Os sacrifícios da carne: a morte do gado e a produ o dos banquetes nas folias de Urucuia, MG The sacrifices of the flesh: the death of livestock and production of the banquet in Urucuia, MG

A morte do gado nas folias de Urucuia é um processo sacrificial e como tal realiza um duplo movimento de sacraliza o: de um lado, o boi é envolto por uma aura sagrada que o transforma em propriedade dos santos; de outro, suas carnes oferecidas em banquete comunicam de "cima para baixo" os poderes sagrados associados à entidade religiosa. Neste artigo, estudo os mecanismos responsáveis pela constitui o da unidade sacrificial a partir das opera es simbólicas ascendentes e descendentes relativas aos bois e à comida festiva. A totalidade do sacrifício se constrói a partir da ideia de carne de gado. Entidade liminar entre o animal vivo e o alimento pronto, ela realiza as media es entre os planos naturais, sociais e sobrenaturais mobilizados durante os festejos. The death of the cattle/ox and collective consumption of its meat for at folias of Urucuia, MG, are truly sacrifice processes. As such, these processes perform reciprocal movements of sacred acts. On one hand, the ox donated by devoted people to the ceremonials during the Folias' festivities is surrounded by a sacred aura that turns the ox an ownership of the saints. On the other hand, the ox meat offered on behalf of the saints' is a communication from "Sacred above to people down here" of sacred powers associated with a religious entity to the entire community of devoted people. In this article, I aim to study the mechanisms responsible for formation of the sacrifices units (in this case the ox) of the simbolic operations from "Sacred above to people down in earth" involving the cattle/ox in the festive food. The whole sacrifice is built from the idea of cattle/ox meet. The sacrificed ox meet is the entity mediating the live animal and the food ready to eat, which performs all the necessary mediations between natural, social and supernatural aspects taking place during the festivities.