Traveling literature and the empire of parties: the coronation of the Congo Kings in the nineteenth southern Brazil in the travelers vision

Abstract

The present communication intends to discuss the possibilities and the limits in the usage of the literary writings in the studies of humanity, especially, the analysis of the social representations contained on them as a source to the history. For this, it will be used excerpts of the traveling literature in which are described the episodes of the coronation of Congo Kings and the parties called Congadas that had a place in the nineteenth Brazil. It is believed that this foreign view that faces a “strangeness” facing up the “other” could be revealed, between incomprehension descriptions, exoticism and funny, with relevant information to a better comprehension of the parties and celebrations concerned here.