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Images and Research among the Bororo of Mato Grosso, Brazil

Edgar Teodoro da Cunha

Online publication date: 13 July 2010

To cite this Article Cunha, Edgar Teodoro da(2010) 'Images and Research among the Bororo of Mato Grosso, Brazil',
Visual Anthropology, 23: 4, 311 — 329
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 Visual Anthropology, 23: 311–329, 2010
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DOI: 10.1080/08949468.2010.485006

Images and Research among the Bororo

of Mato Grosso, Brazil
Edgar Teodoro da Cunha

The reflections in this article seek to elucidate the problems faced by the Bororo of
today, problems that are the result of the dilemma confronting them of expressing
permanency and transformation. In order to accomplish this, it is crucial to give
meaning to situations of intercultural dialogue, in which experience and created
relationships, based in the context of Bororo relationships, allow us to raise the
question of communication as a fundamental field to better measure the opportu-
nities for mutual understanding.
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WITH THE BORORO

In constant contact with Brazilian society since the end of the 19th century, when
‘‘pacification’’ occurred, the Bororo of today continue to experience various
waves of agricultural and territorial expansion [Viertler 1991], to the extent that
they now live in a situation of territorial encapsulation that has resulted in the per-
manent need to build alliances in order to deal with the dilemmas that these con-
tacts have caused. The Bororo of the Tadarimana Indigenous Reserve, the location
of the research for this article, live today in a demarcated area officially located
approximately 40 km from Rondonópolis, a city that serves as a regional example
of the vigor of agro-industrial activity in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil.
The following reflections seek to understand the problems faced by the Bororo
of today, problems that result from the dilemma confronting them of expressing
permanency and transformation. In order to accomplish this, it is crucial to give
meaning to situations of intercultural dialogue, in which experience and created
relationships, based in the context of Bororo relationships, allow us to raise the
question of communication as a fundamental field to better measure the oppor-
tunities for mutual understanding.
Along this path, audiovisual fieldwork experiences were of singular impor-
tance in constructing some of the hypotheses in this article. I believe that this
may be due to the fact that filming makes it possible to create a space for dialogue
[Henley 1998] that, in its turn, stimulates the many possible interpretations of the

EDGAR TEODORO DA CUNHA is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Anthropology at

USP—University of São Paulo. He is co-author of the book Antropologia e Imagem [Zahar,
2006] and editor of the books Escrituras da Imagem [Edusp, 2004] and Imagem-Conhecimento
[Papirus, 2009]. Among the documentaries he directed are Jean Rouch, Crossing Boundaries
[Lisa, 2000] and Ritual of Life [Lisa, 2005]. E-mail: edgar.cunha@uol.com.br

311
 312 E. T. Cunha

contact experienced by the Bororo. Processes of this nature allow reflections on

the places where discourses are pronounced and moreover on the manners of
constituting narratives about intercultural experiences [Pina Cabral 2003], which
is our present focal point.
I believe that questions like these are part of a larger problem, that of the
possibilities for communication in situations of intercultural contact. And it is
within this context that I propose the analysis of an audiovisual experience in field
research, to contemplate the questions involved in dialogical processes between
different cultures, and finally to consider the manners and possibilities of express-
ing ways of seeing surroundings, which these experiences make evident.
If what we are seeking here is to understand a phenomenon that is intercul-
tural, the Bororo point of view in particular concerns us in this process. Thus it
is necessary to consider internal aspects of Bororo society that can inform us
about possible Bororo ways of seeing surroundings and attributing meaning.
There has been extensive anthropological research on the Bororo that analyzes
aspects of their ritual and cosmological life in depth. In this context, the number
of studies published concerning the funeral ritual1 is notable, with this ritual
serving as a paradigmatic and central element to understanding their society;
though this importance has become evermore variegated by the Bororo’s contem-
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porary forms of relationship and construction of meaning in the face of the

challenges of the contemporary world [Clifford 1998].
In broaching the problems raised here, the ritual context was always a funda-
mental backdrop for understanding phenomena. The funeral cycle in particular
continues to be a privileged space to perceive the Bororo’s system of relation-
ships to the extent that, in addition to having an obvious internal meaning in
the group’s cosmology and way of thinking, the funeral cycle can express
relations and relationships of another order and context, like that of relations
between the village and the city or relations with elements of the surrounding
world, thus allowing us to perceive and understand this more ample frame of
systems or communication networks, expressive of supra-village and interethnic
spheres. While the funeral primarily gathers together individuals who exercise
predetermined roles in ritual life, and while it has cosmological and organiza-
tional meaning in the local group’s social life, the funeral also speaks for the
ritual space where relationships involve an inter-village context, binding and
bringing up to date the complex dialectic of relationships among individuals
from various local groups, according to bonds of kinship and affinity.
Relations with the world of the White man are also brought up to date when,
for example, the Bororo use their networks of contacts, friends and promises to
gather indispensable resources to hold funerals. In this way, a new sphere of rela-
tions and relationships is activated and reaffirmed with each funeral held—a
funeral being able to mobilize Bororo from various villages, extended family
and the like, and even people from the city like politicians, employees of the
Brazilian National Indigenous Foundation (Fundação Nacional do Índio=FUNAI),
representatives from government and non-government agencies, religious
leaders and others. This expanded network of relations with intercultural char-
acteristics, to the extent that it gathers together elements from cultures other
than the Bororo, shows the nature of the problems we confront when we seek
 Among the Bororo of Mato Grosso, Brazil 313

