Prestige and authority in dispute: the bodies of masters and clowns in the folias de reis

Abstract

This article focuses on the possibilities of understanding the folia de reis festivities through the literature of the Anthropology of the Body, analyzing the festive community through the bodies of two main characters for the arremate party: the master and the clown. Within the playfulness of the clowns we find a complex ritual that relates memory verses devotion, knowledge of the codes that govern the group of foliões. The misappropriation of the foundation of the folia can take on great proportions and generate a conflict between such subjects, turning the religious "performance" into an agonistic field. The event reveals how the mastery of a specific knowledge does not manifest itself only in the field of the intellect, but comprises in a phenomenon that expands to the whole body, providing a game that puts at risk the prestige and authority of the folia de reis masters and clowns.