Homonymous bodies: Bororo onomastics and corporality

• Grant number: 25/00703-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: July 01, 2025
• End date: June 30, 2029
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Indigenous Ethnology
• Principal Investigator: Sylvia Caiuby Novaes
• Grantee: Pedro Almeida Meniconi
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This doctoral research project proposes an ethnographic study of onomastics as a device for producing specific corporealities of different types of Bororo people. Contemporary Jê ethnology demonstrates that names and ornaments are not reduced to "emblems" of belonging to a clan; they dress the body. Bororo names are homonyms of the names of animals, plants, mythological heroes or ceremonial objects. It remains to investigate what homonymy is for the Bororo? My objective is to investigate the relationship between names, ornaments, objects, ceremonial performance, mythological heroes, animals, plants, minerals and toponymy (boe enoroe, clan heritage) with the production of people. In this way, I seek to contribute to the renewal of Bororo ethnography, reinserting it into the contemporary ethnological debate, and to the development of Tropical Americanism. This research is based on a bibliographic review, fieldwork and research with the Bororo collection of LISA, MAE and the Musée du quai Branly. (AU)