The "law of life": confirmation, school drop out and reinvention of identity among Pomeranians

Abstract

The article deals with the meaning of school drop out in the life of a small comunity of rural workers descendants of Pomeranians - immigrants originally from the northern German. Ninety percent of the district population descend of Pomeranians that arrived in 1847. Although the state of Espírito Santo did not receive any more Germans after the 1870s, these communities have preserved their dialect, celebrations, cultural and marital habits and the narrative of peasant oral traditions. In the context of Brazilian immigration, no other ethnic group as the Pomeranians in Espírito Santo settled in such homogeneous and compact areas, contributing to modify the landowning structure and the rural life of the state where they established themselves. This work takes up the relationship between the use of several languages (Portuguese, German, and Pomeranian) and the Lutheran religiosity in the daily life of the group, the patterns of land ownership inheritance and the consequent importance of these elements in the confirmatory teaching carried out by the Lutheran and Missouri churches. These aspects result in an understanding of the social and educational values that are more important to the group in the reproduction of their peasant condition. The group representations about the role played by the school, the teacher and the minister are examined, as well as the relationship between such representations and the elements that help preserving the groups peasant ethos: obedience to the rules of reciprocity, conformity to the principles of hierarchy (paternal and clerical authority), and solidarity to relatives and neighbors.