The Moça Nova Festival: female initiation ritual of the Ticuna indigenous people

• Grant number: 17/19042-6
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants - Publications - Books published in Brazil
• Start date: June 01, 2018
• End date: May 31, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Indigenous Ethnology
• Principal Investigator: Marta Rosa Amoroso
• Grantee: Marta Rosa Amoroso
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This book mainly focuses on the description and analysis of the Moça Nova Festival, the initiation ritual through which Ticuna young women go through. The Ticuna people speak an isolated language and inhabit, for the most part, the Upper Solimões River (Amazonas, Brazil), spread across Brazil, Peru and Colombia. At the time of the menarche, girls are secluded and the ritual is organized. In order to understand this festival, which marks the moment when girls leave seclusion, I present how it relates to other dimensions of Ticuna life: social organization and kinship, mythology, cosmology and body. Both the ethnography and the analysis concentrate primarily on the songs, musical instruments and mythic narratives related to the festival and its ritual process. (AU)