to understand processes of constructing meanings and attributing significance to

intercultural communication and experiences. Given this, I should warn that the
various field situations described in this article are in some way connected to the
context of funerals, although this is not made explicit.
This warning also holds for the following narrative, which is an excellent
example of the problems I wish to broach with respect to communication in situa-
tions of intercultural dialogue. I refer to an event in which two Bororo traveled to
São Paulo, in the year 2000, to set up two works of art from their material culture
that are used in funerals, a marido (a wheel made of stems from buriti palm
fronds) and aróe j’áro (a funeral basket),2 as part of an exhibition of pieces from
various Amerindian groups celebrating the theme of great ritual cycles relating
to death [Figure 1].
The following is an excerpt from a conversation that took place within
Ibirapuera Park, in the heart of the city of São Paulo. It raises some questions
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Figure 1 Américo Rubugo (left) and Eduardo Koge (right) with an aroé j’áro they have just
finished. It is a Bororo funerary basket that was included in the ‘‘Associação Brasil 500 anos’’
art collection. (Photo # Edgar Teodoro da Cunha).
 314 E. T. Cunha

characteristic of the predicament of intercultural dialogue, when the feeling of

what is spoken slips away and, given different cultural baggage, words, attitudes
and gestures take on the most unusual meanings, depending on the point of view
adopted in the conversation:

Américo: What’s the name again of that place?

Anthropologist: That round building?. . . That’s the oca [indigenous dwelling]!3 (Laughs
from Eduardo and Américo.)
Anthropologist: What’s so funny about the name oca?!
Eduardo: Because there could be nothing more appropriate than a name like that
for a brae [white man] dwelling;4 oca is like okwa – vixen, very clever and
cunning, like the brae. . .

In our case, it is important that we perceive the Bororo’s point of view in this
more ample context of giving meaning, which involves other subjects being in
contact with the Bororo, and which define the possible space of producing points
of view.
This dialogue took place when Eduardo Kogue and Américo Rubugo, Bororo
from the Tadarimana village, came to São Paulo to produce the aforementioned
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pieces that would be exhibited at the ‘‘Mostra do Redescobrimento’’ (Rediscov-

ery Exhibition)5 in 2000. The conversation, from my point of view, exposes a
small facet of a more ample process that involves everything from the forms of
attributing meaning to intercultural dialogue to the ways of seeing the world,
the different points of view and subjectivities provoked, and the creative and
expressive potential these situations accord.
The building that housed the indigenous-arts exhibit came to be called the
oca after the exhibition was held. It reflects the building’s round format, which
is similar to the shape of some indigenous dwellings in Brazil; but this is also
a term frequently and commonly used in Brazilian society to designate any
indigenous dwelling, that is to say a word of Tupi origin that has taken on the
generic meaning of an indigenous dwelling, much like the inclusion of the words
cacique (boss), cocar (headdress), taba (village), etc.
Ironically, the Bororo reading of the situations is varied, attributing a meaning
to that space anchored in the men’s experience of contact and in their particular
way of seeing the world of the ‘‘White person.’’ For the Bororo, the oca was not
‘‘an indigenous dwelling,’’ but rather ‘‘a White man’s dwelling,’’ a ‘‘brae dwell-
ing,’’ the dwelling of one who expropriates from the indigenes’ world. Indeed,
this example was very significant in this sense, full of objects from contemporary
indigenous groups, but also from indigenous groups that had disappeared over
the centuries of contact and from whom only traces remained, all duly ‘‘expro-
priated’’ by brae and exhibited in the oca.
A process like this, of contrasting points of view, allows one to look back and in
so doing modify one’s original way of viewing the situation, thus creating a new
consciousness of the self and of the other, making evident the dialoguing
potential of communication processes based on the view and the image.
Also with respect to the episode described, one should note the importance
and particular form of expropriating the idea of culture and tradition. The choice
 Among the Bororo of Mato Grosso, Brazil 315

and confection of the objects for the exhibition came at the behest of the exhibi-
tion’s curator; but this however does not mean that the Bororo do not have an
active position in defining the use and meaning of these objects, especially
because it caused them to travel far beyond the limits of their village. Indeed, this
act of defining will be particularly notable further on when we discuss the use of
video in the fieldwork.
Worthy of note here is how various forms of relations and relationships and
even various forms of element from the material culture are transformed and
regarded in terms of a ‘‘traditional culture,’’ especially when utilized in
situations of intercultural dialogue, thus defining the way images and values
are constructed as regards the Bororo, who actively seek to project a collective
image marked by elements ‘‘of the tradition,’’ so valued by the surrounding
society when acknowledging an identity that is not its own.

