Mine, ours and the others: an ethnography of life of the dead and their effects among the Xukuru do Ororubá

Abstract

This research project deals with the status of the deads and with the relationships they establish with the living among Xukuru do Ororubá (Pesqueira, PE). In my previous experiences with that indigenous people I could observe that there is an intense relationships between the living and the deads of all kinds, especially those designated as relatives, deceased, entities, encantos (supernatural beings), saints, spirits and ancestors. Thus, this research project intends to be an etnhography of the dead among the Xukuru do Oroubá, establishing dialogue with ethnographies produced among other indigenous peoples in Northwestern Brazil (whose material avaible apparently converges to what the Xukuru data suggest), in Amazonia (an seemingly interesting counterpoint to Xukuru data); and between peasants and pastoralists (with whom the Xukuru has been sharing experiences in the past three centuries). As general hyphotesis, departing from previous fieldwork, I suggest that the relationships with several kinds of dead inhabiting the universe produce effects in the construction of spatio-temporal cartographies and in the constitution of familiar groups that make local politics, with the dead as constitutive part of this. (AU)