Desvendando significados: contextualizando a Coleção Etnográfica Xikrín do Cateté

Abstract

The object of study is the Ethnographic Collection Xikrín do Cateté under the responsability of the Anthropology Laboratory “Arthur Napoleão Figueiredo” Technical Reserve at the Anthropology Department of the Federal University of Pará. The Collection Xikrín do Cateté is constituted by 144 artifacts, gathered by anthropologist Protásio Frikel (1912-1974) in the beginning of the 60s while carrying out field work among the Xikrín. The group is classified in the anthropological literature as sub-group Kayapó speaking a dialect of the Kayapó language from the Jê family which belongs to the linguistic line macro-Jê. They live on the river Cateté margin in the Parauapebas municipality, in Southern Pará. They currently live in two villages: the Cateté village that holds 600 people and the Djudjê-kô village with 240 people. They are separate from one another by 18 km. The collection is studied to allow the contextualization of the artifacts aiming at identifying their meanings and to acknowledge their potential contemporary use. In the trail of contextualization, I associate the Interpretative Anthropology and the Discourse Analysis tools with the data collected during field work carried out throughout the month of July 2000 and between february and april 2001 when visiting the Collection itself. The Collection has been classified based on Berta Ribeiro (1988) including plumary adornments and adornments made from several materials used by the Xikrín in their day-to-day life such as the Merêrêméi; there are also the weapons; the musical instruments; the ritual, magic and ludic objects; the straw wooven objects and other artifacts used for cooking, for domestic living and manual work tools as observed in the Reserve and the villages. The artifacts in the Collection are a reflection of some of the aspects of the Xikrín reality and identity aprehended generation after generation whom have considered values and concepts which constitue distinctive marks but also bring them close to other indigenous groups.