TRADITION AS A CONSTRUCTION

The appropriation of terms like ‘‘culture’’ in processes like those described earlier
can take on specific meanings when utilized in situations of intercultural com-
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munication, which can appear even in the terms and expressions used. One
example is the expression ‘‘captain of the cultural,’’ used by the Bororo to refer
to the chiefs of chant, the aróe et-awára are, fundamental participants in the funeral
process. A common context of reference to the idea of culture, expressed in
discourse, is evidenced in conversations among older Bororo when they criticize
the youth for not valuing ‘‘tradition’’ and ‘‘our culture.’’
The question of authenticity, of the originality of singular elements that char-
acterize an identity, is fundamental in a context in which the surrounding
society only recognizes as Indians or indigenous Brazilians those groups that still
preserve characteristics viewed as predating contact with the European settler.
Thus indigenous Brazilians who wear clothes, speak Portuguese, drive a car
and use a cellular telephone, from the common point of view would already
be ‘‘acculturated indigenous Brazilians,’’ it being important to point out that
judgments of this nature, for the most part, are made by considering visual
elements alone.
However, we have a large number of indigenous societies whose manner and
extent of contact are very diverse and who therefore have specific requirements
concerning problems they face, but who see themselves in a situation of confront-
ing questions such as this one, constructing an identity on the outside that
emphasizes the elements of being indigenous, linked to an image often from their
past. Processes of redefining and constructing traditional elements like these end
up having external and also internal meaning.
Many studies consistently construct the question of the use of tradition, of its
construction as a form of expounding and justifying collective identities. I refer,
for example, to Eric Hobsbawn’s and Terence Ranger’s book [1984] regarding the
invention of traditions, as well as to Benedict Anderson’s theory [1983] on
imagined communities. Both deal with processes that look to the past to seek
the origins and justifications of current definitions of collective identities. But
 316 E. T. Cunha

how can we think about this concept of ‘‘constructed traditions’’ in which

‘‘culture’’ and ‘‘identity’’ are fundamental?
In our case, tradition and culture remember a shared identity among clans,
villages and groups of villages that form a collective we can call ‘‘Bororo society.’’
This presupposes an acknowledgement of the forms of sociality that are expressed
in relationships of exchange and reciprocity and also of a sharing of the same cos-
mological system, which means therefore referring to a common symbolic whole.
The present situation of communities like that of the Bororo has brought dilem-
mas that are difficult to resolve, such as seeking expression between tradition and
change, and that have led to different ways to accommodate both extremes in
everyday life. How to bring together the need to maintain and preserve a past
of traditions and values embodied in culture, and at the same time transform
by incorporating elements of the surrounding world as a condition for Bororo
existence and permanence as a singular ethnic group in the face of national
society?

THE VIDEO WORKSHOP AT THE TADARIMANA INDIGENOUS RESERVE

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At this point, video became an important instrument of exploration, allowing

another means to access these representations constructed through and from
contact. The introduction of the video camera in the fieldwork can be explored
very conventionally: as a record of the processes observed in the field and as
an alternative form of expression for the group—by training Bororo youth to
use the camera.
In interethnic communication contexts, the introduction of a totally constructed
instrument into one side of this relationship, in other words the video camera that
comes from the larger society, is not a neutral act [Ginsburg 1991]. More than a
technical apparatus, the camera is the result of a long process of development
of a language that is constructed. For an audiovisual result to have meaning
beyond the group’s borders, the youth (in this case) necessarily must learn and
dominate not only the manner of using the technical device but also its specific
logic and language.
The initial challenge of the video workshop was to enable these two Bororo
youths to dominate the camera, to understand how it worked and how to handle
the apparatus as well as to understand the different ways of using the camera,
delving subsequently into questions of language. Thus we talked about focus,
the need for stability (or not) in an image, light, framing, and ways to control
these elements based on the camera’s available resources.6 During their practice
exercises, Noel Kiga and Edson Meriremakuro, the two Bororo participants in the
workshop, put forth a proposal to describe these processes using images from
topics they had chosen, seeking to film interviews and video statements later.
The work was carried out7 over one day, following the proposal that the film-
ing could be carried out in a limited timeframe and within the village [Figure 2].
One of the exercises proposed was ‘‘recounting,’’ via the camera, some process
that took place daily in each of their homes and something of the subject’s choos-
ing. It took effort to recount, for someone who is not familiar with Bororo life, a
 Among the Bororo of Mato Grosso, Brazil 317
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Figure 2 Edson Meriremakuro filming on a workshop day. (Photo # Edgar Teodoro da Cunha).

bit of the Bororo day-to-day and domestic life. Noel filmed his sister preparing
lunch in the kitchen in the rear of the home: she was embarrassed and he was
joking in his mild-mannered way. Edson showed us his house, the objects that
lay on the jirau (an indigenous bed support), trophies won in soccer tournaments,
designs hung on the wall of the house of mythic characters of the Xavante.8
Subsequently his mother arrived from the city carrying purchases. On that day
they had a special dinner, with beef and spicy rice.
After recording, we watched everything in the village school, where we had set
up our workshop area with a television and videocassette player. While watch-
ing, we talked about the results, about the manner of filming, about problems
related to the quality of the recorded material. We were careful not to impose
unilaterally upon them a set way of filming, but we discussed certain results,
whether they were desirable or not in terms of their interests, and alternative
forms of filming for more challenging camera situations, such as questions of
capturing sound, back-lighting, etc.
 318 E. T. Cunha

