154

Thiago Mota Cardoso

Raoni Pataxó
Nitinawã Pataxó
Kaiones Pataxó
Doris Kurella
The Pataxó facing Maximilian
zu Wied-Neuwied, 200 years after:
from natural history
to cultural decolonization
Thiago Mota Cardoso, Raoni Pataxó, Nitinawã Pataxó, Kaiones Pataxó and Doris Kurella 155
The Pataxó facing Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied, 200 years after:
from natural history to cultural decolonization

Abstract

A small collection of Pataxó-objects, brought together by the Prince Maximilian zu Wied-Neu-

wied in 1815-1817, located in the Linden-Museum Stuttgart, did provide the basis for a visit of
two indigenous researchers of the respective group. The investigation of the objects as well as
the study of the Wied diaries, to which the Brasilien Bibliothek of the Robert Bosch AG did give
generous access, contributed to an important process of the reconstitution of Pataxó culture
and did represent a step in the process of decolonization. The Linden-Museum did play an im-
portant role as contact zone, concerning this event.

Introduction

In the last decades, we have observed an intense process of "revitalization" or "reclaiming" of "culture"
by the Pataxó indigenous people of the extreme south of Bahia, in the east of Brazil. This process in-
volves, on the one hand, a series of independent indigenous research using the direct knowledge of the
ancestors and regarding other culturally similar peoples – especially the Maxakali indigenous people –
aiming at the reconstruction of language, songs and rituals; as well as, on the other hand, the intense
production of artifacts of material culture, such as crafts using seeds, fibres and wood. This process
involved access to and use of bibliographical material left by researchers and naturalist travellers like
Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied.

This article seeks to describe the process of cultural reclaiming created through the relationship
that the Pataxó constructed with the lines of text and marks left by the naturalist Wied-Neuwied,
especially through the contact with the book “Travels in Brazil” and his ethnological collection.
Wied sought to understand the nature of Brazil and the life of the Botocudos, considered savage
peoples to whom the Portuguese imperial government declared war, and on his route he encoun-
tered the Pataxó, perhaps one of the few peoples surviving the hecatomb of contact, genocide and
ethnocide on the Brazilian coast since colonial times. We argue that while Wied in 1816 sought to
describe the Pataxó and other indigenous peoples as natural, and savage, as opposed to “civilized”,
in a context of the construction of the colonized other, the American inferior to the European; the
Pataxó, 200 years later went to meet the original manuscripts and the collection of Wied to re-
claim their “culture”, to affirm, through the writings of the naturalist – among other actions – their
156

condition of contemporary persons and not of savage or acculturated people: a denaturalizing and
therefore decolonizing act.

The epistemological foundations of Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied’s work are rooted in colonial

circumstances, where the construction of nature and “the other” was an intrinsic part of Euro-
pean nations' designs. According to Pratt (2007), travel literature, such as Wied's writing, is an
important vehicle for the creation of knowledge and forms of understanding that have produced
the expansionist project for the European imagination. We argue that Wied's encounters with the
Pataxó and, two centuries later, of the Pataxó with Wied, occurred in contact zones, in spaces of
co-presence, of intersections of trajectories in colonial encounters: a village, a book, a museum –
places where “culture” is in process. For Mary Louise Pratt “contact zones” are spaces in which
geographically and historically separated people come into contact with each other, and in which
both sides establish ongoing relationships, usually involving coercion, inequality, and intractable
conflicts (Pratt 2007: 6-7) . The idea of ​​"contact" emphasizes the friction between differentiated
actors and their concepts, and how these are constituted by and for the relation, by confrontation,
interaction, interconnection between understandings and practices, usually in asymmetrical rela-
tions of power. Following Clifford (1997), we see museums as zones of contact, since the ways of
organizing the structure of collections occur in historical, political and moral circumstances and
relations – a power-charged set of exchange, of push and pull, where the museum-as-collection
function as this frontier space defined by Pratt.

