Patá matá. O que dizem os Taurepáng sobre o fim do mundo

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present the way in which the Taurepáng, Carib people who lives in the north of the state of Roraima in Brazil, has been interpreting the consequences of the Venezuelan crisis. Their communities are located on both sides of the border with this country, exactly halfway to one of the largest migratory flows in Latin American history. Following fieldwork in 2018 in the Bananal community, only twelve kilometers from the Venezuelan border, the argument is that the Taurepáng understand these events by activating aspects of their own practice of the Seventh-day Adventist religion. This understanding, by the way, refers to background cosmological problems. In this context, we highlight the intensification of mineral exploitation in the Venezuelan savannah and the increase of attacks and accusations of Kanaimé in the vicinity of the taurepáng communities that are there, as well as the relationship that these people maintain with a series of supernatural agents, among them, the “mineral himself owns”. The combination of all these elements reinforces something that the Taurepáng have already elaborated in their worship, namely, the notion that they live a world essentially "spoiled by the work of Satan". Overcoming this condition would be found in the post-mortem, in the place to be prepared in heaven by Jesus Christ. Given this perspective, Taurepáng’s pastors are the experts responsible for interpreting the “words of God” contained in the bible, and elaborating them in the form of sermons to members of the congregation, emphasizing the “good messages” about the heavenly paradise to be attained after death.