They caught on quickly and made noticeable progress. This is perhaps due to
the fact that they are exposed to this type of image and narrative anyway, as the
village has various television sets that are viewed regularly, primarily by the
youth; yet it may also be due to the fact that they are youths and therefore open
and particularly interested in the world beyond the village’s borders and what
the village has to offer. The fact was that these students demonstrated excellent
development and understanding of the process, perceiving it not only as an
instrument that could be used for internal purposes within the village but also
to record processes that involve the Bororo with the outside world.
The next step was to conduct the interviews, with free choice of people and
topics. Edson fulfilled his proposal very satisfactorily, recording an interview
with José Carlos Ekureu, also know as Formigão (Big Ant), who had come from
the village of Garças a little while back and who had intended to stay for a period
in the Tadarimana Indigenous Reserve. An aróe et-awára are, already versed in
interactions with cameras, he talked in the manner typical of an older man to a
younger man about valuing the past, about a nostalgic past that did not exist.
Nevertheless we see that his statements were not directed merely to the youth
filming him but also to the world of the White people.
José Carlos, inside his home, shows the camera some Bororo feathered
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adornments [Figure 3] and makes the following comments:

—I don’t know how the White man sees this. We here call it kioguaro [feather bracelet].
Nabure—red and yellow macaw feathers . . . . Here we also have kuruguga ioaga [feathers
from the hawk]. This kioguaro has lots; each clan has one. This clan here [showing the
camera] is the Aroroe; this here is the Baadodjeba . . . Apiboregue. And the pariko [crown of
feathers]? I don’t know where the pariko ended up . . . . Did it stay there?!

Figure 3 This image was made by Edson, a Bororo cameraman, and included in the film Ritual of
Life. (Photo # Edgar Teodoro da Cunha).
 Among the Bororo of Mato Grosso, Brazil 319

—Cocar [headdress]! They say pariko is called cocar . . . a braido word for our pariko!—
Ufff! There were lots of traditions, lots of Bororo decorations, but the Bororo are being
finished off! All the things and all the laws are being consumed. Some have, few have,
but many don’t have.

His speech is apparently full of yearning and pessimism as he refers to a past

where ‘‘tradition’’ is permanent and to a present where ‘‘tradition’’ ends. The
older men tend to speak in these terms with the youth, as if trying to make them
aware of the importance of valuing this past, making the past into today’s
present.
There is an additional aspect in José Carlos’ speech that is lost in the transcrip-
tion: he speaks first in Bororo and then in Portuguese, observing initially in
Bororo and then translating the same content into Portuguese. This is because,
in the end, he is not speaking just to the young Bororo who are handling the
camera but to the very camera, which is considered a channel to the world of
the White people.
Once again we find ourselves facing a translation process in which the
challenge in building communication channels is to preserve a minimum of
mutual intelligibility, accessible merely to understand the codes of the two
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systems and the creation of term and meaning equivalencies.

As I see it, all of these alternatives have allowed for the construction of a
perception that approaches a Bororo point of view vis-à-vis other subjects
related to them, like the Xavante and Terena, and the Salesian priests,
the FUNAI and the urban surrounding that is evermore present; but also
vis-à-vis the images constructed of them and of how they comprehend spoken
relationships.
We must go a step further and raise the question of access to the other’s point
of view, which as I understand it is always an issue in encounters and in general
stems from the idea of a collective, from an ‘‘us’’ Bororo that is constructed and
conventional; whereby we risk falling into essentializations and shifting away
from the more important point, the nature and meaning of the relations and rela-
tionships. This idea of ‘‘us’’ Bororo often masks an internal plurality of points of
view, of a collective of another nature, like clan solidarity. This Bororo collective
needs to be fleshed out, taking into account the relations among the various
Bororo areas which, in certain circumstances, do not allow the construction of
a single Bororo point of view but only of variations that may sometimes
converge.
Another question, especially when we think about appropriating video, is that
the relations among producing the image, self-image and identity are not univo-
cal and mechanical, but rather a choice depending on the manner in which
video is used and the processes associated therewith. I believe the potential
of this technical device lies in its organic introduction into the processes in
which it serves as a constitutive element. The place of the camera should not
be that of the agent who is represented through an external view of the world
but rather the place where the very camera becomes the privileged locus of
the processes, thereby evidencing the actions and meanings constructed with
the direct aid of the camera.
 320 E. T. Cunha

VIDEO AND ETHNOGRAPHY

Up till now I have mentioned merely two ways of using video in research,
‘‘recording’’ field situations and conducting video workshops. There is another
option: analyzing the visual material produced in these contexts. The fact that
two Bororo youth could produce images indicates the initial possibility of acces-
sing the filming process and consequently all the elements in play in this context,
thus allowing for analysis of material produced in privileged conditions.
The situations of ‘‘record’’ should also be fleshed out, since the researcher’s
ability to produce images has both strengths and weaknesses. I believe that the
main question is how to understand the nature of the relationship created by
the presence of a researcher (an anthropologist) with a camera, which is different
from the presence of the researcher alone. The introduction of a camera
establishes some parameters for the field researcher’s position and for the
relationships she develops with the subjects. She may assume a more distanced
role from the beginning, since that seems to be the place for a distanced observer
who nonetheless can be completely integrated in the contexts she observes, if we
stretch the idea of a participatory observation to a participatory camera.
The field anthropologist’s apparent autonomy to keep a record, such as may
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similarly arise in keeping a field notebook, must necessarily be viewed in context.

