Sacralized grains: notes on the popular diffusion of maize from their symbolic use in religious rituals

Abstract

Observing the symbolic meanings of the Brazilian maize culture unveils its importance as a food of resistance associated with a sacredness hardly visible to official historiography. From the colonizer’s perspective, maize was of little relevance other than the economic and did not rival wheat, whose symbolic value was associated with Christianity. Investigating the mentions made about maize in the book A Culinary History, organized by Flandrin and Montanari, we found the idea that in Europe maize was recommended only during periods of supply crisis. Differently, in Brazil, we note that the diffusion of maize in popular alimentation was mainly due to Afro-descendant peoples who adapted their domestic and ritualistic use. Although information on the use of food in the original religions of the native and captive peoples is rare, it was possible, through anthropological and artistic studies, to compare some current ritualistic practices inherited from the indigenous and Afro-descendant ethnic groups of the Brazilian colonial period. The comparison shows similarities between the Afro-indigenous religious rituals that point to their unity, which proved to be valuable for the survival of maize in the Brazilian diet. The study on the sacredness of maize points to ways of transmitting a food culture surrounded by clashes between its socioeconomic representations and its symbolic potentialities, both magical and poetical.