BETWEEN DEVIR AND TRANSFORMATION: ANTHOPOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS AMONG THE MBYÁ-GUARANI FROM THE SOUTHERN CONE

Abstract

This paper is the result of anthropological research carried out among the Mbyá-Guarani in Southern Brazil and Northern Argentina. Based on the ethnographic method, the research pursued native notions of relationship to otherness, human and nonhuman. To this end, the work was divided into two parts: the first focuses on the analysis of a man who ended up becoming a jaguar because of his excessive wish for raw meat. The second part aims to show how this transformation can inform about the relationship between the Mbyá and non-indigenous people. In order to do so, the paper presented a story of a Mbyá bewitched by a non-indigenous woman -- he marries her and goes to live in the city, abandoning his family. These two stories seem to suggest that the same way as the Mbyá motivated by the desire of (raw) meat becomes a jaguar and abandons his family to live in the forest, there are the Guarani who, eager for the (naked) meat of non-indigenous, abandon their families to live in cities. Therefore, the relationship with others needs to be practiced from good distance to avoid falling into the trap of miscegenation.