Abstract

NOBREGA, Márcia. Variations on “livusias”: the coincidence of land and the (ends of) worlds contained in an island in the São Francisco River, Brazil. Etnográfica [online]. 2019, vol.23, n.2, pp.469-487. ISSN 0873-6561.  https://doi.org/10.4000/etnografica.6874.

The article explores how people cohabit with different kinds of “souls” and “caboclos,” all populating the space of the island of Massangano, located in the lower-middle region of São Francisco River, in Brazil. Living on an island in the semi-arid Northeast, its inhabitants associate the presence of those other beings to the power of the river’s waters and its relationship with the unending “dry land,” there taking the form of the caatinga biome. As opposed to the mainland, the island itself walks, moved by the force of the river’s streaming. Along the island’s ground, some modalities of spirits, the “souls” and “caboclos,” are “out there,” as they use to say, accompaning the people and populating certain places, those that carry “livusias.” Accordingly, I try to think how the worlds and their populations confined on the island are affected by the changes suffered by the land that they inhabit.

Keywords : caboclos; souls; settlement; land; world.

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