Manuela Carneiro da Cunha

Pontos de vista sobre a floresta amazônica: xamanismo e tradução

What is the shamans labor in the Amazon today? More generally, how should one account for the expansion of shamanism and its clientele in colonial situations since the sixteenth century? Which shamanic power hierarchies and competences and which specific forms correspond to different political systems and to each kind of nexus between the local and the global? The shaman is, by his very trade, a translator. It is suggested here that translation should be understood in its strong, Benjaminian sense, as a search for resonances and reverberations between different codes and systems, and as a totalization of partial perspectives.

Populações tradicionais e a Convenção da Diversidade Biológica

OS CONHECIMENTOS e o papel de populacoes tradicionais com relacao a seus recursos geneticos sao hoje reconhecidos na Convencao da Diversidade Biologica (CDB). O acordo TRIPS e a CDB estao levando o Brasil e muitos outros paises signatarios a mudarem sua legislacao sobre direitos intelectuais e sobre o acesso a recursos geneticos e conhecimentos. Diante disso, colocam-se alternativas que sao discutidas neste artigo. Deve-se estender o sistema de direitos de propriedade intelectual as populacoes tradicionais? Ou melhor, devem-se manter o seu saber no dominio publico mas assegurando-lhes participacao em eventuais beneficios comerciais derivados de seus conhecimentos? E qual a natureza desse saber local?

O futuro da questão indígena

The Indians future in Brazil will depend on several strategic choices as much the Brazilian state and international community as different races. It is a question of partnership. By historical reasons, which were recognized in Brazil during the centuries, the native populations have a right to their territories. But these rights should not be thought as an impediment to the rest of the country. On the contrary, they are a preserving prerequisite of a richness even inestimable, but cruciate, the biodiversity and knowledges of traditional populations about natural kinds. According to everybodys interest what it should look for is to give conditions not to loose this richness. Because of that, it is unreasonable want to open all Amazonia areas to indiscriminate exploration. Thus, it is necessary converge the Indians rights with the brazilian society interests as a whole.

Imagens de índios do Brasil: o século XVI

H a varios discursos sobre os indios no seculo XVI: toda uma literatura e uma iconografia de viagens, com desdobramentos morais e filosoficos firma seus cânones ao longo do seculo; um corpus legiferante e de reflexao teologica e juridica elabora, passada a era do escambo, uma ordenacao das relacoes coloniais; paralela a conquista territorial, a conquista espiritual, por sua vez, se expressa sobretudo em um novo genero, inaugurado pelos jesuitas e destinado a obter grande sucesso: as cartas, que se fazem cada vez mais edificantes. Excepcionalmente, temos o relato de um colono, e no finzinho do seculo, o olhar curioso da Inquisicao na Bahia e em Pernambuco.

Silences of the law: Customary law and positive law on the manumission of slaves in 19th century Brazil

Historians have unanimously credited Brazil with a particularly generous law: any slave who offered his master his own value in cash acquired his freedom, the owner being obliged to accept the ransom. This law, however, never existed in writing, though the practice was widespread and can certainly be said to have been recognised as customary law. The absence of the rule in written law is not a mere omission to codify customary practice, but is the result of deliberate opposition to recording the rule in written form. This raises the question of the relation between customary law and written law in a literate society. The author maintains that the deliberate silence of the written code on this point fits a society grappling with a chronic manpower shortage and anxious to control not only the slave labour force but also freed slaves. To represent the sale of freedom as dependent on the masters good will and as being, at least in theory, revocable if the slave showed ingratitude, helped to keep freedmen in ...

Traditional People, Collectors of Diversity

Using as a parable the work of Schrodinger and Georgescu-Roegen, who established that diversity is a necessary condition for life, this chapter calls on ethnography to argue that traditional people seem to value diversity per se and, moreover, that they may actively produce it. A sustainable future may well hinge on their own diversity.