O general e os Tapuios: linguagem, raça e mestiçagem em Couto de Magalhães (1864-1876)

Abstract

The century XIX, more than any other time, tried the gestation of most of our nation projects, structured starting from the political emancipation of the new homeland. Several intellectuals militated in that arduous task of drawing a new face of a Brazil with own identity, although based under an European vision. Among those managers of the new Brazilian identity, one of the most important was the General José Vieira Couto de Magalhães (1837-1898), man of State, political of the Empire and one of the initiators of the folkloric among us. In this dissertation, I try to bound the main work of Couto de Magalhães, The Savage (1876), in the romantic canons and evolucionist of his time, inside of a project of " civilization " of the Indians of the Amazon and the consequent moment of cultural integration of those people and their descendants to the Brazilian population. No matter how much the main justification of the work was the study about the incorporation from the native to the profitable activities of the national economy, the author ended for emphasizing the understanding of the language as fundamental strategy for the peaceful attraction of the populations had then as " savages "; between the racial inventory and the cultural translation of the Brazilian indigenous groups, Couto de Magalhães looked for to value that linguistic arsenal as the truest and authentic representative of the Brazilian nationality. The analysis is made in the sense of understanding which the limits of the translation attempt that the author intended to do of the indigenous legends for the world of the whites, in the intention of legitimating his choice of the Indian as symbol of our identity.