O simbólico e o imaginário nas memórias de seringueiros do Médio Solimões, Amazonas : causos, cantorias e saraus no coração da selva

Abstract

This study assumes the purpose of analyzing the context of the symbolic and the imaginary, in the memories of rubber tappers from Médio Solimões, in Amazonas, centered on the rubber plantation space, as an expression of sociability and immaterial representation of everyday life. The rubber plantation theme is taken in this study not only as the place of economic exploitation, but above all, as the place of lived experience, of stories told in the moonlight, of forró dances, of parties as the realization of existence. The lived experience is verified through the narratives of the research participants, being, therefore, the placement the space where the individual and collective experience of these workers was constituted. Our intention was to find out how the subjectivation of the rubber tapper occurred in the midst of the oppressive hardships of the rubber plantation. The methodological path assumed the contribution of phenomenology and qualitative approaches, especially with regard to the narrative, in which the narrator is invited to talk about his life experience, lived in the Amazonian rubber plantation. Among the many aspects revealed, it is clear that the rubber tappers overcame the fear of contracting lethal diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, typhus, beriberi, hepatitis, attack by hungry jaguars, poisonous snakes, the imaginary fear of the mother of the rubber tree in fury, of the curupira as guardian of the forest, of the ominous birds and stinging animals, of the enchantment of porpoises, of the anaconda or python personified in the large snake. It became clear that they gave their blood to enrich the country, produced wealth, but did not have access to it and were doubly deceived by the rubber boss who never paid them the balance due, and by the Brazilian State, which also did not grant them the benefit as a rubber soldier. Today these well-aged and sick workers live with the sad fate of the hero without reward and none of the eight rubber tappers interviewed in this research receives the retirement benefit as a rubber soldier. They survive with an unimpressive INSS Continued Payment Benefit that can be terminated at any time. Even in the face of this generalized chaos, they say they are joyful, happy and grateful to God for the gift of life.

Keywords – Amazon. Rubber Memory. Imaginary