Deaths records of the Freguesia de Santo Antônio do Urubu de cima (1845-1865): the lexical field of causa mortis

Abstract

The present paper aims to present a study of the lexicon, based on the lexical field of the causa mortis present in a book of death records from the Freguesia de Santo Antônio do Urubu de Cima, Capitania da Bahia, drawn up by three different scriptors in the period between 1845 and 1865. The documentary source is located in the collection of the Diocesan Curia of Bom Jesus da Lapa-BA. The death records presented words to name the causa mortis in 413 of the total 725 death records. Given this finding, the following question arose: what factors conditioned the declaration or not of the causa mortis in the aforementioned book? The theoretical-methodological path undertaken sought the interface of Philology (Spina, 1977; Cambraia, 2005), the theory of lexical fields proposed by Coseriu (1977) and comparison with reference works (Bluteau, 1712-1728; Moraes Silva, 1823; Langgard, 1865; Chernoviz, 1890) the answer to the question raised, including the study of the initial hypotheses to be attested, namely: (i) lexicon used for causa mortis was in recurrent use at the time, however, the fact that the scriptor knew the names of the diseases implied the name of the reason for death; (ii) considering the socio-historical context, the scriptor could or could not have access to the detailed information of the deceased, provided by people closest to him, which would compromise the entry of data into the records. From the present study, it is expected to contribute to investigations within the scope of lexical studies and knowledge of the cultural values and socio-historical of Brazilian Portuguese, especially in the sertão of São Francisco River.