevant, because, although there is a decline of the Catholic faithfulness participation in the masses and in the sacramental ritual, there is an increasing number of faithful pilgrims at this popular religious type. The main purpose of this work is to reflect about the pilgrim, from the XXI century, his profile and motivation, that built his devotion in the Triângulo Mineiro and the history of this religious fact. The work hypothesis is that the entailment between the devote and saint can be considered as a gift, main category used here to interpret the study. This category is lent by the anthropology, being more specific, by Mauss (1924). There are, analyzing the devotees practices, three elements that take part in this devotion process: the faithful gets something from his protector, a grace, that can be proceeding from the facilitation on getting a material stuff, passing by a body health and also a spiritual health; known and accepted by part of the devotee of this grace, he believes he has the obligation to reattribute to his protector saint something to demonstrate his gratitude. The technique used to get these data is a specific bibliography that studies the origin to this popular piety born in Portugal, transported to Minas Gerais, that perdures and increase up to these days, gathered with a field observation and interviews with the pilgrims in two succeeding years: between August 2003 and August 2004. The main conclusion we got with the dissertation is to evidence that not only the pilgrimages, emitterly popular pieties, can be characterized as a gift, but, in the Brazilian religious field, all the religious manifestations of people can be categorized as a gift.