MUDANÇAS E PERMANÊNCIAS NOS RITUAIS FÚNEBRES NO INTERIOR DA PROVÍNCIA DA PARAHYBA DO NORTE EM TEMPOS EPIDÊMICOS (1854 – 1859).

Abstract

In Parahyba, the context of the cholera-morbus epidemic (1855/1856) accelerated the process of expelling the dead from the world of the living. The construction of cemeteries was also triggered by the representations by physicians of corpses as one of the main causes of the disease. This paper aims to understand how this change in funeral rituals took place in the interior of the province of Paraíba through a comparative analysis at Villa do Pilar, the Villa de São João do Cariri, the Villa de Cuité and the village of Teixeira, between 1854 and 1859.  Asking how people died in each of these localities in different spaces of the same province, some obituaries elaborated during this time will be compared. Addressing death records, it is possible to get information about the reception of the sacraments, the colour of the shroud, the commendation of the body, the burial place and the death cause. In doing so, local specificities and changes will be taken into account, without losing sight of continuities It is possible to see that in plague times, the dying people were often abandoned, and their dead bodies were piled up and burned, or thrown unceremoniously into mass graves, thus transgressing some funeral rites proper to a good death. Bad death was prevalent; when dozens of people dying every day, there was no time for the care and preparation prescribed by Christianity.