De volta ao caos primordial Alteridade, indiferenciação e adoecimento entre os Baniwa

Abstract

While the ethnographic literature of lowland South America has provided a vast amount of material, though scattered, on Amerindian illness, it has rarely been taken as a central theme. Many of the studies of this ethnographic area, especially those related to topics such as shamanism, show implicitly or explicitly, indigenous perceptions of the process of illness. This dissertation focuses precisely on the conceptualization of illness and way of becoming sick among the Baniwa of the Upper Rio Negro, in north-western Amazonia. This research does not only arise from theoretical concerns and concepts of illness but from a specific event that has been occurring in the indigenous school of differentiated education Baniwa e Coripaco (EIBC) Pamáali on the middle Içana river. The forms of illness concerned are of traditional nature and have affected the pupils of this school for eight years, causing concern for parents, teachers, leaders and others involved. This work aims to reveal aspects of Amerindian conceptions of illness and through these hopes to problematize current collaborative projects between indigenous and non-indigenous organizations