A thousand years of transformation: an Amazonian people

Carlos Fausto, Associate Professor of Anthropology, National Museum, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro The Kuikuro are an Amazonian indigenous people who inhabit the Upper Xingu river. They are part of a multethnic and plurilingual regional system whose initial formation dates back to a thousand years ago. In the last decades, their life style has been changing in a fast pace as Brazilian society encroaches over their territory, leading to an increasing incorporation of new ideas, behaviors and goods. In face of this situation, the Kuikuro have started to pose questions concerning their future and what their relation to the past should be. How much transformation are they willing to accept? What part of what they now see as their tradition must be conserved? Such dilemma has generated an intense field of internal debate, and has led to a series of documentation projects aimed at 'safeguarding their traditional knowledge'. In this paper, I try to address this contemporary situation with a view towards the long-term process of transformation that marked the secular incorporation of the Kuikuro into the Upper Xingu sociocultural system. Carlos Fausto is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Program of Social Anthropology, National Museum, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He is also a fellow of the Brazilian Council for the Advancement of Science and Technology. He was visiting professor at the École Pratique des Hautes Études and École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, in Paris, as well as at the University of Chicago. He is currently a member of an International research team at the Musée du Quai Branly. He has been conducting research in Amazonia since 1988, and has published Os Índios antes do Brasil, Inimigos Fiéis: História, Guerra e Xamanismo na Amazônia, and Time and Memory: Anthropological Perspectives (with Michael Heckenberger). His articles covers a broad range of subjects such as shamanism, warfare, hunting, kinship, ritual and art. You are invited to bring your own "brown bag" lunch. In keeping with the Bolivar House cafecito tradition, hot coffee is provided beginning at 11:45 am. Lecture/q&a runs from 12:15-1:05 pm.