Identidade, língua e cultura: usos sociais e políticos do Nheengatu na comunidade indígena do Cartucho, no Médio Rio Negro AM

Sumario: Taking language as a cultural diacritic and as mark of ethnic identity, I develop in this text, an argument that seeks to establish a relationship between identity, language and culture. The focus of the approach is oriented for the empirical context of the emergence of new collective identities indigenous. The objective is to demonstrate the processes of reconstruction of ethnic identity from the handling and/or mobilization of the diacritic signs that can be used to demarcate the «ethnic boundaries» of a culture. The analysis covers the empirical context of the middle Rio Negro region, more specifically the Cartucho indigenous community, located on the island of Wabada in the Middle Rio Negro Indigenous Lands II – AM. From this perspective, the object of study the research present are the social and political uses of language General Amazon (the Nheengatu) that derives historically the Tupinamba and was adopted as the franca language during the colonial period establishing the communication and social interaction between indigenous and non-indigenous. Currently, this language is still spoken in the entire region of Rio Negro and is used by many people as an instrument of ethnic identity affirmation, as observed among The Bare, whose original language is no longer spoken. The choice of the Indigenous Land Middle Rio Negro – II is due to cultural and linguistic diversity existing in this region. The main reason given in the anthropological literature for the maintenance of this multiethnic complex is the persistence of linguistic exogamy and patrilocal residence, i.e. in this region men usually marry women who speak a language different from yours. In such circumstances, children grow up speaking two languages. However, the language that identifies the person, the village and the ethnic group is mainly the language of the father and not the language of the linguistic group of the mother. Indeed, they are speakers that dominate three or more languages which are spoken in daily life and in the family. These native language speakers are still to able understand other indigenous languages spoken in the community, as well as Portuguese, but between them they speak predominantly Nheengatu. This scenario presents itself as the ideal for the study of social and political uses of Nheengatu due to be a context of bi-and multilingualism. The initial question is to know the reasons why certain languages are spoken or not, depending on the social context or situations of collective communication and social interaction, circumstantial or otherwise, in that speakers are in concrete achievements in domains social of language. The hypothesis that guiding this research is a that the Nheengatu was consolidated as a franca language, and for this reason, became the instrument that enables communication and social interaction, serving as a inter-ethnics mediator in the region of and even more, has established itself as the native language or traditional language, that has been adopted by various ethnic groups who have lost their native tongues, as is the case the Bare people. The method adopted for carrying out the fieldwork research was participant observation. Data collection was performed by authorized recordings of individual interviews and collective, that is, in speech in public meetings of the Association of Indigenous Communities and Riparian – ACIR, as well as social events, sports and cultural community.