Os verdadeiros donos da terra: paisagem e transformação no baixo Tapajós

Abstract

This thesis presents an alternative interpretation of the territoriality of the Borari people of Alter do Chão, in the low course of the Tapajós river, in the central part of the Brazilian Amazon. With support in different disciplines such as history, archeology, historical ecology and ethnology, research has as its object the ways of relating to places as a long-lasting phenomenon. The perspective of foreign travelers and the indigenous and traditional populations of the lower Tapajós is initially at odds with the objective of situating different forms of engagement with the places. Focusing on the native perspective, the historical and social meanings of the spaces of housing and movement are revealed. The analysis of ritual practices reveals the importance of this social dimension and cosmology for the formation of specific territorialities, as well as for the centrality of the relationship between humans and nonhumans as beings that are mutually constituted with the places of lived experience. The depth of relationship to places, expressed in shamanic concepts, underlines cosmological dynamics and principles that point to peculiar ways of structuring experience. This argument dialogues with the senses of Amerindian continuity conveyed in contemporary ethnopolitical movements and explores the depth of notions of space and person of a social group still little known.