Maria Duas Tranças and the Itaoca Weeping Rooster: Image, Catimbó, and Macumba in Fortaleza in The Beginning of the 40s

• Autor(a) principal: Almeida, Leonardo Oliveira de
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Afro-Ásia (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.ufba.br/index.php/afroasia/article/view/43991
• topic: Imagem; Jornais; Religiões afro-indígenas; Catimbó; Image; Newspapers; Afro-Indigenous religions; Catimbó

A photograph published in the newspaper O Estado in the city of Fortaleza on April 1, 1941, shows Maria Duas Tranças standing with religious objects that were seized by the Departamento de Ordem Política e Social (Department of Political and Social Order – D.O.P.S) as criminal evidence of the practice of catimbó. In the picture, Maria is pointing to a newspaper on the table. The photo’s caption provides clues about the reasons for her gesture: “The ceremonial instruments and an edition of the ‘Gazeta’ that reported on the weeping rooster of Itaoca are separated”. That was the front page of the newspaper Gazeta de Notícias, which reported on a series of “demonic apparitions” that took place days before in a neighborhood located 8 km away from the place where Maria was arrested. In this article I analyze how this image produced connections between the two events, also seeking to contribute to studies of Afro-Indigenous religions in Ceará and to the publication of images produced by the local press.