O’ramako kahyana: reativações no kahu

Abstract

This research is an ethnographic exercise about the phenomenon of reoccupation of ancient villages carried out by the Kahyana, a complex caribeguianense indigenous collective. Since time immemorial, the Kahyana have inhabited the landscape of the Trombetas River, in the far north of the Amazon, and this landscape is the locus of their main mythological references, which they call Kahu. I have tried to demonstrate throughout this paper that the reactivation of the ancient villages in Kahu by the Kahyana mobilizes a creative movement where there are distinct interweavings. More specifically, I intend to address narratives about the more recent migration movement of Kahyana families who left the missionary settlements to live in Kahu. The return to Kahu, considered the traditional territory of the Kahyana, as we will see can be understood as a product of interaction and continuity between places, people, substances, mythical heroes, beings, cultivars. All this happens in a single flow in continuous transformation.