O CHÁ DE CEBOLA BRANCA E A RAINHA DO REISADO

Abstract

With white breast and red head, it measures approximately 14 centimeters and a half. In the branches of the Chapada do Araripe, Northeastern region of Brazil, the species also known as labrador-da-mata, presents a sexual dimorphism in respect to plumage. Soldier of the Araripe, more showy than the female, has a helmet on the head that named it that way. It has a smaller tuft. Far from establishing a relation between misogyny and nature, the sexual materiality put in a first order between male and female, ends up conditioning two truths about the bodies: - having here size of less than a span - it is obligatory for the male to act as male and female act as female. The species, found only in the cities of Barbalha, Araripe, Crato and Missão Velha, in Ceará, is one of the references of the territory of the Cariri region. The mentioned municipalities are located in the metropolitan region of Cariri, formed by nine municipalities, arising from the conurbation between the municipalities of Juazeiro do Norte, Crato and Barbalha. It is in this territory where the bird sings that Tica plays. During a year, from October 2016 to October 2017, I spoke with the brave Francisca da Silva do Reisado Santa Helena in Juazeiro do Norte. At the time the research began, she lived in the neighborhood Mutirão, next to the headquarters of the group and the house of Mestre Dedé, owner of the ox - as the name of the one who leads the Reisado calls - that carries the legacy of the father in popular culture in honor the saint who protected him. Inside the white dress that opens wings in the Reisado de Mestre Dedé Tica does not know if people see her as a man or as a woman. Challenging the gender binarism, the bragging, that occupies the figural of Queen in the traditional manifestation, reinvents the popular culture in the region of Cariri cearense through the artistic performance. Tica was born from talking up. The midwife when she saw that the boy of the deceased Tereza had come to the world like this, announced that he was going to be more woman than man. It's the fate the Queen says she has. In the poetics of daily life, she unveils the religious rite and subverts the body crossed by prayers, desires and love.