Uma mitopoética do catolicismo mineiro: a virgem da Lapa de Antônio Pereira (Ouro Preto- MG)

Abstract

Mythopoetics arouse an experience of expanding the routine of daily survival, mediating connections with alterities associated with the sacred, ancestry, mystery... Such experiences, in turn, favor the recognition that being in the world is not limited to the primacy of the human, as well as instigating postures of cohabitation (and not domination) in relation to the existing. In this article, we will reflect on theoretical-conceptual criteria used by a triad of intellectuals to interpret mythopoetics: Claude Lévi-Strauss, a reference of French structuralism of the 1950s and 1960s; Michel de Certeau, well-known since the 1970s for his post-structuralist reflections on contemporary culture and mystical practices; Leda Maria Martins, an important black Brazilian anthropologist of the present day, who dialogues with decolonial thought. Our goal was to update the consideration of such criteria from the perspective of a cosmopolitical approach and, simultaneously, contextualize their incidence historically and culturally from a specific mythopoetics of Catholicism in Minas Gerais, that of the Virgin of Lapa in the district of Antônio Pereira, in the municipality of Ouro Preto-MG. In parallel, we discussed the role of educational institutions in promoting the “Festa da Virgem da Lapa”, pointing out their participation as a strategy for positivizing local social identities.