From clay to sky: an ethnography of the journey among the Tikmũ´ũn

Author(s)

Ana Carolina Estrela da Costa

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2022-06-13

Examining board members

Dominique Tilkin Gallois; Ana Maria Rabelo Gomes; Beatriz Perrone Moisés; Marina Guimarães Vieira

• Advisor: Dominique Tilkin Gallois

Abstract

The Tikmũ´ũn, also known as Maxakali, inhabit a small area designated by the State in Vale do Mucuri, in northern Minas Gerais. Much broader, their traditional territories, devastated by violent colonization, cover almost the entire Jequitinhonha Valley, up to its mouth in Bahia, reaching areas of transit and exchanges with Pataxó peoples, in the south of Bahia, and conflicts with Borun peoples, in the Vale do Rio Doce region. Over the centuries, the Tikmũ´ũn have faced all kinds of threats to their transit: the extermination of colonization, the emergence of cities, the spread of pastures, diseases, the spoiling of the land and the violence of the farmers, and, more recently, , religious proselytism infiltrating state institutions, disastrous public policies, and all kinds of extortion by local merchants. However, its sophisticated cosmopolitical system, through alliances with the enchanted-singers yãmĩyxop, keeps alive among them countless beings of the Atlantic Forest, their knowledge, their memories, their transits, their connections with their territory. Mobilized by homesickness and desire for (re)encounters, the Tikmũ´ũn continue to trace their paths, whether walking for weeks through fences and roads, or singing for nights on end with their allies from other worlds. The objective of this doctoral thesis is to describe ways in which the Tikmũ´ũn travel and inhabit their territories, and how they propose and update relationships among themselves, with the Yãmĩyxop and other allies, in their displacements. From the cosmopolitical relationships between the different people who share sensitive experiences with the Tikmũ´ũn, in which looking and listening appear as fundamental skills for the establishment and celebration of meetings and alliances, processes of knowledge, production of subjectivities and territorialities. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 16/00804-0 - Cosmopolitics and cinema: seeing and hearing among the Maxakali and their others
• Grantee: Ana Carolina Estrela da Costa
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate