Through the ethnographic evidence that young children move (or would like to move) between the various churches of the studied city and given that religion seems to be defined by the same children as intrinsically linked to going to church, this article " based on fieldwork research on religion in the North-eastern semi-arid region of Brazil " works with the hypothesis that the adult reverses the child understanding regarding the meaning given to religion, trying to think of the category symbolic not on its supposed nature or permanence, but as a category constructed during the first years of life of a given person. The data were produced through the use of drawings of children from three to thirteen years of age as research tools, as well as the participant observation.
symbolic; children; church; drawings
