Exchange, Friendship and Regional Relations in the Upper Xingu

Abstract

The aim of this work is to describe and analyze the different types of relationships established between the peoples of the Upper Xingu through their regional rituals. Starting from a description of the uluki exchange ceremony, we will discuss how this ritual, by mobilizing Xinguano ideas about friendship, produces contexts of interaction in which characteristics of intra-village sociality are extended to regional sociality. At the same time that the uluki defines, together with other regional rituals, a certain “Xinguano interiority” (the world of multi-community rituals), it is also one of its main forms of opening, having the potential to attract to the Xinguano world not only singular persons, but entire groups.

Practices of looking, transformations in cheering: alliances and rivalries in upper xinguan wrestiling1

“…In the egitsü, more commonly known as Quarup, the post-mortuary ritual in honour of deceased chiefs, tensions and ambiguities surface, while disputes and rivalries are resolved (or renewed) during the matches (Guerreiro, 2012(Guerreiro, , 2015Costa, 2013). In contrast, during the uluki ceremonial exchanges, which are proportionally smaller affairs, with fewer participants, the friendly character of matches tends to be stressed (Novo, 2020). In the tiponhü rite of passage, which commemorates the start of adolescent seclusion for young chiefs (Barcelos Neto, 2005), wrestling matches occur after the ears of the initiates are pierced, as they enter into this phase of bodily fabrication and are presented as members of the chiefly line of succession.…”

Práticas do olhar, transformações do torcer: alianças e rivalidades na luta corporal Alto-Xinguana1

“…No egitsü, ritual pós-funerário em homenagem aos chefes falecidos, mais conhecido como Quarup, tensões e ambiguidades afloram, disputas e rivalidades são resolvidas -ou potencializadas -durante os confrontos (Guerreiro, 2012(Guerreiro, , 2015Costa, 2013). Nas cerimônias de troca uluki, menores em proporções e participantes, é enfatizado seu caráter mais amistoso (Novo, 2020).…”