MINHA HISTÓRIA COM AS ARTES CULINÁRIAS DO POVO INDÍGENA TERENA

EXPERIÊNCIA, AGÊNCIA E LUTA INDÍGENA

Abstract

This article presents an ethnography and autobiographical narrative by a Terena woman, who is a chef and an anthropologist. She utilizes her people's culinary practices as a lens to examine cultural agency and resistance. The central focus is the hî-hî, a small cassava cake cooked in a banana leaf, traditionally prepared for extended preservation (dried in the sun or “soleado”). Childhood narratives and the story of my grandmother connect the hî-hî to ancestral memory and the Terena struggle. This dish, whose recipe is a ritual that reinforces the connection to the land and to oral tradition, transcends mere food to become a living culinary art. I argue that the maintenance of hî-hî and other traditions, such as the Bate-Pau dance (hiokéxoti kipa’e), are acts of resistance against colonialism and environmental degradation. My dual professional identity chef and anthropologist reflects the fight for self-determination and the decolonization of knowledge, asserting the Terena cuisine as a territory for political and epistemological struggle.

Palavras chave: Autobiography, Cultural Resistance, Indigenous Agency