A prática da benzeção: “Fé e ofício na busca da cura dos males do corpo e da alma”

Abstract

In this article we make a historical and cultural approach to the practice of blessing in the Palmares neighborhood in Parintins/AM. With the objective of understanding how the occurrence of this craft occurs nowadays in that local community. We bring the narratives of these practices through interviews with three historical agents (two faith healers and one faith healer), using the procedures of Oral History as a technique, as a way of maintaining the dialogues that provided evidence of the dynamics of interactions between the social group that seeks in the said practice the cure for the ills of the body and soul. The contextualization of the work was based on a brief historical-cultural survey of the aforementioned practice, which is linked to the culture of ancient peoples who lived in the Amazon in ancient times, and who left a legacy of knowledge considered ancestral as: the knowledge of powerful prayers , of plants, herbs and roots that heal in this region. Finally, our results are surprising insofar as the voices of the interviewees themselves narrate the concern with the disappearance of the practice due to the death of healers and older healers without maintaining continuity with their younger family members for reasons ranging from lack of interest in learning the practice or non-contemplation of the "gift" to the decrease of people's faith, causing the decrease of their followers.