Abstract

CARDOSO, Walmir Thomazi. DESCREVENDO CONSTELAÇÕES INDÍGENAS: RESULTADOS OBTIDOS EM OFICINAS NUMA ESCOLA TUKANO DO NOROESTE AMAZÔNICO. Avá [online]. 2019, n.35, pp.155-180. ISSN 1851-1694.

The aim of this article is to show how proposals for field research methodologies in astronomy in cultures were developed, with the purpose of recording contributions from participants and traditional experts, during workshops that took place in the middle of the Tiquié River (Rio Negro Bay – Brazilian Amazonia region), between 2005 and 2007. Representatives of ethnical groups such as Tukáno, Desâna and Tuyúka, among others, participated in these workshops. We described in this work some astronomical constellations according to Tukano at Escola Yupuri, where the workshops took place. Starting from arrangements of stars, organized outside Western conventions, this ethnical group, as well as others from the same region, relates its own constellations to environmental variations such as different levels of the river, flowering, fruiting and other events such as its ritual practices. These complex correlations were summarized in the representation of what was called a circular calendar.

This object/tool combine in the same panorama, the sky and the closest environment, described according to a socially shared construction. The Tukáno group and other ethnic groups in this region have similar representations. Our investigation also was developed with the purpose of giving visibility to the representations of a set of indigenous astronomical constellations, interconnected each other and with the life of the societies from the northwestern Amazonian region, starting from a Tukáno reference.

Keywords : Astronomy in Cultures; Tukáno´s Astronomy; Indigenous Constellations; Calendars.