It is in this contact zone that “culture” emerges. When we discuss the use of the term culture by
the Pataxó, we are dealing with the reflexive appropriation of the anthropological concept of cul-
ture by this ethnic group for strategic purposes in its ethnopolitical movements. The idea of using
quotation marks for “culture” has been proposed by Manuela Carneiro da Cunha. Her studies deal
with the ways in which culture is constituted and engaged as a category of the interethnic en-
counter, when indigenous people begin to speak of their own "culture" (now in quotes, to connote
culture "for themselves", a meta-culture, or something of the genre), in an objectified and instru-
mental form (Cunha 2009). Cunha proposes to use "culture" in quotation marks when we refer to
what is said about culture, that is, people tend to live at the same time in "culture" and culture. This
process occurs concomitantly and stands against the criticism that anthropology has been issuing
in relation to the concept of culture (Wagner 2016; Cunha 2009).
 Thiago Mota Cardoso, Raoni Pataxó, Nitinawã Pataxó, Kaiones Pataxó and Doris Kurella 157
The Pataxó facing Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied, 200 years after:
from natural history to cultural decolonization

Wied facing the Pataxó - natural history

Circumstances of Wied’s travel

On August 4, 1815, an expedition with 13 beasts of burden and ten men hired as helpers and hunters left
São Cristovão, a small town in Rio de Janeiro (Wied-Neuwied 1989). In the context of travel reports
made by travelling naturalists in Brazil in the 19th century, this venture was known as the travel of Prince
Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied to Espírito Santo and Bahia (Junghans 2011). Maximilian left London for
Brazil on May 15, 1815, and arrived in Rio de Janeiro on July 15, 1815. Wied’s arrival was only possible
thanks to the opening of the Brazilian ports to “friendly nations” (of Portugal) in 1808. In Rio de Janeiro,
Maximilian welcomed two more Europeans into his travel delegation: the Frankfurt naturalist Georg
1
Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied was
Freyreiss (1789-1825) and the Prussian botanist Friedrich Sellow (1789-1831).
born in 1782 in the Principality of
Neuwied. From 1802 to 1815 Maximilian
served in the Prussian Army, partici- Maximilian came to Brazil interested in studying nature and the Brazilian population, in order to work
pating in the liberation of Paris from the on his botanical, zoological and ethnological collections and comparative studies, mainly in terms of
Napoleonic yoke in 1814. In Paris he met
Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), human anatomy (Amoroso 2010, Cascudo 1977), all influenced by the approach and theses of Hum-
who encouraged him to get to know
Brazil influenced his research (Costa
boldt and Blumenbach.1 During his trip through the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, following the colonial
2008). Another great encourager of his expansion front, he recorded animals and plants, men of villages and forest dwellers, and obtained
trip was Johann Friedrich Blumenbach
(1752-1840), professor at the University some reports about indigenous peoples between the Mucuri and Cabrália Rivers. These records can be
of Göttingen - where Wied-Neuwied read in several passages of the Wied travel narrative.
had studied between 1811 and 1812 -,
considered to be the founder of physical
anthropology. According to Costa (2008),
the insistence of Blumenbach and Hum-
Regarding his trajectory, Maximilian had a common starting point with Humboldt's theses on the nati-
boldt made Wied reformulate his initial ves of America. Humboldt differentiated between the native populations of the South American conti-
research plans and go to Brazil. It was
also in Paris that Maximilian began the nent using their degree of civilization as criterion. Humboldt thus emphasized those societies which he
preparations for his journey. considered sharing a complex degree of civilization, such as those of Peru and Mexico, as opposed to
2
For Wied-Neuwied, the indigenous the lowland populations of the South American continent. In the South American ethnological context,
peoples of Brazil possessed primitive
moral, intellectual and sensual charac-
he worked with the idea of the existence of a heterogeneous group formed by populations speaking
teristics, that did not prevent them from the Tupi language, expressed through the use of agriculture, in contrast of the Tapuios, populations of
being able to make sensible judgments
and have wit. They would be able to imit- the Brazilian “hinterland”, a subset identified as hunter-gatherers in an incipient stage of civilization
ate whites when placed in a situation of (Amoroso 2010). Such an idea of ​​civilization was bound up with Humboldt’s notions of nature and
coexistence, but they would not, however,
be guided by any moral principle, thus al- landscape, in which human types were described by their proximity or distance from nature (Vitte and
lowing them to be carried by the senses
and instincts (Amoroso 2010), "just as the
Silveira 2010). The stage of civilization attributed to the Botocudo and other indigenous peoples at the
jaguar in the woods". time called Tapuios must be understood in relation to the contact of that people with the Europeans, that
is, in relation to the superiority of European civilization.2
158

