The article approaches the symbolic effectiveness of the Tupinambá sound system as agency, in the sense of objectification of intentions, which promote effects on the relations shared by people professionally connected to the sound system. The concept of symbolic effectiveness is defined here as a practice of coordinating emotions in search of an effect, even though related specifically to a festive and recreative context. Sound systems are family enterprises that play music professionally in dancing parties in Belém and in its surroundings. The research reveals, in Tupinambá’s foundational history, the existence of ties between procedures from urban show business and meanings related to social domains attached to ritual and religion. The performative symbolic effectiveness of the sound system is associated to the magic and religious devotion ofits founders, dedicated to the Indian-yokel José Tupinambá. This is an enchanted entity from Mina Nagô, native religion to the Brazilian state of Pará. The fieldwork covered Tupinambá’s appearances in dancing parties and collected interviews with the enterprise’s owners and workers.
Sound system; Party; Yokel; Symbolic Effectiveness; Mina do Pará