Photoethnography: ex-votos to the popular saints in the São João Batista cemetery in Manaus-AM

Abstract

The present photoethnographic essay aims to present records of ex-votos deposited under the tombs of four popular saints in the São João Batista cemetery, located at Avenida Boulevard Álvaro Maia, s/nº, corner with Praça Chile – in the Adrianópolis neighborhood, south of Manaus. Saint Etelvina, Teresa Cristina, Rabbi Shalon Emanuel Muyal and Delmo Pereira, canonized by the population of Manaus, despite the passing of the decades after their deaths, receive tributes with letters, school uniforms, notebooks, flowers, candles, rosaries, plaques, among other elements such as folkcommunicational practices of ex-voto, according to the definition of Beltrão (2004) in the respective perpetual tombs. The most popular among all is Etelvina D'Alencar (1884-1901), born in Boa Vista do Icó (CE), daughter of Cosmo José D' Alencar and Rosalinda D'Alencar.  he built a tomb in the São João Batista cemetery and since then he has received visitors and organically people have started to attribute miracles to him. 

Another popular saint who has been visited is Teresa Cristina, (1964-1971), the youngest person among the other "saints of the cemetery" who died in a plane crash near Manaus at the age of seven, where only her mother survived. Since then, it has received many tributes with fathers accompanied by their children.

One of the most curious is the well-known "Jewish Saint" Rabbi Shalon Emanuel Muyal, who came from Salé, Morocco, to Manaus, in 1908, to help in the development of the Jewish community in the capital of Amazonas. However, his experience in the city was quick, as the rabbi was stricken by an illness, dying two years after his arrival, in 1910. The saint, since the first decades of the twentieth century, has been the holder of several miracles and graces achieved that are seen on his tomb through plaques. And although there is a cemetery of Jews, the Rabbi is still buried in the general part, among people of different religions.

Among the least visited today is Delmo Pereira (1933-1952), murdered in the Campos Salles Colony in 1952, with the involvement of 27 people. The crime considered one of the most controversial in the history of Manaus is pointed out as a consequence of a series of criminal actions by Delmo, at the time, as well as the attempted murder of the watchman of his father's company and the murder of the only witness, the taxi driver who had taken him to the company. In view of this, the drivers of Manaus carried out a hunt after Delmo as an act of revenge. He was tortured by the taxi drivers, with his belly open from navel to neck. The death of the young man generated the revolt of the population, especially the students. On his tomb are the inscriptions "Student Martyr". Despite being considered a popular saint, currently, there are no longer so many objects as a form of ex-voto in a tone of veneration, as well as all the others. 

To understand the category of each of the popular saints, we started from the theoretical assumption of the Argentine folklorist Felix Coluccio (1994) who categorized each group. According to the author, in the first are the enlightened, made up of people who in their earthly life dedicated themselves to charitable activities and were considered virtuous; the second is made up of people who are victims of violent or unjust death. It includes three groups: the first, made up of angels, that is, children who died in early childhood, victims of abandonment or other forms of neglect; and finally, another group made up of innocent victims, adolescents and adults beaten, raped and murdered; In this category, the number of women is high.

In view of the above, we understand from this essay that the cult of dead people, or "cemetery saints" (Maués, 2005), "miraculous souls", "marginal saints" or even "miraculous dead" (Freitas, 2006), demonstrate the need of the human being to connect with something divine or supernatural, in the search for a better life, and one of the ways in which the message of the devotees to the saints, they are the ex-votos, which according to Benjamin (2022) built to the modes of subjectivities of individuals emphasize the traits of their suffering and the grace achieved, highlighting sociocultural aspects related to health, education, suffering, faith, religion and society. 

To optimize the subjective representation of the symbolism of the ex-votos to the popular saints, we used Photoethnography as a technique, since it is an approach that employs photography as a form of immersive/participatory visual narrative, allowing to record and transmit cultural information about the object or group researched, helping the reader to understand its characteristics and particularities. To this end, we explored open (General Shot) and closed (Middle Shot and/or Close) image shots to value both the ambience and the details of the ex-votos arranged in the tombs, according to the visual narrative below.