MYTHE IDENTITAIRE ET MÉTISSAGE DANS LA LÉGENDE DE CATARINA PARAGUAÇÚ DANS CARAMURÚ (1781) DE JOSÉ DE SANTA RITA DURÃO, CATARINA DO BRASIL (1942) ET CATHERINE DU BRÉSIL. FILLEULE DE SAINT-MALO (1953) D’OLGA OBRY ET CATARINA PARAGUAÇÚ : A MÃE DO BRASIL
IDENTITY MYTH AND MIGENATION IN THE LEGEND OF CATARINA PARAGUAÇÚ IN CARAMURÚ (1781) BY JOSÉ DE SANTA RITA DURÃO, CATARINA DO BRASIL (1942) AND CATHERINE DU BRÉSIL. FILLEULE DE SAINT-MALO (1953) BY OLGA OBRY AND CATARINA PARAGUAÇÚ: A MÃE DO BRASIL (2

Summary/Abstract: The legend of Catarina Paraguaçú tells how, around 1509 or 1510, a young Indian girl born in Brazil would have met and saved a shipwrecked Portuguese, would have loved him, would have married him, would have come with him to France where she would have converted to Christianity and where she met the King and the Queen in Paris, and then returned to Bahia to become the "Mother of Brazil". This legendary story began to be built in Brazil, in 1547. A first author, Vincente do Salvador, claims in 1627 to have collected it from the very mouth of Catarina Paraguaçú around 1585. The myth then takes shape with other chroniclers and historiographers, Simão de Vasconcelos in 1663, Francisco de Brito Freyre in 1675, Sebastião da Rocha Pita in 1730 and, in 1761, Antonio de Santa Maria Jaboatão. From Brazilian, the legend becomes European with the publication in Portugal of Caramurú: poema epico do descobrimento da Bahia, a founding epic composed by José de Santa Rita Durão. This poem is translated into French, in 1829, by Eugène Garay de Monglave. He then inspired a novel, Jakaré-Ouassou ou les Tupinambas by Daniel Gavet and Philippe Boucher, in 1830, and a lyric poem, Paraguassú by Joseph O'Kelly and Junius de Villeneuve in 1855. The legend then returned to Brazil, with the creation of an opera, Moema, in 1891, by Joaquim Torres Delgado de Carvalho. She was reborn in 1928, in Mario de Andrade's novel, Macunaíma. The myth asserts itself especially during the 20th century in Catarina do Brasil: a India que descobriu a Europa, a story published in 1942 by Olga Obry and translated in French by this author in 1953 under the title of Catherine du Brésil: filleule de Saint-Malo. At the dawn of the 21st century, it is a film, Caramurú. Invenção do Brasil by Guel Arraes, and a novel, Catarina Paraguaçú: A Mãe do Brasil by Franco Tasso, which resurrect this ancient legend. The identity myth is constituted. It represents for Brazilians the hybrid link that would be established in the sixteenth century between the New World and the Old World. From the epic of José de Santa Rita Durão to the novels of Olga Obry and Tasso Franco, how does this legendary tradition reconcile this Indian heritage and this external contribution, European, to a new Brazilian identity, mixed and original?

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