“FOLIÕES” AND "FOLIÕAS": MEMORY AND IDENTITY IN THE GENDER PERFORMANCES OF SANTA DICA’S FOLIAS

Abstract

This article aims to highlight some characteristics of two distinct festivities, the Folia de Reis and the Folia de São João, held annually in Lagolândia (district of Pirenópolis), in Goiás, Brazil. The Folia de Reis is characterized as a predominantly male event, where participants travel long distances in the countryside, in a pilgrimage with its own rites. The Folia de São João is characterized as being performed by a group of women ("foliõas" or "donzelas", as they are known locally), who go around the houses in the urban area of the district, in a ritual that resembles the Folia de Reis. These manifestations, as well as other festivals in the region, arose from the initiative of a religious and political leader in the first half of the 20th century, Benedita Cipriano Gomes, known as Santa Dica. For this article, we start from the idea that there are religious rites, staged in both festivals, with different rules and characteristics between the genders, which characterize each one as 'masculine' or 'feminine'. Our proposal aims at demonstrating some of the differences between the two folias, with the hypothesis that the religious festivals help to understand the identity, the bonds and the social organization of a community and, in the specific cases, for motivations linked to the memory and the identity of the place, which go beyond the religious and devotional bias.