The Xingu revenges Diacui? Otherness in a interethnic relationship (1940-1954)
Indigenous, Diacuí, Central Brazil.
This dissertation aims to understand the question of otherness in the interethnic relationship between Diacuí Kalapalo, an indigenous woman from Alto Xingu, and Ayres Câmara Cunha, a sertanista from the Roncador-Xingu Expedition. The two met during the expedition in the 1940s, and in 1952, Ayres requested permission from the Indigenous Protection Service (SPI) to marry her. In the same year, they were wed in the Candelária Church in Rio de Janeiro, but Diacuí died the following year during the birth of her first daughter with Ayres. The objective is to discuss the particularities that permeate this interethnic relationship, bringing to the forefront of the narrative the indigenous perspectives on contact, in dialogue with their own ethnic values. To achieve this objective, we will utilize the biography written by Ayres, "Entre os Índios do Xingu" (1960), along with ethnographic works about the altoxinguanos. Anthropologists Antonio Roberto Guerreiro Júnior and Bruna Franchetto will serve as references for understanding the cosmologies of Alto Xingu, particularly Guerreiro, who focuses on the Kalapalo people. In this way, we can explore the nature of otherness in these relationships, the agency of indigenous peoples in historical construction, their negotiating power, and the role of non-indigenous people during contact.