Compadrio in rural Brazil: structural analysis of a ritual institution

Abstract

This structural analysis focuses on the compadrio system. The empirical background is provided by observation carried out among sertanejo peasants of Bahia in the late 1960s and by the literature on the Latin American and Southern European variants of this institution. It is mainly concerned with two complementary problems. On the one hand, to draw a model that might represent that institution's elementary structure, virtually present in the variants of this system; on the other, to offer an interpretation of its meaning, by contrasting it with elements of the kinship and marriage systems, and taking in consideration the peasants' religious background. This exercise was inspired by Edmund Leach's Rethinking anthropology and his ideas about the Virgin Birth. Analytical perspectives for further research are suggested.

Making compadres: godparenting among the Chiquitano indigenous people

“…O compadrio é um modo complexo de relação, muito estudado em comunidades rurais e urbanas, sendo definido como um sistema de relações rituais, com múltiplas variações, inclusive o batismo de influência cristã, a mais completa forma observada para criá-lo (Mintz e Wolf 1950;Gudeman 1971;Arantes 2011;Woortmann 1995).…”

Social Organization as the Framework for Interpreting Demographic Measures of Urban Emigration among the Canela of South Central Maranhão, Brazil

“…For a recent review of compadrio or godparenthood in the Brazilian sertão “traditionally occupied by extensive cattle breeding ranches combined with subsistence cultivation areas,” and more generally, see Arantes (:73).…”