MAGIC AND ALTERMENT IN THE SERTÃO

Abstract

The ways in which magic-religious practices are linked to supernatural powers in order to cure different diseases have been analysed by several disciplines including literature, anthropology and sociology. These magic-religious practice constituted part of the cultural repository of the Brazilian society. Different forms of magic-religious practice as common in rural areas as in urban and are equally incorporated by people from different social classes. This work analyzes a specific form of magic practice, that is used to face evil, and to confront its relation with the "other", in "São Marcos", a short story by Guimarães Rosa (1967), which is set in the countryside. This short story, first published in 1946, narrates a Sunday trip to forest by João/José, in which he first loses his vision and then recovered it by reciting a magic prayer. Rosa´s work questions the relationship between nature and culture and how evil is controlled.