Abstract

PEREIRA, Edilson. The saint, the face and the other. Etnográfica [online]. 2016, vol.20, n.2, pp.363-386. ISSN 0873-6561.

In this article, I examine a particular Christ’s effigy that participates in the re-enactment of the Via Crucis during the Holy Week in Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais (Brazil). Analysing the history of the replacement of the statue’s head, I observe how the native search for a new “face” to this figure highlights Georges Bataille’s and Michael Taussig’s questions about the porosity of boundaries between sacred and profane, as well as the transgressions that mutually reinforce them. Their theories allow me to approach the theme of the fragmentation of the human body and to explore the civic cult held in Ouro Preto to Tiradentes, a Brazilian political hero who became progressively a Christianised martyr. To conclude, I outline multiple implications produced by those (absent) faces and bodies - of Christ and Tiradentes - during different rituals and in different historical moments, including the Catholic festive context.

Keywords : transgression; Holy Week; Ouro Preto; Tiradentes; sacred body.

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