The use of plants in rituals of prayers and blessings: a glance on this practice in Paraiba state

Abstract

This work is being developed with prayers/blessers that inhabit mesoregions  the state of Paraíba, Brazilian northeastern. The present study aimed to identify plants species used in rituals of prayers and blessers evaluating the importance value (IVs) of them. Thus, there was 22 free interviews, by means of the application of questionnaires, the prayers/blessers (local experts), with the purpose also to study the knowledge and the perception of these relative local experts to the use of plants in its rituals of cure, common practical in communities that inhabit in cities of the state of the Paraíba. One searched to still understand the origin of knowledge of the prayers. The gotten preliminary results evidence that the prayers make use of plants in its practical of pray and blesses, giving them powers to remove “badly looked at” or “quebrantos”, several pains, “stickleback fallen”, among others evils. The informants had cited 15 species from 12 botanical families, with prominence for the Lamiaceae and Euphorbiaceae, with biggest number of species. Amongst the species mentioned for the prayers/blessers, they are distinguished: Ruta graveolens L. and Jatropha gossypifolia L. both with importance values 0,5. The prayers are people who had developed flair of the cure and had mainly acquired its knowledge through the familiar ones. It is observed that through practical of cure, for intermediary of prayers and blessers, the figure of the prayer is very present in the studied communities, remaining itself alive throughout the time.