When Wied meets the two Pataxó

After leaving Rio de Janeiro in August, Wied-Neuwied and his expedition travelled through Cabo
Frio, Campos dos Goitacás, São Fidélis, to the Jucu River, near Vitória, in Espírito Santo. From there,
Wied-Neuwied headed for Caravelas, Bahia, where he remained for six and a half months in Barra do
Jucú and four months in Mucuri. According to his itinerary Wied was interested in the Botocudo, a
group considered wild and with which the Portuguese Empire was engaged in a war. However, all the
way between Espírito Santo and Bahia Wied came across the Pataxó, among other indigenous groups
(Wied-Neuwied, 1989).

Wied was already familiar with the Pataxó through the colonial administrative literature as part of the
Aimoré or Tapuia, supposed hordes of withdrawn Indians who roamed the forests of the region. Ac-
cording to Wied, Vasconcellos, in the year 1662, mentions the tribes of the Tapuyas on the Rio Doce:
also Aymores, (Botocudos) Puris, and “Patachos”; and, though the first apparently ruled these regions,
the other tribes migrated to these parts (Wied-Neuwied 1989: 163).

The Pataxó were omnipresent throughout Wied’s journey, appearing in the imagery of the members of
the expedition as wild, withdrawn, hostile, wild beasts that prevented colonization and the elevation
of civilization along this part of the Brazilian coast. Their presence was considered symbolic for the
threats of the future; and without ever seeing them in person, the members of the expedition feared
them. When the expedition arrived on the banks of the São Mateus River, the group heard inhabitants’
reports about the presence of the "savages", the enmity between the village population and the indians
and the massacres that the settlers had inflicted on them (Wied-Neuwied 1989: 170-171).

When camping in the Morro da Arara, Wied found himself in a "wild forest", and because of the
distance from the place to the nearest village Wied and his helpers were attentive to the "savages of
the forest": "Patachós, and perhaps also Botocudos, prowled us daily, lurking our movements; we
were therefore always armed" (Wied-Neuwied 1989: 191). According to the traveller, the presence
of indigenous groups was feared along the entire coast he wandered. This included the Pataxó, who
walked through the woods and appeared sporadically on the coast. According to Wied, the Pataxó
"wander through the woods, and their hordes arise, alternately, in Alcobaça, Prado, Comechatiba,
Trancoso, etc. When they arrive at any place, the villagers give them something to eat, exchanging
with them wares for wax and other products of the forest, after which they return to the jungle"
Thiago Mota Cardoso, Raoni Pataxó, Nitinawã Pataxó, Kaiones Pataxó and Doris Kurella 159
The Pataxó facing Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied, 200 years after:
from natural history to cultural decolonization

(Wied-Neuwied 1989: 215-216). Wied collected reports from villagers about the Pataxó, and when
camping in the woods he heard the Pataxó’s whistling. While living for a good part of the journey
along these indigenous people, always present in local sounds and stories, he never saw or observed
their movements: "The Patachos certainly observed us from the dark hiding places, not without
fright and displeasure, and the hunters needed great caution not to be caught unaware. We have often
heard these aborigines imitate the voice of the owl, the capuceira, and other birds, especially noctur-
nal ones" (Wied-Neuwied 1989: 192).

From Wied-Neuwied's account of travelling up the Rio Jucuruçu and finding a Pataxó habitation
(Wied-Neuwied 1989: 208), as well as reports of sightings of individuals within a wide territorial
range, sometimes trading in villages and fishing in the area of Barra do Rio Cahy, it is possible to
believe that the Pataxó preferred inhabiting areas on the banks of the rivers and to make movements
between the hinterlands, the coast and the interfluves in the forest areas. Wied's face-to-face encoun-
ter with the Pataxó came only after a long walk along the coast between Caravelas and Belmonte in
the small town of Prado. It was an ephemeral meeting, quick and only visual – without an exchange
of words –, with the two Pataxó hunters who were there to trade with the villagers (Wied-Neuwied
1989: 214-216). Following his methodology derived from physical anthropology, in his notebook Wied
described the Pataxó’s physical attributes (ibid.). For Wied, the two Pataxó "savages" were good mer-
chants, they wanted, above all, knives and hatchets, and one very quickly acquired a red scarf and tied
it around his neck. The next day, Wied went up the Rio Jucuruçu towards the place inhabited by the
Pataxó, but did not find them. He described the pieces that he obtained as part of the material culture
and which he added to his collection.

