Our gourd-making is utilitarian, ornamental, and also for dances,
people use the gourds a lot. So it is thus a natural product,
coming from the calabash tree, having nothing industrial,
all manual, no one uses a machine for anything.
Our machines are our fingers, our gravers and everything,
it is cultural because we create,we have not copied from others, right.
It’s from memory, so
if we have memory, we have history.
(Lélia Maduro. Carapanatuba. In: Arte na Cuia)
Recognized for being the recipient used to serve Tacacá – a traditional broth from the Amazon region made from tucupi – the handcrafted gourds, made from the fruit of Crescentia cujete, or calabash tree, are typical of Santarém, Pará, and especially the communities of the Amazon River floodplain. Used for several purposes – such as bowls, fruit bowls, cups, pots, tableware and also for decoration – their manufacture follows traditional technology that involves cutting the gourd in half, sanding, treating, dyeing and decorating it with paint or incisions.
The gourd production, which takes place in yards or under trees, is an eminently feminine and collective economic activity. Perhaps it is one of the oldest in the Lower Amazon region, since painting of gourds were recorded in seventeenth century travellers’ accounts.
After collecting the calabash fruit, the core is removed – it is at this stage that most male participation happens. The bowl is boiled, the imperfections are eliminated, often with scales from the pirarucu (araipama) fish, and dyed with coumatê, which is a natural dark-red ink extracted from the bark of the axuazeiro tree. Then the ink fixing occurs: the gourds are placed on a layer of straw spread on a place with urine and ash, so that the ink, under the action of the ammonia released, undergoes a chemical process and renders it black. After washing, the gourd is ready to be decorated.
The gourds’ traditional pattern repertoire, passed on from mother to daughter, reflects landscapes, flora, fauna, legends and imagination from the Amazon region. For engraved designs, graphics patterns called tapajônicos or indigenous and floral arrangements based on the Portuguese faience are used.
The Aritapera area is notable in the manufacture of gourds. There, five communities – Aritapera Bay, Central Aritapera, Carapanatuba, Surubiu-Açu and Cabeça-d’Onça – are organized as the Ribeirinhas de Santarém Artisans Association (Associação das Artesãs Ribeirinhas de Santarém – ASARISAN), established in 2003 in order to enhance the production and marketing the gourds.
Present in the daily life of communities, the traditional craft has become an icon of Pará identity, being found both in markets and souvenir shops. In 2009, the Santarém painted gourds became an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Pará State through State Law no. 7316.
Recife, 19 May 2014.
sources consulted
NOVA Cartografia Social da Amazônia. Arte na cuia: experiência tradicional de saber fazer. Série cultura e resistência no Oeste do Pará. Manaus: UEA Edições, 2013. v. 1.
SOUZA, Antônio Maria de; CARVALHO, Luciana Gonçalves (Org.). Terra, água, mulheres e cuias: Aritapera, Santarém, Pará, Amazônia. Belém: PRODETUR, 2012.
how to quote this text
MORIM, Júlia. Cuias de Santarém. In: Pesquisa Escolar. Recife: Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, 2014. Available at:https://pesquisaescolar.fundaj.gov.br/en/artigo/santarem-gourds/. Accessed: month day year. (Exemple.: Aug. 6, 2009.)