The constraint of form: transformation and (anti-)hybridity among the Karajá of Buridina (Aruanã - GO)

Abstract

The present paper explores two contexts of production of Karaja’s Buridina village mixed persons, that is, persons internally divided into an “indigenous half” and a “non-indigenous half”. In these two contexts, craftworking and fishing, indigenous and non-indigenous elements coexist, but depending on which aspect the Karajá focus on, that is, depending on which relation is activated, and in which way each action evinces one specific set of bodily dispositions, Karajá or white ones. This indigenous population recognizes a number of discontinuities between their actual life and that of the ancient people. But in which manner, under which form, do those transformations appear to them? In this paper, I argument that they do not appear as a new Karajá way of life, but as the coexistence of two ways of life, one indigenous and other white. For the Karajá, mixture is a form of relating that does not generates hybrids. I conclude making some remarks on the totalizing character of this transformation.