An important ethnological record left by Wied concerns the relationship among the indigenous groups
in the region. According to him, the Pataxó maintained hostile relations with the Botocudo and friendly
exchange with other ethnic groups that inhabited these regions. The Maxakali were the people that
Maximilian observed for their affinity and resemblance to the Pataxó both in language and customs:
“The Patachos resemble in many points the Machacaris or Machacalis; the languages ​​have some affin-
ity, although they differ greatly in various aspects. It seems that both tribes united themselves against
the Botocudos [...]” (Wied-Neuwied 1989: 215).

According to Maria Rosário Gonçalves de Carvalho, on his journey back to Rio Grande Belmonte the
Prince met a Maxakali woman who understood the language of the Pataxó, and was impressed to see
160

the dialogue between the woman of the Maxakali people and some members of the Pataxó people: [a]
"very rare thing ; because being the last of the aboriginal tribes, the most distrustful and reserved, it is
difficult for a person who does not belong to the tribe to learn the language" (Carvalho 1977: 76-77).
Before this attribution of the Pataxó as savage, Wied seeks to categorize their “nature”, reflecting on
whether or not they practiced cannibalism, something he considered as a characteristic feature of the
savage tribes.

Publication of the “Travel[s]” in Brazil and the fate of Wied’s collection

The prince continued his journey to "the confines of the Captaincy of Minas Gerais" (Wied-Neuwied:
1989: 391). Then he returned, passing through Arraial da Conquista, Nazaré, finally arriving in the City
of Salvador of the Todos os Santos Bay, from where he left for Lisbon. On his return to Europe he was
carrying a young 11 or 12-year-old Botocudo, Guack (Quack, Gueck, Kuek), whom he had acquired as
a slave in Porto Seguro. On returning to Europe, the prince published his “Reise nach Brasilien in den
Jahren 1815 bis 1817” in 1820/1821; a publication thereafter translated into several languages (Costa​​
2008: 15). Between 1832 and 1834 he travelled through North America, also studying indigenous
groups. After his return from these journeys Wied continued living in Neuwied with his family and
worked as a scientist in the field of natural history and a publisher. He also studied the flora of his own
country. A part of his ethnographical collection came to the Linden-Museum via the count of Linden,
the founder of what would become the Linden-Museum.

Von Linden, a nobleman as well, was close to the Wied family and convinced them to give the objects
to the Stuttgart ethnographic collection in the year 1904. The reason for this donation was the 24th
International Congress of Americanists that took place in Stuttgart in that year. Wied’s “Naturalien-
kabinett”, the natural history collection had already been altered by himself. He had exchanged this
collection with many institutions, and parts of his collection have been preserved in many (different)
places, in universities and museums. After his death, what was left was also given to museums in New
York, Göttingen (University Museum) and Wiesbaden (Museum Wiesbaden, Art and Natural History)
in the year 1904.
Thiago Mota Cardoso, Raoni Pataxó, Nitinawã Pataxó, Kaiones Pataxó and Doris Kurella 161
The Pataxó facing Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied, 200 years after:
from natural history to cultural decolonization

Pataxó facing Wied – cultural decolonization

Travels in Brazil in Ethnology

The book “Travels in Brazil” is considered to be the first description of a meeting between the colonial
society and the so-called Pataxó population (Carvalho 1977; Dantas et al 1992). Wied went to meet
the Botocudo and on the way met with the Pataxó, in the quest to describe the nature and the savages
of the terra brasilis. It was a cursory encounter, as we have seen, and in Wied's description the Pataxó
as tapuia counterbalanced the European and colonial civilization as wild and primitive inhabitants of
the rainforest. It was through this matrix of thought that nineteenth-century naturalistic travellers con-
tributed to construct an image of the indigenous inhabitants in Brazil. Despite this way of observing
the indigenous peoples, Wied was a forerunner of modern ethnology by staying protractedly among
them (Botocudos), and his work ”Travels in Brazil” is the precursor of ethnological studies in Brazil.
Although it is the work of a zoologist, until the time of its publication, there had not yet been any other
writing with a description of a Brazilian tribe comparable to that of Wied (Baldus 1954: 12).

