Paeterepë: quem são esses Napëpë? : elementos para o estudo da construção Yanomami da alteridade dos missionários

Abstract

This dissertation is an ethnography realized among the Yanomami communities of the Catrimani river basin (Indigenous Yanomami land, Roraima), where, in 1965, the religious of the Consolata Institute established a mission station. It acquires theoretical relevance for studying a particular case regarding the relations between an indigenous society and a non-indigenous agency and it has a practical interest aimed at unveiling possible misunderstandings and at thinking, in the dialogue, about possible ways towards an indigenist action. A historical exposition, resulting from bibliographic revision and consultation of the mission archives, allowed to reconstruct the context on examination and the meetings of the Yanomami with the napëpë (non-Indians). From this reconstruction, the study of ethnographies referring to the Yanomami or other indigenous peoples, permitted to discuss some analytical categories fundamental for the research. In dialogue with such references, this work focussed upon the relations built between the Yanomami and the missionaries, tried to highlight an indigenous perspective and perception of the contact, attempted to recognize the strategies carried out to organize interaction. Our cognition proportionate to the living together in the communities‟ space and the analysis of yanomami speeches made it possible for the research to bring into relief the process of domestication and construction of the alterity embodied by the paeterepë (the missionaries), that was achieved as soon as conditions of readiness to reciprocal openness did exist