500 ANOS…DE PORTUGUESES A BRASILEIROS.

The arrival of the Portuguese on the Brazilian coast represented one of the most radical transferences of habitat that history has ever known: people who were first so deeply rooted started living in an unlimited space, in which rooting was nearly impossible and the relationship with "the other" was imperative. The article suggests that such an apparently simple social fact may well have had long-run consequences in Brazilian history. It may even account for some very recent features of our religious field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]