It took more than a century before other ethnological and linguistic studies on the Pataxó appeared. In par-
ticular, Wied's notes about the indigenous groups of the so-called Brazilian ethnographic East served as
important resources for further study and enabled ethnologists more than a century later to circumscribe
the so-called tapuias, such as the Botocudos, Pataxó, Maxakali and Camacãs as members of the linguistic
group Macro-Gê (Metraux and Nimuendaju 1946; Rodrigues 1986). It was especially the earlier study by
Loukotka that focused on the Pataxó language (Loukotka 1934). Based on the ninety terms of the Pataxó
vocabulary present in Wied’s book, Loukotka argues that the Pataxó people would already be extinct or
"denationalized" due to the impossibility of reconstituting their language. Also, under the influence of
Wied's text, in the 1940s, the ethnologist Curt Nimuendaju published the fabulous Ethno-Historical Map
of Brazil, situating the Indians in cultural and linguistic areas (Nimuendaju 1981).

The first more in-depth ethnological studies on the Pataxó were published only in the second half of
the twentieth century, under the auspices of the “Program for Research on Indigenous Peoples of the
Northeast of Brazil” (PINEB). In this context, important theses and articles on this population were
developed (Agostinho da Silva 1974, 1981; Carvalho 1977). Until then, the Pataxó were seen as an
extinct people. Under the influence of a theoretical perspective influenced by the theory of interethnic
contact and cultural change, the work of PINEB sought to reconstitute the history of the Pataxó people
162

through documents and oral history, tracing a history of contact marked by the work of missionaries,
police violence and deterritorialization. With the Wied-Neuwied text as the basis for affirming a past in
which the Pataxó lived in small groups, having a nomadic way of life in the forests, these texts came
to the conclusion that these indigenous groups had gone through a significant process of acculturation
in the relationship with the surrounding society. The sedentarization, the use of catholic rites and the
introduction of the Portuguese language would be marks of this transformation. Such theories cha-
racterize many of the contemporary writings on the Pataxó up to this point, but also exist as incipient
criticisms of about the idea of nomadic people and their acculturation (Cardoso 2016).

The Pataxó movement for “culture”

However, the Pataxó3 have recently come to deny both the idea of physical
​​ extinction and cultural loss
of their people. In the 1990s, a vigorous process of territorial and cultural reclaim began, with a strong
emphasis on political organization in the first case, and on the educational process and the training of
indigenous “culture” researchers, in the second case. “Cultural reclaiming”, a topic that interests us in
this article, refers to collective processes of reconstituting history, practices, knowledge, language and
Pataxó rites.

The Pataxó were “meeting” prince Maximilian zu Wied Neuwied via reading his masterpiece and they
began to inhabit his text and his images. Their encounter with the “Travels in Brazil” was an exercise
in “reverse anthropology” (Wagner 2016), where the Pataxó through reading its lines and observing the
images reflected in the paintings reversed the premises of the naturalist's work. While Wied went in se-
arch of describing nature, where the wild tapuia was living, as a way of constructing the “other” of the
Americas, antithesis of civilization, the Pataxó went to the books (“culture”), and then to the museum
(more “culture”), to decolonize the image that “the other” imposed on them (savage, nature), subverting
the dualism between nature and culture while asserting their cultural difference and singular existence
beyond the idea of loss.
​​ This means a re-encounter with Wied that would not cease to be an “eternal return 3
Pataxó is the ethnonym chosen by the
Amerindian collective that inhabits the region
of the encounter” (Krenak 1999), where the colonial world persists in the Amerindian world. of the extreme south of Bahia, to define itself
as a people. Such identity self-attribution
occurred in the second half of the century
By inhabiting Wied's work to “capture” the elements offered by the book, the Pataxó reinforce the and involved the association between various
exercise of “cultural” reclaim – in its linguistic, ritualistic and historical dimensions — something like Amerindian groups and families who lived in
dispersed places in the region in their effort to
a strategic essentialism (Spivak 1988) within interethnic arenas, but that is not limited to a political affirm their traditional territorial rights.
Thiago Mota Cardoso, Raoni Pataxó, Nitinawã Pataxó, Kaiones Pataxó and Doris Kurella 163
The Pataxó facing Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied, 200 years after:
from natural history to cultural decolonization