In the case of the Bororo experience, the camera is accepted initially in specific con-
texts, generally linked to Bororo public life. Interests in making records begin to
materialize in requests to record rituals from ‘‘our cultural,’’ as they say, and from
some collective construction works like repair of the central dwelling, the bai mana
gejewu, which started at the moment filming began. Thus situations begin to arise
in which there clearly exists a mise en scène for the camera. Innumerable challenges
were raised that could be summed up in the need for understanding the processes
triggered, catalyzed or inhibited by the presence of a camera.
The place of observation has also been a problem. We are accustomed to good
old participatory observation as one of the instruments of fieldwork; with the
camera, this place is modified. The viewfinder of the video camera, the need to
pay attention to elements of language like duration of action, continuity,
variation of takes—if what is anticipated is subsequent editing and not just the
production of raw material for analysis—are elements that may or may not
add to the strictly ethnographic interest of observation.
The various periods of field research among the Bororo of the Tadarimana
Indigenous Reserve allowed me to develop the steps necessary to use video as
a research instrument, and aided the relationships that I hoped to understand.
I used video extensively in recording processes and situations, both in the
indigenous area and beyond it, in the city of Rondonópolis (MT), and in another
Bororo area, Meruri, in the Barra do Garças region. In general during the record-
ing I accompanied groups of Bororo in ritual, day-to-day and other activities
related to political life and elements beyond the village.
In addition to images of this nature, the raw material recorded for the research
is mostly images of the funeral cycle, focusing on different moments of this ritual,
which can last up to three months and is made up of a goodly amount of fiestas
held between the primary burial and the ultimate burial of the bones [Figures 4
 Among the Bororo of Mato Grosso, Brazil 321

Figure 4 The funeral ritual in action: collective performance in Tadarimana village plaza. This
blurred image was chosen to emphasize the ethereal meaning of aroe, spirits personified by those
men during the funerals. (Photo # Edgar Teodoro da Cunha).
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Figure 5 During the funeral: a Bororo personifying Bakororo, a culture hero. (Photo # Edgar
Teodoro da Cunha).
 322 E. T. Cunha

and 5]. Rites like Tamigi, Mono, Parabara, Tóro, Iwodo, Kaiwo, in addition to fishing
rituals, travel, songs and other elements of the ritual cycle of the funeral, make up
the recorded material. And in addition to this, we also have images of travel to
Rondonópolis, aspects of day-to-day life, and political meetings with the FUNAI,
with the NGO Trópicos,9 and with local politicians, etc.
At other moments there was a chance to observe special situations, such as a
commemorative event held in another Bororo village, located in the Meruri
Indigenous Reserve close to the city of Barra do Garças. The event, sponsored
by the Salesian priests, who have a mission in the village, was a memorial omin-
ously entitled ‘‘25 years since the martyrdom of Father Rodolfo Lunkenbein and
Simão Bororo.’’ It brought together leaders from various Bororo areas, such as
Tadarimana, Piebaga and Córrego Grande, in addition to people involved in
politics, the local press and journalists from Barra do Garças. This moment
harnessed and brought up to date a series of symbolic meanings of the collective
and historical experience of the subjects involved.
I will not go on in my analysis of the event, but would like to underscore some
questions. The assassination of Father Lunkenbein and of Simão Bororo, in 1976,
occurred within the context of territorial conflict between the Bororo, supported
by the Salesian priests from the mission, and outside landowners. This fact was a
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significant moment for Salesian involvement with the Bororo, and exemplary in
terms of a new form of relations and interaction that the mission, since the 1960s,
had been seeking to transform. Until then, if we take into consideration nearly a
century of previous relations, we see that they were marked by a tradition of
repression, a projecting of civilization and assimilation upon the Bororo in terms
of Brazilian society. The martyr becomes an idea that connects the Salesian
priests with the Bororo, and in this event this meaning is made explicit.
The first evidence of this meaning as a construct happened ten years after the con-
flict, when a Bororo-style funeral was held for Father Rodolfo, an event analyzed in
detail by Caiuby Novaes in The Play of Mirrors [1997]. At the event and in her analy-
sis there were already elements that have now been updated. The idea of martyr-
dom as a binding theme and demonstrative of the connection between the
Salesians and the Bororo is clear. The mass held in the Bororo language, with
incorporation of various Bororo elements in the liturgy, was once again led by
Fr. Ochôa. There was evident intentionality in projecting images for a more ample
context, though probably having one meaning for the Bororo and another for
the Salesians.
I believe that visibility is the key word in this moment of updating the meaning
of the memory of shared experiences. Many representatives of the city were
there: a school bus full of students came from Barra do Garças, as did local
politicians, religious leaders, local television personalities, intellectuals and of
course anthropologists.
More evidence of this process was the inauguration of a cultural center and
Bororo museum at the mission. The Meruri village, unlike other Bororo villages
which are circular, has the dwellings aligned in a rectangular format. The part
occupied by the Salesian mission is at one of the ends of this rectangle, which is
where the museum and cultural center were inaugurated during the occasion,
for the purpose of ‘‘revitalizing’’ Bororo culture. Elements of the Bororo material
 Among the Bororo of Mato Grosso, Brazil 323

