Pintadas de jenipapo, urucum e toá: mapeando as literaturas indígenas escritas no/do Nordeste do Brasil

Abstract

The main objective of this thesis is to map, present, and analyze indigenous authors and their works (2005-2024), as a way of highlighting the written production of individuals belonging specifically to indigenous peoples of the Northeast, who have resisted for centuries and found in written literature a way to elaborate and disseminate their memories, denunciations, wisdom, etc. To achieve this goal, research and cataloging was carried out on how many and which literary authors belong to indigenous peoples in northeastern Brazil, initially focusing only on the authors mentioned in the “Bibliography of Indigenous Publications in Brazil,” a project coordinated by Daniel Munduruku, Aline Franca, and Thulio Dias (2019). Subsequently, other authors who were not included in this project but who also produce indigenous literature and belong to indigenous peoples in the region were added. The corpus of analysis for this thesis consists of the following authors: Graça Graúna, Juão Nyn, Eliane Potiguara, Eva Potiguara, Meyriane Potiguara, Sulami Katy, Auritha Tabajara, Ellen Wassu, Ane Kethleen Pataxó, Denízia Fulkaxó, Ezequiel Vitor Tuxá, Chirley Pankará, Ademário Ribeiro, Bárbara Matias Kariri, and Juvenal Payayá. The works analyzed cover various literary genres, such as haiku poems, narrative poems, tragedy, cordel literature, short stories, and novels. Based on dialogue with theorists and critics such as Graça Graúna (2013), Trudruá Dorrico (2017), Jaider Esbell (2017), Olívio Jekupé (2020), Daniel Munduruku (2009, 2017, 2020), Kaká Werá Jecupé (2020), and many others, and from the analyses carried out, the phenomenon of Contemporary Brazilian Indigenous Literature and its ramifications are discussed, as well as the concept of voice-image, in order to highlight diverse and complex aesthetic, identity, political, and ancestral issues that permeate these works and drive this research, with the aim of emphasizing the importance of the literary production of these writers from/in Northeast Brazil.