movement, as it is also ontological and epistemological. It is an exercise that does not constitute a re-
covery of something lost in the past – the Pataxó represented in Wied’s writing who inhabited ancient
times – but which would lie in the “otherness” of the Pataxó themselves, in another “distant” in time,
another one “there” in the new world. Through Wied they would be offered the possibility of produ-
cing "culture" (Cunha 2009), so that the Pataxó could distinguish themselves and inhabit their place
in the contemporary world. In other words, the use of Wied could be seen as an “exercise” in 'ethnic
purification', an apparent return to a 'primitive' and 'wild' world, but without implying an affirmation
of “natural man” and a historical continuity between the Pataxó of Wied’s paintings and texts, and the
present ones: Therefore it would mean the impossibility of "going backwards", but simply to continue a
process of transformation and multiplication and differentiation that has been done in the present time.

Linguistic reclaim

Today the Pataxó are speakers of a local Portuguese. As for the ancient language, it survived through
some words identified in speech, in songs and in the memory of the elders (Souza 2012). Challenging
the common sense that the Pataxó would no longer have an indigenous language and therefore could
already be considered acculturated, several young people began to get organized in the late nineties
and formed groups of research, documentation and language and culture teaching , with the premise of
understanding and reconstituting the Pataxó language in its cultural dynamics. This "new language",
reconstituted through vigorous processes of autonomous indigenous research, was baptized "Patxohã":
the language of the warrior.

The process of “reclaiming” or revitalizing the language was described by a Pataxó researcher, Anari
Braz B. de Souza, who wrote a master's thesis on this process. This Pataxó intellectual sets out to
describe and analyze the process of reclaiminig of the Pataxó language, in the sense of understanding
and identifying the meanings and beliefs attributed to the Patxohã language and the factors that move
the Pataxó researchers in this process of language reclaim. During her research, the author recognized
from the experiences and contributions of the elders and others who participated in the research that the
reclaiming of the language had acquired a wider meaning among the entire Pataxó people.

Souza defines the “reclaiming” as a dynamic, collective process that the Pataxó language has under-
gone throughout the history and life of its people for more than five hundred years (Souza 2012), a
164

process where "authors and autonomous subjects resume language from of their mobilizing practices”
(Souza 2014: 131). For the researcher this process of contemporary resurgence of the language is de-
scribed by the concept of inteiramento of the language. This term refers to complementing, adding and
increasing the repertoire. The construction of the Patxohã would be a second moment of continuous
inteiramento. It builds on an earlier one that had started in the 1930's when a Pataxó group met with
Maxakalis, performing linguistic, ritual and object exchanges.

This second moment of language inteiramento has been developed by the Pataxó Research Group
since 1999, which Souza is also part of. Such an indigenous research movement at first had no
academic bias and was not influenced or coordinated by linguists. It involved a reflection within a
collective of teachers and young cultural researchers interested in strengthening indigenous identity.
After a certain time, the initiative gained the support of the Pataxó Culture and Language Docu-
mentation Research Project, coordinated by Professor América César from the Federal University
of Bahia. Indigenous teachers like José Conceição Santana Braz (Itajá), Arawê Pataxó and Kanatyo
Pataxó, among other intellectuals, were central figures in this process forwarding the active role in
the search of reconstitution of the language and for being carriers of stories and skills in transmitting
knowledge, together with young people like Jerry Matalawê, Raoni Braz and Anari herself. From
this formation began a process of registration of ancient words in Pataxó together with the elders,
those of common use in the daily life of the communities and in the songs (Souza 2014). Today
this process is continued in indigenous schools, and, on a broader level, the Pataxó Language and
History Research Group (ATXOHÃ) was created, which is one of the many groups responsible for
the research that consolidated the Pataxó Cultural Inventory: traditions of the Pataxó people of the
extreme south of Bahia.