culture are exhibited there, and the building includes a library and documentation
center; the idea of ‘‘cultural preservation’’ is clearly emphasized and proffered.
In this context, video was fundamentally an instrument for ‘‘fieldnotes,’’ regis-
tering situations, events, personages and processes that allowed me to analyze all
in more detail subsequently. However, in events like these, we must take into
consideration another aspect, that of a situation in which visibility is a very
important focus, and much of what plays out points to dissemination in wider
contexts, giving the recorded material a character going beyond the simple idea
of a record, since the camera potentially can be the ‘‘object,’’ the focus and
catalyst in situations like this, in the development process. The big difference
with this group of images lies in the entirety of the material recorded of the
funeral.10 As I already mentioned, this ritual, which is both complex and central
to Bororo society, expresses the intense ritual activity of this group in modern
times. During every one of my many field trips I witnessed different funerals
at various ritual stages, which provided me with a map or a more general picture
of this aspect of Bororo life. The video recording of the funeral, upon initial analy-
sis, points to some elements and raises some questions. The first noticeable
element is the evident intentionality of the attitudes11 when what is at play is a
process of projecting an image outward. Not only in strictly political situations
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but primarily in ritual situations, there is evident playing to the camera, in the
sense of establishing the elements the subjects consider desirable to associate
with the collective image. Thus what we have is the construction of an idea of
identity that seeks to connect maintaining a tradition, in this case a funeral, with
a reaction from the surrounding world’s expectations of the Bororo.
From the point of view of the Bororo, the perception of an indigenous identity ‘‘in
the world of White people’’ encompasses the idea of permanency of tradition, and
this for its part is basically expressed visually, by diacritical elements associated with
the body and by maintenance of ‘‘rites and customs’’ that are typical of their ritual life.
On the one hand this stage answers to a need that stems from the forms of
relationship in Bororo society with outside contact; on the other hand, we believe
processes of this type, of which the video is part, can lead to questions already
raised in other audiovisual experiments, such as assigning versions of mythical
narratives to ritual acts, the teaching and local development of which, according
to logic, differ from that offered in the filming process.
When I say assigning versions, I think of this as something that is far from the
effective processes carried out according to the typical logic of societies with an
oral tradition in which, for example, the various versions of mythic narratives
and perceptions of the ritual process and cosmological content are in constant
movement, being changed or updated for each ritual or associated process.
I think about these questions when I come across initiatives to use video on
behalf of Amerindian groups and their partners in the outside world, with the
idea of building a repertory of memory, recording rituals and songs as a means
of preserving them for future knowledge. Discourse regarding video even con-
firms that it can contribute to learning experiences in schools, like a multiplier
of traditional knowledge in the school context.
Unlike this discourse, we see criticisms internally of using the school for this
purpose, since school is a space to learn ‘‘the things of White people.’’ Learning
 324 E. T. Cunha

how to count and read Portuguese are fundamental abilities for the relations of the
Bororo with the outside world, and school is of course the privileged location for
this. Nevertheless for some, the teacher cannot teach ‘‘cultural’’ things since he
has a restricted and partial knowledge, given his place in terms of ceremony, clan
and prestige within the village; this cultural learning can only take place through
participation in ritual activities and in exercising the roles and functions attributed
to each individual Bororo. This debate dominates, in part, in the way in which the
Bororo see the use of video and seek to think about it, to the extent that it is an
element that comes from the world of White people, according to Bororo local logic.
Another important set of images, as mentioned, is the incessant travel to the
city of Rondonópolis by members of the Tadarimana village. The journey is
basically made as weekly transport in a chartered bus to the city with groups
of about 15 individuals, though as many as 30 men, women and children may
be on a single bus. The reasons they go to the city are diverse, obviously depend-
ing on each Bororo’s role and relationship. Some go to pick up their pensions—
pretty much the only funds that come into the village in addition to, of course,
those earmarked for village projects and from government and non-government
agencies. Others go in to buy goods, such as clothes, personal needs and drinks.
Still others go to the city to engage in activities that express political relations and
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the network of relations and relationships in the city, such as when they stake
claims or establish support and alliances outside the village.
In this sense, the FUNAI office in Rondonópolis, in addition to being an impor-
tant place for meetings, expressing and stating claims for the Bororo of the
region, such as the Tadarimana, Córrego Grande and Piebaga areas, is also a
space where political alliances and differences are formed among the various
areas with respect to the FUNAI and with respect to other groups such as, for
example, in a situation in which a Terena group moved into the region of
Rondonópolis and began to pressure FUNAI and local politicians strongly to
get funding and a settlement area.
While at first the Bororo expressed a certain sympathy and admiration for
the Terena, seen as those who talk ‘‘hard’’ and always get what they want, as
the situation developed, the Bororo began to see the Terena as competitors
for the same scarce resources at the FUNAI office in Rondonópolis, and moreover
as a group that was jeopardizing the Bororo’s reputation in the city because of
their (the Terena’s) constant protests and blockage of the road to Cuiabá.
One common element among most of these situations is the chance for
projection and the search for constructing images of the self and of others, as
individual or collective subjects. This characteristic makes the audiovisual
material produced potentially interesting vis-à-vis the chance to see these expres-
sions or these processes in the context of visibility and as events produced in
situations of intercultural dialogue.

