Os Pamuri Mahsã e a missão salesiana de Yaia Poewa-Am: uma análise pelo viés do processo civilizador

Abstract

The present work has the objective of analyzing the western civilization process promoted by the Salesian Missionaries to the Pamri Mahsã of Yaia Poewa (Iauaretê), in the northwest of the State of Amazonas, in the Municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira. The concept of 'civilization' arrived in this region with the non-indigenous. In this long period of contact with indigenous peoples there are changes in the indigenous modus vivendis of the region. With the advance of the contact and the ongoing integration process, the Yaia Poewa indians were subjected to an ethnocide process through the imposition and incorporation of values from Western culture. The research was supported in the ethnographic procedures, with observation, semistructured interview, dialogue with the informants in the field work. To support the ethnographic procedures, the documental and bibliographic research were fundamental. As a theoretical reference, we appropriate the theory of the civilizing process, which contributes to think about the socio-cultural changes that occurred in Yaia Poewa, increased by the Saint Michael Archangel Salesian Mission as an institution for modeling indigenous behavior in this region. The field experience of self Ye'pá Mahs (Tukano), the fruit of these changes, contributes to dialogue with the theory. Given the complexity of the region and the theme in question, we are worthy of the sociological writings of Norbert Elias, for he is an author who prioritises the synthesis and makes us understand the western civilization process increased in the Yaia Poewa region. It is in the course of this same process, that today, the school assumes a fundamental role to strengthen the indigenous identity and to rescue the civilizational culture that sustained the social structure of ethnic groups for centuries.