Descendo o rio: memórias, trajetórias e nomes no baixo Uaupés (AM)

Abstract

This thesis intends to contribute to the ethnography of the peoples of the eastern tukanoan linguistic family on the Uaupés river (specifically, Tukano and Desana), focusing in particular on the low course of this river, where there is a markedly dispersed set of multiethnic communities. We intend to highlight a relatively unexplored aspect of Uaupesian sociality in the available literature, namely, the attributes and principles of socio-spatial dynamics that involve groups at different scales in a seemingly continuous movement along the upstream-downstream axis. It was possible to map, mainly, from the memory of some residents of the lower Uaupés, a series of movements downstream, as well as their distinct contemporary and past motivations. In general, the thesis contributes to the discussion about the formation of groups and persons from the trajectories and displacements interviewed in the way such interlocutors conceptualize their arrival and permanence in the low Uaupés. In the thesis some classic themes of South American ethnology and the Upper Rio Negro are taken up such as hierarchy, naming and shamanism.