CONTACT, COMMUNICATION AND ALTERITY

I believe that, to complete our journey, it is important to consider some questions
that are more widely related to the world of video appropriation and usage
 Among the Bororo of Mato Grosso, Brazil 325

in research, on the one hand, and by the groups studied, on the other. I refer to
questions that involve a world of greater abstraction, since although they are
related to the specific practices of using video they comprehend a common basis
that involves, for example, problems related to intercultural communication in a
context of a clash, both of minorities identifying with the greater society and fur-
thermore of processes in which these same minorities affirm their ‘‘identity’’
based on the idea of permanency and maintenance of a ‘‘cultural tradition.’’
Nevertheless, phenomena that involve their identity and self-image are not
restricted in their manifestation to conscious practices of constructing identities
within a context of claims and demands. Nor should analysis thereof be limited
to relations with the surrounding world, which generally demonstrate the con-
struction of these processes, to the extent that they are the result of relationships
and not essentialized and naturalized qualities of collective entities.
The actions of different indigenous groups in their relations with Brazilian
society are marked, on the one hand, by a logic of intercultural dialogue and
by the problems resulting from such, which involve communication, translation
and assigning meaning; and, on the other hand, by the rationality of political
difference, which involves a game of local and national interests and a logic of
alliances permeating the network of established relationships, processes that
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are established and molded by the channels of communication available to these

groups.
In this clash, we have practices with visual expression that can be acknowl-
edged as legitimate, since they stem from a specific cultural logic and from the
affirmation of a cultural singularity, and that can also be criticized since, seen
in the light of the logic of political difference, they can be considered as manipu-
lation. Thus the emergence and maintenance of culturally defined ‘‘identities’’
can be subject to a double and anti-ethical judgment. Visibility in this sense acts
as an important element in defining identity parameters and alterity of their
acknowledgment as a political and cultural phenomenon and moreover as an
important element for perception of the context of communication in which they
are a part.
The figure of the shaman, the Bororo aróe et-awára are, such as José Carlos in the
example cited earlier in this article, can be a strategic element to conceptualize the
process of building relationships with elements of expanded alterity. In general
the shaman is the mediator, the person who can control and understand forces
that are potentially destructive and that in turn are generally associated with
alterity. The capacity to understand and to communicate with these forces is
the quality that makes a shaman a prestigious liason and that makes his actions
effective in terms of Bororo logic and of the group’s engagement with a system of
communication with intercultural characteristics.
A Bororo who moves among these different contexts of contact actually moves
among different semantic worlds, such as political contexts, in which he deals
with various government agencies like the FUNAI and other municipal and state
institutions. In these contexts, communication mechanisms operate that are
culturally influenced.
Ritual cycles can be thought of as processes that allow their operators the cre-
ative and mobilizing power of a repertoire that is collectively shared. The rituals,
 326 E. T. Cunha

with all their symbolism and principally with their narratives, bring to life
characters that re-enact the actions and facts of the community’s origin, that hark
back to the society’s founding. If this is the way we can initially look at broad
rituals like the Bororo funeral cycle, we should also add that this re-enactment
of the past in the present allows the Bororo, through local logic, ways to deal with
different points of view in communication with people and objects, and their
power of agency, pertaining to this range of alterities in relation. To communicate
and to comprehend can be understood thus as the possibility of assuming other
points of view or at least of drawing nearer to them. When we deal with the
processes of constructing identities, we need to bear in mind not only the
unavoidable relational character but above all that this construction is permeated
by the inclusion of a range of alterity.
The search for objects in the world of White people, so insisted upon for
various contemporary Amerindian groups, indicates a will to absorb the threat-
ening power of the Other in order to domesticate that power and turn it into a
force that feeds their own cultural action. Mimicking the physical aspect of the
Other, mastering the Other’s language and in some cases even his religious
beliefs, indicates communicative strategies that seek to integrate new elements
into a local world view.
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In this sense, the shamans may be a perfect metaphor as they are frequently
described in literature as specialists in the art of metamorphosis, moving in and
out of the borders of their universe, among different beings, expressing and attach-
ing meaning and significance to different spaces. In a context such as this, it would
not make sense to think of ‘‘indigenous’’ and ‘‘brae’’ elements as antagonistic
categories; the same holds for ‘‘traditional’’ and ‘‘contemporary,’’ ‘‘internal’’ and
‘‘external,’’ ‘‘original’’ and ‘‘acculturated.’’ Dualisms of this nature make it difficult
to perceive the processes of ‘‘domestication’’ of these forces through local logic.
The shaman may also be thought of as a translator, someone open to new ways
of understanding the world [Carneiro da Cunha 1998]. His task is to intervene in
these intersubjective spaces, replete with danger and potentially destructive
forces, for the benefit of the collectivity whence he hails, which gives rise to his
social recognition. The shaman exercises his duty of connecting local forces to glo-
bal or cosmic forces, always under extreme risk of definitively becoming an Other.
From the local point of view, marked by the dialectic principles of bope and
aroe, the Bororo deal with and interact with dangerous and potentially destructive
forces that provide the emergence of representations of the past and present, of
‘‘tradition’’ and ‘‘modernity,’’ ‘‘identity’’ and ‘‘alterity,’’ ‘‘culture’’ and ‘‘trans-
formation,’’ with the dynamic of the expression composing the different spaces
in relation, such as ‘‘village’’ and ‘‘city,’’ within the scene of regional and national
intercultural communication.
According to Barth [1969], the flows of meanings and the social processes in
which the individuals symbolically manufacture reality can create unexpected,
innovative and even contradictory combinations through the expression of ele-
ments from different cultures. The internal coherence of this process stems from
a local logic that seeks to give meaning to situations of intercultural communication.
Contradiction is a fundamental component of these processes of communication
as it marks the field, the space in which those speaking place themselves. The idea
 Among the Bororo of Mato Grosso, Brazil 327

of a ‘‘third space,’’ as coined by Bhaba, constitutes an idea of border not as a physi-

cal or symbolic limit but as a space where cultural differences are expressed.

