O pai da mata que cuida da floresta, espírito do imaginário pan-amazônico

Abstract

The life of the forest peoples, the riverside communities, and the man of the interior of the Amazon is marked by the action of the imaginary, concretized in oral narratives, the folk tales, the myths, and the legends. Far from a common idea of narrative as fiction or myth as a lie, in these spaces’ oral stories figure with full social force, acting as a regulator of activities between humans and equals, but also and mainly between humans and non-humans. This cultural factor persists in Amazonian culture in some places where the Amazonian imaginary has not been replaced by a Westernized mentality. Based on these considerations, we seek to investigate how this imaginary regulates the actions of humans on nature from the figure of the Pai da Mata. Starting from a case study, we selected some narratives about this mythical being to reflect on its relevance in the imaginary and its role of regulator between man and nature. To this end, we initially started from the resumption of the thought of authors who reflect on the Amazonian culture, such as Paes Loureiro (2015) and Neide Godim (2012); to reflect on the Amazonian myth we dialogue with authors who study it, such as Valdir Vegini (2014, 2018) and Heloísa Correia (2015); and to reflect on human activity in nature permeated by these myths we resumed some ecocritical authors, especially Leonardo Boff (2011).