Apontamentos sobre a morte auto infligida entre os Ye'kwana

Abstract

The Ye’kwana are a people whose traditional territory is crossed by the international border that divides Brazil from Venezuela. Speakers of one of the languages ​​classified in the Karib linguistic family, in Brazil there are about 600 Ye’kwana living in four villages, three along the Auaris River (Tajädedatänha, Fuduwaaduinha and Kudatanha) and one on the Uraricoera River (Waichannha), in the northwest of the state of Roraima, Yanomami Indigenous Territory. In Venezuela, there are about 5,000 people, whose more than 60 villages are located in the Orinoco River basin. I have been conducting ethnographic research in Ye’kwana communities on the Brazilian side since 2005 and for more than a decade, I have monitored the increase in the rates of self-inflicted deaths among the Ye’kwana. In this work, I reflect on how the Ye’kwana understand this type of dying and outline some points of tension between Ye’kwana theory and the way in which indigenous health care policies seek to develop both interpretations of the phenomenon of self-inflicted death and, based on them, intervention policies.