Museums and indigenous memories: the collections of the Katxuyana and the contemporaneity of musealized material culture (original) (raw)
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Museum and Society
Currently, ethnographic collections are at the center of a debate about the new meaning of museum collections, which questions the actuality of the preserved material culture. These issues also refer to the promotion of otherness and protagonism of the ‘collected people’ in museums, which trigger the interest of both researchers and indigenous people. The same is happening with the collections of the Amerindian Katxuyana. These collections count more than 700 objects collected by different expeditions at different moments in time and the collections have been preserved for more than 50 years in European and Brazilian museums. Despite this long timespan the objects are material records from everyday life, rituals and festive moments, and they reveal a little about the life of this people in the first half of the twentieth century. Some parts of these collections have been the source of dialogical experiences between researchers and Katxuyana in order to evoke memories and knowledge. ...
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Boletim Do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. Ciências Humanas, 12(3), 765–787., 2017
Ethnomuseology is an approach to museum science that seeks to put indigenous people in dialog with their own heritage, whether it is already part of museum collections or in the process of being converted into cultural heritage. This article reflects on collaborative research carried out with Mebêngôkre-Kayapó and Baniwa consultants who visited the Goeldi Museum to carry out collaborative research on their own cultural heritage preserved in important collections of each respected group from the early twentieth century. In addition to noting differences between museological or scientific and indigenous concepts about museum objects, we also noticed a number of cultural differences in the way the two different indigenous groups related to the objects from their past. While both cultural groups attributed subjective characteristics to museum objects, for the Mebêngôkre-Kayapó this subjectivity expressed itself mostly in terms of possible threats to visitors of the museum collections. Mebêngôkre-Kayapó interlocutors were somewhat hesitant in handling museum objects, either because they were associated with dead individuals, or because they were assumed to be war trophies captured in the past from dangerous enemies. The Baniwa, by contrast, expressed great affection for 'grandpa's things', and they felt they had a right to handle objects that represent the heritage of patrilineal clans. This experience in ethnomuseology highlights the diversity of indigenous concepts, attitudes and expectations about museum collections and cultural heritage more generally. Resumo: A etnomuseologia é uma abordagem que visa engajar os povos indígenas em um diálogo com a sua cultura material, seja ela já musealizada ou em processo de patrimonialização. Este artigo reflete sobre uma experiência efetuada no acervo etnográfico do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, quando interlocutores Mebêngôkre-Kayapó e Baniwa visitaram o Museu para realizar pesquisas colaborativas sobre importantes coleções de seus respectivos povos, as quais datam do início do século XX. Além de perceber diferenças entre conceitos museológicos, ou científicos, e indígenas sobre as peças e os processos de musealização, também foi possível observar uma série de diferenças culturais entre interlocutores Mebêngôkre-Kayapó e Baniwa no que concerne à maneira de se relacionar com os objetos (e sujeitos) de seu passado. Ambos os grupos atribuíram características subjetivas aos objetos no acervo, mas, no caso dos Mebêngôkre-Kayapó, a subjetividade das peças antigas representava uma ameaça aos visitantes do acervo. Os interlocutores 2 2 Mebêngôkre-Kayapó mostraram certo receio em manusear as peças, seja pela associação com pessoas mortas, seja pela percepção de que eram troféus de guerra capturados de inimigos perigosos. Os Baniwa, ao contrário, expressavam grande carinho com os 'objetos do vovô' e sentiam-se no direito de manusear as peças que representam o patrimônio de clãs patrilineais. Esta experiência em etnomuseologia comparada ressalta a diversidade de conceitos, atitudes e expectativas dos povos indígenas perante às coleções museológicas conservadas fora dos seus territórios e, de forma geral, em relação ao patrimônio cultural. Palavras-chave: Etnomuseologia. Coleções etnográficas. Povos indígenas. Mebêngôkre-Kayapó. Baniwa. Vídeo.
According to Barth, 5 ethnic identities is expressed by the fact that a group can count on members who identify themselves and are identified by others. In this way, the construction of ethnic identity has its great founding basis in self-affirmation. Even though cultural analyses, for the most part, are still essentialist, ethnicity cannot be generalized from this perspective; There are several indigenous peoples who were subjected to intense contact and had their values and references vilified, as well as their objects, their art, their religion and their way of being. Barth 5 emphasizes that the fact of sharing a common culture can be seen as a consequence of interethnic relations, identity is relational.
Mediacao cultural no ambito educacao patrimonial Revista Acesso Livre 2016
For years the ethnographic collections of Katxuyana are saved in Brazilian and European museums, mostly preserved in technical reserves. This people was almost wiped out and in 1968 abandoned their territory on the banks of the Cachorro river (Lower Amazon, Brazil). Some researchers / collectors musealized objects believed they would disappear. Living with other amerindians for decades, some Katxuyana families returned to their land and in 2003 reopened an ancient village. There, relatives of a senior leader began a cultural development process. Later, other families have opened a new village also on the banks of that river. Instigated by the Katxuyana, we have reflected about the contemporary meanings of these collections under the heritage education. This article examines cultural mediation processes developed by teachers and students of the Universidade Federal Fluminense and Aarhus Universitet. In this process, images of artifacts are considered important elements to activate memories. On the one hand such images refer to the time of Katxuyana’s ancestors, on the other, may be appropriate in the actions of Katxuyana themselves to the appreciation of their culture among the younger generations. This experience, ongoing, awakens a dialogue / multidisciplinary meeting between different subjects and institutions and reveals connections of human experience in the world of material culture.
Bauhaus Imaginista, 2018
Primarily, this essay examines ethnographic and natural history museology and how Indigenous cultures are perceived, translated and exhibited through Westernized perspectives that are informed by a philosophical subject-object divide. By critically engaging with both the material cultures and ideologies that inform how Indigenous beings (also known as belongings or artifacts) are collected, exhibited and presented as objects, as well as how they are mistranslated and mis-contextualized within art history, we are able to identify a number of practices that remain normative in Western museological practices, perpetuating certain misunderstandings about Indigenous arts and cultures.