The amerindian perspectivism and the idea of an american aesthetics

Author(s)

Denise Maria Cavalcante Gomes ^[1]

Affiliation

^[1] Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. Museu Nacional - Brasil

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: Bol. Mus. Para. Emílio Goeldi. Ciênc. hum.; v. 7, n. 1, p. 133-159, 2012-04-00.

Abstract

The article discusses the idea of the existence of a pre-colonial aesthetics of the American territory, based on the great geographic distribution of a same cosmological substrate. Its material expression would be the different classes of archaeological objects involved in ritual. The concept that guides this discussion is the Amerindian perspectivism. Originally formulated to deal with the singularity of the Amazonian indigenous thought, working on the symbolic relationship between the humanity and other beings, this concept with a Pan-American distribution is recognized by the ethnographies, the myths, and the representations in the iconography of artifacts revealed by Archaeology, particularly those that shows bodies in the state of transformation. These artistic representations of Amazonian, Andean and the North American Northwestern Coast pre-colonial objects are considered part of the systems of thought and social organization. They make it possible to recognize a mythological and cosmological unity in Amerindian world that goes beyond social morphologies and political structures. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 10/00685-5 - Analysis of pre-colonial amazonian sociocosmologies
• Grantee: Denise Maria Cavalcante Gomes
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Young Researchers