MEMORIES AND NOTES ON CRIES AND STREET SELLERS

Abstract

The small merchant explores many resources to sell a product, such as auction chants, body language, elements of parody, oral poetry, rhythmic songs and chants, verbal artistry, voice intonation and stylized language. The aim of the presente study is to comment depictions of street sellers, their chants and street cries as cultural objects in memorialistic writings. Considering this purpose, in this article the concept of cultural object is employed by comparison with the idea of “sites of memory”, term coined by Pierre Nora (1989) and the anthropological notion of “trace” developed by Jean-Yves Boursier (2002). The analysis shows that historical, literary and memorialistic accounts register the image of street sellers and street cries, emphasising its mnemonics, picturesque and social aspects.

Keywords

• objeto cultural, pregões, vendedores de rua