The Snake with Its Body Covered in Songs: an Amazonian Theme on Weaving Art

Authors

  • Aristoteles Barcelos Neto University of East Anglia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11606/2179-0892.ra.2011.39653

Keywords:

Amazonia, Cosmology, Art, Myth, Music.

Abstract

The literature on Amazonian ethnology is plenty of mythical serpents whose deeds are related to the origin of humanity, the invention of shamanic knowledge, artefacts, graphic motifs and songs. If the mythological themes on Amazonian serpents have already been widely described and analysed, the same cannot be said about the visual forms related to these themes. Many studies on Amazonian mythology left aside the very plastic aspects of material culture. Most of these studies did not take into account that several features of the mythological themes are precisely merged with the qualities of the visual styles. This article discusses some aspects of the conceptual imagination of Wauja (an Arawak speaking people of the Upper Xingu) material culture through the analysis of a mythical character that explicitly exposes the intrinsic and simultaneous musical and iconographic nature of weaving art.

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Published

2012-08-24

Issue

Vol. 54 No. 2 (2011)

Section

Articles

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How to Cite

Neto, A. B. (2012). The Snake with Its Body Covered in Songs: an Amazonian Theme on Weaving Art. Revista De Antropologia, 54(2). https://doi.org/10.11606/2179-0892.ra.2011.39653