期刊名称：Ciencias Sociales y Religión / Ciências Sociais e Religião
印刷版ISSN：1518-4463
电子版ISSN：1982-2650
出版年度：2000
卷号：02
期号：02
页码：191-203
出版社：Associação de Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas
摘要：This article presents a preliminary study of two popular saint devotional practices that take place currently in the Northeast of Brazil. There, around their gravestones, Jararaca, a cangaceiro, and Baracho, a kind of serial killer and thief, are both believed to be, if not real saints, saint-like persons. The faith on their miracles are mixed with the memory of their criminal lives.The traditional model of the social bandit, who becomes a robber to help the poorest people, makes possible their believers to establish a continuum between their criminal past and their “santicfied” present. The most important elements in their conversion into “saints” seem to be the violent death and the physical and moral suffering associated to it. The picture just drawn here shows that both are really a very special kind of saints; they are precarious saints, not completely established ones. The controversial aspects of their sainthood seems to explain why they are so interesting, even from the believers’ point of view.
