THE CARREGO IS NOT COLONIAL

AN APOLOGY FOR RITUALIZED AFRICANDIASPORIC WAYS OF FEEDING INVISIBLE MOUTHS

Abstract

Based on the analysis of ethnographic material collected during a Postdoctoral research in Social Anthropology at UFRN (2022), this article discusses the concept of “Colonial Cargo”, proposed by Luiz Antônio Simas and Luiz Rufino (2019), in their work Uma flecha no tempo (An arrow in time). This concept has been widely replicated in the context of decolonial studies in different areas of knowledge. Even recognizing the heuristic potential of the concept, the fad surrounding it inflates its analytical capacity, creating uncritical approximations between the word that refers to an important sacred artifact of the African diaspora in Brazil and the remnants of coloniality with which the artifact maintains no relationship. There is an issue here that passes through the plane of language, but that goes beyond it. To broaden the discussion, based on the emic meanings, socially shared by the Candomblé adepts around the word and the thing, we return to the philosophy of knowledge proposed by Simas and Rufino, questioning the concept and proposing alternative paths to the operationalization of a language compatible with the deconstruction of forms of coloniality still present in the language standards.