Abstract

YVINEC, Cédric. Songs and memory in historical narratives of the Suruí of Rondônia (Brazilian Amazonia). Rev. Mus. Antropol. [online]. 2018, vol.11, suppl.1, pp.71-82. ISSN 1852-060X.

Abstract This article studies a specific genre of ritual songs among an indigenous people of Brazilian Amazonia, the Suruí of Rondônia. It analyses the influence of these songs on the construction of historical memory. Against theories that reduce the Lowland Indians to "cold societies" that would supposedly deny their own historicity and strive to forget their past, the article shows that these peoples have developed their own tools to select and pass down memories of some kinds of events. The rhetorical and aesthetical forms of these songs, their pragmatic uses, and the Suruí metalinguistic theories are analysed, so as to explain why this discursive genre can appear as the most perfect kind of speech, in the context of the initial composition of a song. Finally, the article examines the conversational uses of quotations of old songs in historical accounts and shows that the narrative structure, particularly the connections between the evoked events, are determined by the rhetorical and aesthetical properties of the quoted songs.

Keywords : Amazônia indígena; Suruí de Rondônia (índios); canto ritual; historicidade; narrativa; indigenous Amazonia; Suruí of Rondônia (Indians); ritual song; historicity; narrative.

        · abstract in Portuguese     · text in Portuguese     · Portuguese ( pdf )