Shipyard School of Maranhão -

"A Safeguard Strategy of Traditional Knowledge "

Abstract

The State of Maranhão has an extensive stretch of the northern Brazilian coast, which in turn is plagued by one of the largest tides on the planet, with amplitudes ranging up to 7 meters. This phenomenon determines a coast of geographic configuration extremely cut off and with great forests of mangroves where it becomes practically impossible to construct coastal roads. In the midst of this sinuous design, stretching from the Parnaíba River delta to the border with Pará, lies the mouth of several mighty rivers, forming archipelagos with hundreds of islands,boreholes, streams and inner bays. In this still isolated universe, thousands of families live that depend on artisanal vessels as a means of subsistence and for the artisanal fishing and transport of passengers and cargoes. In 1986, we conducted with Finep the research called "Maranhão vessels / Recovery of popular traditional techniques", which won the Rodrigo Melo Franco de Andrade Prize in 1996 in the Inventory of Collections and Research category. This research was published in a book under the MINC / UNESCO charter in 1998. However the main result was the creation of the Schoolyard functioning since December 2006, where the old masters of naval carpenters have their valuable knowledge and are treated with respect must to the teachers, masters and doctors of the university academy. Here they find the favorable
environment for transmitting their knowledge to the new generations, thus preventing their disappearance.