Abstract

SANTANA DE ROSE, ISABEL  and  LANGDON, ESTHER JEAN. CONTEMPORARY GUARANI SHAMANISMS IN BRAZIL: A CASE STUDY OF CULTURAL TRANSFIGURATION. Rev. colomb. antropol. [online]. 2013, vol.49, n.1, pp.105-127. ISSN 0486-6525.

This paper examines the adoption of ayahuasca and other ritual practices in the Guarani village Mbiguaçu (Santa Catarina, Brazil). This adoption is the product of the dialogue that has emerged in the ritual performances shared with non-Indian groups and the circulation of concepts and discourses present in Brazilian public policies and alternative spiritual movements. The actors involved in the formation of the network examined here share common ideas and images, such as indigenous knowledge, the 'ecological' and 'spiritual' native, indigenousness, and 'traditional medicine'. We demonstrate that the appropriation of these rituals and ideas is part of an ongoing ethnopolitical movement of cultural transfiguration among the Guarani of the Brazilian coast.

Keywords : Guarani indians; cultural transfiguration; shamanism.

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