This text is a research report concerning the cabocla (mestizo) population of southern Brazil, focusing on cultural aspects, seen here as a distinguishing system. This population is studied in terms of the migratory process that begins with their expulsion from the countryside, their adaptation to the small towns, passing through the periphery of the large cities and finally returning to the countryside. The article attempts to understand their musical practices, the technology that they have appropriated and their religiosity, all of which have been, symbolically and materially, reconstructed in their complexity.