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The construction of the person in indigenous Brazilian societies

2019; HAU-N.E.T; Volume: 9; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1086/706805

2575-1433

Anthony Seeger, Roberto da Matta, Eduardo Batalha Viveiros de Castro,

Indigenous Studies in Latin America

Many recent ethnographies on Brazilian groups, whether Gê, Tukano, Xinguan, or Tupi, have dwelled on "native ideologies" in relation to the body: theories of conception and illnesses, the role of bodily fluids in the wider symbolism of society, food prohibitions, and body ornamentation. The works of Irving Goldman (1963, 1977), Christopher Crocker (1967), Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff (1968), Pierre Clastres (1972), Stephen Hugh-Jones (1974), and many others are good examples of this trend, one that dominated the recently published symposium papers on social time and space (Kaplan 1977b). We do not think this is accidental or the result of some theoretical bias. All the data suggest that, in fact, the great majority of tribal societies on the continent emphasize corporeality in the elaboration of their cosmologies. Indeed, it was essential for the ethnographies mentioned above—which, admittedly, we chose for theoretical reasons but guided by the nature of the object—to examine these ideologies of corporeality to account for the principles of the social structure in these groups. The concepts that anthropology has imported from societies elsewhere—lineage, alliance, corporate groups—are inadequate for explaining the organization of Brazilian societies. We believe it is now possible to assert that the vast complex outlined by Lévi-Strauss in Mythologiques (1964, 1966) has a profound relationship with the nature of indigenous Brazilian societies. As we will argue here, the complex deals not only with myths, beliefs, and ideologies but also with principles that operate at the level of social structure.