The prayer is a ritual phenomenon of fundamental importance within the catholic religious system. An approach inspired by Mauss is used here in order to develop an ethnographic analysis of the ritual of prayer as practiced by catholics from the neighbourhood of Casa Amarela, Recife. Among other possible modalities, the ritual appears in several modes: simple (as a "minimal gesture"); composite, for example, in the rosary ritual; and, finally, as part of a larger set, as occurs in the relations between the living and the dead where the prayer, in addition to dreams, functions as a communication channel between the living and the dead.
ritual; prayer; catholics; livings and deads; Recife; Mauss
