Tracking Guarani songs: between villages, cities and worlds

Abstract

For the Guarani, songs are one of the primary channels for acquiring shamanic knowledge and agency. Since the 1990s, some song modalities have also played a leading role in inserting Mbya and Nhandeva Guarani living in Brazil’s South and Southeast into the world of cultural events and projects. These songs are performed by child and youth choirs in shows and for CDs. My aim is to explore the shifts caused by the exhibition of these songs in relations with the jurua (whites). The strategy of ‘cultural invisibility’ once prevalent among the Guarani has been somewhat overtaken by efforts to display ‘Guarani culture’, providing it with recognizable and valorizable contours, thereby enhancing the power of the songs as a way to be heard on both the vertical and horizontal planes of existence.

Ciências Sociais Hoje: Antropologia

“…Exemplos importantes são o uso de novas tecnologias para a recriação de tradições e expressões da identidade para a sociedade mais ampla Carelli, 1995a;1995b;Gallois, 2000;. As pesquisas examinando a identidade indígena e suas apresentações públicas por meio das artes performáticas também têm aumentado na última década, enfocando as performances indígenas e sua relação com movimentos de afirmação étnica, etnogênesis, situações conflituosas e políticas públicas Wiik, 2008;Langdon, 2016a;Macedo, 2011;Andrade, 2002;Grünewald, 2005;Hanna;Vanclay, 2016;. Já Edgar Teodoro da Cunha (2013), ao pesquisar o ritual fúnebre bororo, enfatiza a "mistura de gêneros" já mencionada, trabalhando na interseção entre os estudos da performance e o filme etnográfico e defendendo as possibilidades heurísticas do uso da imagem para análise do ritual.…”

Contemporary Guarani Shamanisms: “Traditional Medicine” and Discourses of Native Identity in Brazil

“…Guarani communities in the south and southeast of Brazil in general, including Krukutu and Tenondé Porã in São Paulo; Sapukai in Rio de Janeiro; and Mbiguaçu and Morro dos Cavalos in Santa Catarina, have emerged from behind the eclipse of a cultural invisibility that characterized them until the 1990s, through the creation of children's choirs as a display of Guarani culture in public events held for the larger society (Macedo 2011).…”