ETNOGÊNESE, MICRO-HISTÓRIA E HISTÓRIA INDÍGENA

A BIOGRAFIA DE UM ARRIVISTA A CONTRAPELO

Abstract

For a long time, Brazilian historiography subscribed to the thesis that indigenous peoples practically no longer existed as socially differentiated groups during the 19th century. When many of these groups, considered extinct, organized themselves to demand specific rights at the end of the 20th century, the contradictions of the hegemonic representations about indigenous peoples in Brazilian society became explicit. Based on methodological strategies inspired by Italian microhistory, the present study addresses this question by reconstructing aspects of the biography of a non-indigenous character, bringing to the foreground of the analysis multiple indications of indigenous presence that emerged during the research. With emphasis on the relationship between sources and methodological procedures, the article makes explicit, on the one hand, several distortions inscribed in the documentation – that can lead to the false idea of indigenous disappearance – and, on the other hand, explores possibilities of overcoming some of these distortions.