Cestaria, noções matemáticas e grafismo indígenas na prática das artesãs Ticuna do alto Solimões

Abstract

The source for this study was the practice of the Ticuna artisans women while making the pacará baskets. The ethnography presented here was produced by the Ticuna artisans women from two distinct regions in the state of Amazonas: one by the upper Solimões river, in three communities that make up the Santo Antonio Indigenous community and in the Barro Vermelho community, and, in Manaus, by some Ticuna artisans women who live in the capital. It is a record of the Ticuna women’s practice, made by monitoring the baskets making process, since the moments prior to the weaving activity (harvesting, drying, dyeing), until the connections that such activity establish in social life and in their cultural prescriptions. Along the way, I identified counting processes, forms of material selection, methods used to measure, among other features observed in the making of baskets and that are in the categories of understanding. It shows how much artisans' practice is representative and how much it highlights the place of women in their society, either because of their prestige in the way today's communities closest to the cities are organized, or due to their authority as having the knowledge of the Ticuna ritual practices. The drawings in the pacará baskets were identified and classified as a sign, and its meanings attributed by the Ticunas, considering the combination of the different manifestations that these representations appear in ritual practices and artifacts. Finally, we make an overview of the communities surveyed and the network that revolves around the practice of women, implying aspects of culture, social life and interaction with the surrounding society.