Abstract

RIBEIRO, Benedito Emílio. Indigenous Corporeality and Aesthetics in the “Festa da Menina-Moça”: Territoriality, Cosmopolitics, and Alterity among the Tenetehar-Tembé. Antipod. Rev. Antropol. Arqueol. [online]. 2023, n.53, pp.107-134.  Epub Sep 25, 2023. ISSN 1900-5407.  https://doi.org/10.7440/antipoda53.2023.05.

In recent decades, indigenous peoples have been articulating processes that strengthen and/or revive rituals, cosmologies, aesthetics, and diversity of knowledge as a political strategy of resistance. This phenomenon is linked to forms of identity affirmation and maintenance of territorial rights, and has served as a lens for the anthropological analysis of indigenous reality. With this in mind, the article focuses on a set of aesthetic experiences and cosmological knowledge that take place during the “Festa da Menina-Moça,” an important ritual process and cosmopolitical event of the Tenetehar-Tembé people, located in the northeastern state of Pará, Brazil. The aim of this study is to comprehend the relationship between the social construction of the Tembé body and the role and “strength” (agency) of women in the production and aesthetic utilization of the festival. This utilization translates important aspects of territoriality, cosmopolitics, and alterity of this Tupi-Guaraní people of eastern Amazonia. The study is built upon two foundations: a review of anthropological literature and ethnographic theorization, drawing from both my field experiences in the villages of Guamá and the participant observation I conducted during the festival in mid-2018. Based on this analysis, I examine the paths or phases of the Festa da Menina-Moça and the effectiveness of Tembé aesthetics in the fabrication of the bodies-territories of the girls and boys during the liminality until their relational transformation into “true people.” This article offers an original interpretation of Tembé reality and its processes through the aesthetic expressions of the festival, which serve as a revelatory axis for the sociocultural dynamics and cosmopolitical relationships of the various indigenous groups. The conclusion drawn is that the social organization and political practices of the Tenetehar-Tembé people are strongly influenced by the celebration. In this context, cosmological knowledge and potential aesthetics construct “true people” while simultaneously (re)producing social bonds and ritual memory. These in turn, are mobilized and updated in other aspects of Tembé life, particularly in their political struggles for territory.

Keywords : Brazilian Amazon; indigenous aesthetics; indigenous territories; gender relations; ritual; Tembé cosmology.

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