Memórias e Etnogênese das comunidades quilombolas do território do Caruma, Pinheiro, Maranhão.

Abstract

Located in the microregion of Baixada Maranhense, Pinheiro has a high number of self identified quilombolas communities. Our investigation focuses on the Caruma Farm and Mill, in Caruma village and in its relations with neighboring quilombos: Pirinã, Pacoã, Proteção and Sudário, aiming to record their memory supports and emerging identities of Caruma village and the four communities mentioned, through the historical method, specifically micro-history, and ethnography, here understood as a double theoretical method. The research are based on the critique of a postmodern anthropology, in which i experience and describe through field studies that are involving observations, experiences, mapping of memory places and interviews. Intending to understand the role of memories, focusing on collective memory, in the outbreak of the current ethnogenesis of the Village Caruma, and the relationship, in the face of a possible paternalistic connection, with the Guterres, former family owner of the farm and mill, encompassing relations at identity and memorial borders with other quilombolas and with external agents who threaten the possession of their territories. As a result, it is noteworthy that not only does paternalism have a central relationship with the quilombola identity in the Caruma village and other neighboring quilombos, but also the relationships here called memo-affective, wich are experienced only by the Caruma village, leading to the self-definition of Lands of Heirs; still, ethnogenesis is the main and contextual operational resource used for the defense of land, for the maintenance of life and basic rights of these communities and, nevertheless, it is proved that Pinheiro has a slave history that needs to be further researched in favor of the epistemic unveiling of official and dominant narratives that silence this black memory, as well as in relation to the indigenous people who inhabited this place. I reinforce, therefore, that such memories and groups never ceased to exist, and that when rubbed by the urgencies of the present, they recount themselves, and invigorate.