ON THE RIVER OF TIME: A CROSS-TEMPORAL ANALYSIS OF INDIGENEITY IN BRAZILIAN NATION-MAKING

Resumo

Brazil’s nation-making has been inseparable from conceptions of indigeneity since Cabral first landed in what is now Bahia. This initial encounter between the Tupinambá and Portuguese settlers marks the inception of a foundational paradox in Brazilian cosmology: indigeneity as a symbol of nationalism and its simultaneous decimation by the colonial and, more recently, the neoliberal state. This article traces the symbolic and material exploitation of indigeneity and its role in Brazilian national identity formation from 1500 to contemporary times. We contend that a multimodal and cross-temporal analysis of cultural productions that center indigeneity offers a historical understanding of the ways the figure of the índio has been implicated within Brazilian identity. Reading indigeneity in colonial texts including a letter from a Portuguese settler in 1500, José de Alencar’s nineteenth century indianist novel Iracema, and personal accounts from a sertanista who married an indigenous woman in 1952, reveals a Brazilian national identity that at once hyper-visualizes the image of the índia while perpetuating the violent erasure of indigenous people. Finally, an exploration of contemporary indigenous artists Katú Mirim and Kaê Guajajara emphasize the emancipatory potential of anti-colonial indigenous productions and the possibility of alternative indigenous futurity.

KEYWORDS: Brazil; Indigeneity; Twentieth Century; Contemporary; Iracema; Decolonial;
Race.