Pourquoi chanter les ragots du passé ? Itinéraire historique d’un chant rituel trumai (Mato Grosso, Brésil)

Why to sing the gossips of the past? Historical itinerary of a Trumai ritual song. The Trumai manioc ritual has been declared lost for decades. As such, it is a key element in the nostalgic rhetoric upon which group identity is built in contrast with the other groups forming the Upper Xingu system....

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Emmanuel de Vienne
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Société des américanistes 2011-10-01
Series:Journal de la Société des Américanistes
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Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/jsa/11762
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Summary:Why to sing the gossips of the past? Historical itinerary of a Trumai ritual song. The Trumai manioc ritual has been declared lost for decades. As such, it is a key element in the nostalgic rhetoric upon which group identity is built in contrast with the other groups forming the Upper Xingu system. Nevertheless in 2006 some of its songs were performed in the opening ceremony of a school in a FUNAI post. Compared with the way the ritual is described both in literature and by the Trumai, this event shows that, surprisingly enough, the songs held up as cultural emblems were the least valued ones, consisting in sung answers to gossip and accusations. The present article identifies the reasons behind this choice and this changing status, thus highlighting processes at work in the constitution and transformation of traditions that the category of patrimonialization tends to make uniform.
ISSN:0037-9174
1957-7842