The vertigo of drunkness and the forms of spells among the Makurap (RO)

• Grant number: 24/13508-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: January 01, 2025
• End date: December 31, 2028
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Indigenous Ethnology
• Principal Investigator: Marina Vanzolini Figueiredo
• Grantee: Breno Duarte Castro
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The present research project aims to carry out ethnographic work with the Makurap people, who speak a Tupi-Tupari and live on the right bank of the middle Guaporé River and the Branco River. The objective of this work is to think about Amerindian political action from the language of witchcraft. There is a comparison commonly made by indigenous women, that chicha (a fermented drink that can be made from cassava, yam, peanuts and banana) has an intoxicating effect similar to the seductive effect of Awanda ("jiboia real"). The Awanda is capable of attracting other animals through a "spell": it simulates sounds that attract its prey. In a non-trivial way, the recently founded association AWANDA: Associação do Povo Makurap na Terra Indígena Rio Guaporé was also named after the "jiboia". Wouldn't it be possible, then, to think about the association and its political actions also from the idiom of witchcraft and drunkenness? In addition to the metaphorical implications of these comparisons between drunkenness, hunting and political association, we intend to analyze the pragmatic and cosmopolitical effects of witchcraft and drunkenness in Guaporé and the Branco River.