From Massacre to Miracle: Romani Presence and the Making of a Pilgrimage Site in Piauí, Brazil

In November 2025, Martin delivered two invited lectures titled “From Massacre to Miracle: Romani Presence and the Making of a Pilgrimage Site in Piauí, Brazil.”

Organisers: The first lecture was held on November 14 at the Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation (CEDLA) at the University of Amsterdam. It was organized at the invitation of Dana Brablecova and featured Mattijs van de Port, also from the University of Amsterdam, as the discussant. For more details, visit the CEDLA website.

The second event took place on November 21 during the Margins of Memory Speaker Series hosted by Tatiana Klepikova and Volha Bartash at the Leibniz ScienceCampus / Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies in Regensburg. More details can be found on the Leibniz ScienceCampus website.

Martin’s lectures summary: In a small rural settlement in the interior of Piauí, northern Brazil, a modest chapel stands beside a large courbaril tree – dedicated to Ciganinho Milagroso (“the Miraculous Little Gypsy Boy”). Local memory and archival sources trace the site back to a massacre of a group of Romani people more than a century ago. According to oral history, a young Romani boy attempted to hide in a tree but was killed. When an epidemic struck the community years later, villagers interpreted the illness as a punishment for this unjust killing. Over time, grief and memory crystallised into devotion, and the site gradually became a pilgrimage destination. The lecture examines how interethnic violence, local memory, religious practice, and sacralisation intertwined in the making of this site, and what this process reveals about changing configurations of Romani presence and belonging in Brazil.

Looking ahead: These lectures presented material from a book chapter that Martin is developing for a monograph with a tentative title Diasporic Entanglements, which focuses on Romani mobility across the Portuguese-speaking Atlantic and the transformation of Romani identities over the centuries.

Image: Martin Fotta in conversation with Mattijs van de Port; by CEDLA.