Águas da Baía: entre casas, mangues e marés

Abstract

In the Recôncavo Baiano, the waters of Baía do Iguape form a natural nursery for diverse species, the result of the meeting of the fresh waters of the Paraguaçu river with the salty waters of Baía de Todos os Santos. In this dissertation, the paths travelled between houses, mangroves and tides, as well as forests, roads and sidewalks converge in a fishing and quilombola community in the municipality of Cachoeira, Bahia. These paths reveal an ethnographic scenario of multiple and dynamic relationships, also moulded by the impulses and whims of the waters of the bay, whose rhythms and movements cross and overlap the landscape. The act of walking, as well as being the main means of locomotion in the community, functions as a way of integrating and inscribing their marks on the landscape. These marks, also left by the fruit trees, are easily recognised by the inhabitants, who follow them along the paths, keeping alive the memories left by their ancestors, their ways of living and existing, which cross the territory. The itineraries travelled by the inhabitants not only inform us about the way of inhabiting this landscape, its possible risks and daily rigidity, but also reveal the rhythms, movements and relationships that flow and overlap within it. In this way, I propose, in different ways, to reflect on living in lands protected by the waters of the bay.