Potorito maimü: an ethnography among Adventist Taurepáng on the Brazil-Venezuela border

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to investigate some aspects of the practice of the Seventh-day Adventist religion by the Taurepáng. They are a Carib-speaking indigenous people who lives in the North of the state of Roraima, in communities that are distributed on both sides of the border with Venezuela. In the last few years, their daily lives have been irremediably affected by the worsening of the Venezuelan crisis and by the military tension that has been installed in the border region where they live, a scenario that has led them to reflect even more intensely on markedly prophetic themes present in Adventist doctrine. Thus, it is intended to carry out long-term fieldwork among the Taurepáng of Roraima, seeking to register and/or investigate: a) the unfolding of the situation on the border with Venezuela and its impacts on the Taurepáng communities; b) the analyzes that the Taurepáng elaborate on the conjuncture, especially those offered in the services in the form of Adventist preaching; c) Taurepáng exegeses on the themes of the end of the world in this new scenario; d) the formulation of prayers and songs in their own language; e) the relevance of the notion of person in the interpretation of the risks they identify in the present. When relating the current situation of the Taurepáng with their ritual practice of the Seventh-day Adventist religion and with the context of violence that affects them on the Brazilian border with Venezuela, the research hypothesis of this work is that an analysis focused on these axes would make it possible both a privileged key to reading about the meanings these people attribute to the Christian experience, as well as the alternatives they have been developing to interpret and deal with the impacts of the Venezuelan crisis on their lives. (AU)