Article:

According to a common dictionary definition, “artisan is someone who practices a non-agricultural activity, oriented to the processing of goods, through his own work and of his family”, and yet, “… according to rules determined by his experience and study”. Let us consider the expression “his own” – it refers to the propriety of the tools and to the time of work, but also to the technical and cultural heritage that derives from the work of transforming and the research inherent to it. Manioc is at ‘the root’ of Brazilian food culture from the earliest times, and whose legacy of ancestral practices, created for its processing and consumption, is still practiced in some communities in different regions of Brazil. This is what we will observe in the configuration of artifacts and processes developed, and remain preserved by rare craftsmen, singularly, in the region of Bragança, northeastern Pará, to benefit manioc [mandioca in Portuguese], by which name it is known edible species and more widespread genus of manihot, composed of several varieties of edible roots. This paper intends to document, especially, an important acquis of Brazilian material culture, consisting of what we approach here as ‘popular project’: that one whose authorship must be attributed to humanity itself, and that is still maintained, shared and transmitted, by tradition, through generations, by means of observing and of the acquaintanceship in community environments. “Manioc: Root of Brazil” aims to be a record of a set of knowledge comprising, essentially, the relationship between man and the nature of its surroundings, his terroir.