The intervention of the Third Space of enunciation . . . destroys this mirror of represen-
tation in which cultural knowledge is customarily revealed as an integrated, open,
expanding code. Such an intervention quite properly challenges our sense of the historical
identity of culture as a homogenizing, unifying force, authenticated by the originary Past,
kept alive in the national tradition of the People.... It is only when we understand that all
cultural statements and systems are constructed in this contradictory and ambivalent
space, that we begin to understand why hierarchical claims to the inherent originality
or ‘‘purity’’ of cultures are untenable. [Bhabha 1997: 37]

The forms of representation that these societies construct to dialogue with the
multiple forms of alterity are a privileged field for new approaches to intercul-
tural communication in ‘‘frontier’’ contexts, inspired by the proposal of authors
like Appadurai [1996] and Bhabha [1997], who seek to overcome the inside=
outside dichotomy where discussion about identity has customarily led. In this
field, experiences with the use of ideas have the evident potential of an instru-
ment that can be appropriated, according to an intercultural and catalyzing logic,
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in the actions surrounding it—the problems mentioned thus far concerning

communication and construction of meaning.
As Marcus proposes [1998], the ethnologist is entrusted to redefine the
observed, in terms of voice, space and time, parallel to the very observer’s
process of redefinition. For such, we must have a theoretical and practical instru-
ment that allows us to perceive processes of communication, where meaning is
exchanged and negotiated, among different cultures. In this context, the practices
of using video inside and outside research, to the extent that such are appropri-
ated by the very groups being studied, constitute an instrument with the
potential to act in these processes.
If we take what Carneiro da Cunha suggests [1998], there is no way to think about
an international system characterized merely by a movement of cultural homogeni-
zation and of imposition of a hegemonic economic model, because this global
system does not account for the problems of constructing meaning, which is always
realized and expressed locally, imposing the need to approach the phenomena that
involve the construction of meanings under the prism of communication.
Throughout, it is fundamental that we focus the ways of translating relations
that Amerindian societies maintain with the expanding world. To call once again
upon the figure of the shaman, but now as he who translates, who transforms the
‘‘unknown into the comprehensible,’’ by virtue of his ability to assume the point
of view of the other, this perhaps suggests to us the means of comprehending and
producing knowledge about such vast processes and the means that establish ‘‘a
resonance with that which is understood locally.’’

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Research financed by the Research Support Foundation for the State of Sao Paulo (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa
do Estado de São Paulo=FAPESP).
 328 E. T. Cunha

NOTES
1. I would recommend the studies of Viertler [1991], Caiuby Novaes [1997] and Bloemer
[1980].
2. The marido (wheel) is a big circle made with stalks of the caeté palm tree and used in
rituals of the same name during the funeral; and the aróe j’áro (funeral basket) is a
funeral basket woven from the babaçu palm tree sprout and in which the dead person’s
bones are placed for permanent burial.
3. The term oca is used generically in Portuguese to refer to an indigenous dwelling;
the linguistic origin is from the Tupi-Guarani languages, one of the many linguistic
families in Brazil.
4. Brae is the Bororo denomination for White and non-indigenous people.
5. Based on the ephemeral date of 500 years since the arrival of the Portuguese in the
territory we now call Brazil, a monumental exhibition was held, with examples from
all types of artistic expression, including those of Amerindian origin, that had
influenced the Brazilian culture. The exhibition was organized in sectors with topics
ranging from archaeology to contemporary art, including a section on indigenous arts,
which is where the objects mentioned were displayed.
6. Here I see the camera as a ‘‘semiotic object,’’ as defined by Arlindo Machado in
Máquina e imaginário [The Camera and the Imaginary; 1993], seeking to characterize
video and the camera as communicational means that operate on the basis of the body
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of codes like, for example, that of perspective.

7. In this first version of the workshop, I was aided by Gianni Puzzo, with whom I could
share my reflections while still in the field. During later versions of the workshop, in
subsequent years, I had the support and verbal participation of Marcelo Ernandez and
Andréa Barbosa.
8. Edson’s mother is a teacher in the Tadarimana village, and the drawings were made
during the class taken during her vacation in the city of Barra dos Bugres (Mato
Grosso, Brazil), as part of the Tucum Project for training and preparing indigenous
teachers.
9. A non-governmental organization that, during the research period, from 2000 to 2005,
was responsible for health activities in the Bororo areas.
10. This material led to the film Ritual da Vida (Ritual of Life), completed in 2005, which
sought to deal with the funeral as strategies that mobilize sensitivity vis-à-vis percep-
tion of the film. This film is distributed by LISA (Laboratory of the Anthropology of
the Image and Sound), e-mail: lisa@usp.br
11. Nevertheless, it is important to underscore that the mise en scène is not only a process
‘‘triggered’’ by the camera, but a possible form of the camera’s being, incorporated in
processes that pre-date its involvement.

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