THE MUSEUM OF THE SERGIPIAN MAN

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present in discursive form the Museum of the Sergipian Man as an expansive space for academic research focusing on its historical development at the Federal University of Sergipe. Set up as the Anthropology Museum, the institution went through several administrative forms and phases though not maintaining a permanent location which was established only occurred in 1996, when its project for expositions was revised and a new name was coined: The Museum of the Sergipian Man. Through the educational project conducted by the Museum School, the institution was establishing its role of catering to public school attendance holding exhibitions set up by a group of professors from the Department of Social Sciences where knowledge was presented on Indian themes, as well as Afro-Brazilian and Sergipian culture. These itinerant exhibits travelled from school to school as well as other places disseminating Sergipe’s cultural diversity always associated with courses and lectures with the purpose of offering information to the teachers who taught at public and private schools. Also the publication of the Texts of the History of Sergipe, a collective work of the faculty from the Departments of History and Social Sciences in the UFS, covering segments of Sergipe’s history from pre-colonial occupation up to the crisis of the state's populism in the 1960's, was incorporated into the museum. A major difficulty has been the composition of its institutional collection, with the exception of the archeology and ceramics collections, the fruits of academic research, and other collections have resulted from transfers from other sectors of the UFS, purchases and donations.With the objects of material culture it was possible to construct a museum expression, presenting aspects of the history of Sergipe, highlighting the image of the Sergipian, and the social-cultural-political milieu that influenced his evolution.