"To which i attest": the patrimonialization of oral memory in the registration notebooks of the Colégio Mauá Museum (1966-1970)

Abstract

This article investigates a unique documentary practice within the scope of historical-educational heritage: the registration of oral narratives as a museological collection. The study focuses on the first seven registration notebooks (1966-1970) of the Colégio Mauá Museum (Santa Cruz do Sul/RS), which, under the title "Donations and Declarations," that differ from other collection record instruments linked to the operative chain of the museological process. The analyzed artifacts exhibit various uses, also functioning for the registration of material collections, memories, and field trips. The analysis employed the methodology of the biography of objects (Kopytoff, 2008), as well as the intrinsic and extrinsic aspects (Mensch, 1989) and the relation with thick description (Geertz, 1978), all grounded in the theoretical and methodological substrate of the historiographical operation (Certeau, 2017) and the evidential paradigm (Ginzburg, 1989), from the multidisciplinary perspective enabled by Cultural History studies. Considering the uses and forms of registration found in the artifacts, it is assumed that the scarce museological and archaeological knowledge of the period was decisive for the professionals of the time, in their attempt to perform their work in the best way, to have generated peculiar and/or singular records when analyzed in relation to what is currently standardized as museological practice. The results of the investigation denote the relevance of the empirical material studied and confirm the museum's role in the patrimonialization of local oral memory.