Povo Baniwa: o rearranjo e a auto-investigação das narrativas míticas para produzir a cura da COVID-19

Abstract

This paper focuses on the mythical narratives of the Baniwa people and the communications with their relatives (human, non-human and extra-human) expressed therein, with the aim of producing a reflection on the magnitude of the dynamics activated by the narratives in the face of new contexts, such as that of the Covid-19 pandemic. Taking as a starting point Lévi-Strauss's contributions to the production of the Mythological Stories in the 20th century, in which he dedicated himself to investigating whether in different ethnographic contexts there are similarities that allow for the organization of structures that give shape to the body of the two thousand myths analyzed by the author, the aim here is to identify and discuss aspects of the oral narratives that were previously superficially treated. Thus, it is possible to say that the decontextualization of who, how and when a story is told within the communities is a major obstacle to approaching the potentialities that exist intrinsic to the narrative and the intertwining of the networks of relationships that are expressed with and through the narrator. Situating the narrative stated – who narrates, when they narrate and how they narrate – can open new paths for thinking about creativity and inventiveness, both of the subject who produces knowledge and of the constitutive qualities of this knowledge that is constantly updated in the face of new events in order to give them meaning.