Ääma ashichaato: replications, transformations, persons and songs between the Yekwana people of the Auaris River

Author(s)

Majoi Favero Gongora

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2016-12-16

Examining board members

Dominique Tilkin Gallois; Aristoteles Barcelos Neto; Pedro de Niemeyer Cesarino; Tânia Stolze Lima; Renato Sztutman

• Advisor: Dominique Tilkin Gallois

Abstract

This ethnography of Yekwanas people combine an analysis of their songs in its enunciative contexts with a study of their cosmology and personhood notions, aspects that havent been fully explored in the existing literature. Materials such as transcriptions and translations of songs, mythical narratives, native exegeses and ethnographic descriptions are intermingled wtih the analysis of the centrality of aichudi and ädeemi songs in Ye\'kwanas life, which are understood as modes of action, since they connect worlds and different people, visible and invisible, and act upon them. Replication is a central concept to understand both the emergence processes of demiurgic beings and the first people who existed on earth; the emergence of the demiurges twin, an antagonist figure in this mythology, as well as the songs itself, which are, in the perspective of the natives, replicas of the first songs enunciated on the earth by the demiurge. I also analyze situations that evince the highly unstable condition of the Yekwana person, who often find themselve exposed to dangerous poisoning and contamination. And, once again, the songs emerges as an essential technology to enable human forms of existence. Finally, I describe the circulation and transmission schemes of aichudi and ädeemi songs, with a closer look at the challenges set forth by the Yekwana. I analyze Yekwanas increasingly intense relations with non-Indians, which have produced significant changes and have therefore given rise to debate on their living conditions in this poisoned land. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 12/23866-0 - Invisible Paths - songs, subjects and traditional knowledge among the Yekuana
• Grantee: Majoi Favero Gongora
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate