On the street, the meaning of the celebration: sacred carpets, perishable sawdust in color

Abstract

The practice of decorating the streets to receive the manifest sacred goes back to the use of offerings to the divine and the representation of social drama. The ancient carpets were popular decorations, carried out as an expressive means of religious beliefs in Europe. In medieval periods such practice contextualized direct relations between gift and retribution, establishing influences on the use of agricultural calendars for the maintenance and practice of these traditions. This object (rug) shows specificities of the society that built it. It paves the way to the sacred, however, in a way constituted by an ephemeral, fleeting medium. It exquisitely portrays the community's understanding of the rite, and, in turn, of the feast. From anthropological field experiences we observed the making of the sawdust carpets that decorate the procession route on the feast of Corpus Christi in Sabará/MG.