Fios de memória: rastros do manuscrito da família Rojas no Quadro Antigo do Cemitério Ecumênico São Francisco de Paula.

Abstract

This main purpose of this dissertation is to investigate what motivated the elaboration and what ensures the ―survival‖ of a manuscript which contains in its pages the inventory of tombs belonging to the Quadro Antigo area from Cemitério Ecumênico São Francisco de Paula. The manuscript was prepared by Rui Rojas between 1972 and 1975, while he was working as a gravedigger, replacing his later father Elias. Ricardo Rojas, who was Elias‘ son and Rui‘s brother, kept the manuscript about Quadro Antigo for over 30 years, from 1975 to 2009. Rojas‘ family history intertwined with Quadro Antigo‘s for almost a hundred years, and it begun in the year 1914. The dissertation is divided in three chapters. The first chapter is about Quadro Antigo and the Rojas family. Concepts about memory, cemetery history and family memory will be presented. The second chapter is about the manuscript: by whom and how it was prepared and written, what was the context of its creation, the motivation for its creation, the uses assigned to it by its creator and its guardian, and the directions it took. A detailed description of the manuscript was also given. The third chapter talks about personal objects as a means to safeguard memory. Furthermore, the questions ―what to keep?‖, ―how to keep it?‖ and ―why keep it?‖ were addressed, and also the part played by the ―memory keeper‖. This study makes it possible to understand the manuscript in different ways: as simple writing, as a witness for a lifestyle, as a relic connected to a nostalgic sensibility, as the record of a life course and as an object to be kept and preserved for representing part of the history of that family and that place.