Fundamental in this process was the “meeting” of researchers with Wied's “Travels in Brazil”. The
reading of the book is considered unanimously among the Pataxó as one of the pillars of the process
of language reclaim. According to Souza,

“At that time, a teacher who worked in a village, showed me some material that she had. It was a
copy of the book of the prince Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied that contained a small inventory of
words that the author attributed to the Pataxó language. For me it was an important material, because
I did not know that there were old documents with registration of Pataxó language. So I began to
compare the vocabulary contained in that book with the words in Pataxó annotated in my notebook”.
 Thiago Mota Cardoso, Raoni Pataxó, Nitinawã Pataxó, Kaiones Pataxó and Doris Kurella 165
The Pataxó facing Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied, 200 years after:
from natural history to cultural decolonization

In the Portuguese version of the “Travels in Brazil”, we find the "Vocabulary Patacho" (appen-
dix) on page 510. This is a list of 90 words that Wied collected among the population inhabiting
the coastal zone, and specifically among those who had contact with the Pataxó. Inteiramento
therefore involved comparing and updating these vocabulary words in Wied with words used by
the older Pataxó, and with a language of the same family, the Maxacali 4. In this way, something
like a Patxohã dictionary was created with more than two thousand words, while at the same time
Pataxó researchers and intellectuals reconstituted whole phrases and meanings in this language.
This dictionary was included into the curriculum of the indigenous schools in almost all of the ca.
30 Pataxó villages.

Like Anari Souza, other indigenous researchers began to write about this process in university cour-
ses defending monographs and theses. For example, Conceição (2016) studied the Pataxó linguistic
variation while Santana (2016) studied the Pataxó chants in the reconstructed language. Santana’s
work is a synthesis on the transformations of traditional Pataxó chants over time, specially after the
study and revitalization process of the language, characterizing the perspective of recording and
showing the diversity of the songs of the Pataxó people.

Transformation of Music and Ritual

Music was the central vector in the process of linguistic revival. One of the ways to proliferate
the movement of revitalization (retomada) was the creation and writing of songs in the language
Patxohã and its insertion in the Pataxó rituals. Music, articulated via the reconstitution of ritual
practices such as the Awê — considered to be a ritual of strength, unity, joy, spirituality and above
all conquest – and the use of adornments and body paintings have played into creating the totality of
what many young Pataxó people have come to call "culture". Now, it is the task of teachers of “cul-
ture” — a category recognized by the Pataxó and the Brazilian state — to teach this entire cultural
process to the younger generation. Here is an example of a Pataxó song in Patxohã:
4
For the Pataxó, there is a close bond
between them and the Maxakali people,
something that would be possible to perceive
in the similar language sounds and mean-
ings, as well as in the customs, some rituals,
place names in the landscape and old stories
of coexistence between these two peoples.
166
Pataxó Muká, Mukaú
Muká, Mukaú
Pataxó Mayõ Werimehe
Mayõ, Werimehe
Hetõ, Hetõ, Hetõ Pataxó
Kotê Kawi Suniatá Heruê
Heruê-Hê-Hê – Heruê, Heruê
And another song:
Patioba, arnã mehexó paxixá nokoxi
Uhitué areneá arẽgá sũniatá hamiá bayxú
Haptxôy txuhap ayẽ bugaú muricí
Aymag fappet dxahá amix koxuk noytxanatxá
Ãgwi patioba ãgwi tokerê dxê anehô agwi
Armonẽ mê’á kigeme katubayá
Heruê heruê heruê heruá (2x)
Fig. 1: Picture of a Pataxó hut by
Wied. Courtesy Brasilien-Bibliothek
der Robert Bosch GmbH, Stuttgart.
Fig. 2: Picture of Pataxó Indians by
Wied. Courtesy Brasilien-Bibliothek
der Robert Bosch GmbH, Stuttgart.
Translation:
Pataxó unite, reunite, unite, reunite
Pataxó light of love, light of love
I love you, I love you, I love you Pataxó
Drink cauim (traditional manioc drink)
and sing awê
Awê-he-he-awê, awê.
Translation:
Patioba, I arrived, I'm going to enter, happy
Jump, play, dance, beautiful
Then let's settle down, quiet
Take books to write, draw, paint
Swing, this is the house of the caipora
(inhabitant of the forest).
 Thiago Mota Cardoso, Raoni Pataxó, Nitinawã Pataxó, Kaiones Pataxó and Doris Kurella 167
The Pataxó facing Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied, 200 years after:
from natural history to cultural decolonization

2
168

3
 Thiago Mota Cardoso, Raoni Pataxó, Nitinawã Pataxó, Kaiones Pataxó and Doris Kurella 169
The Pataxó facing Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied, 200 years after:
from natural history to cultural decolonization

Fig. 3: Awe ritual in Barra Velha

village, April 2014.

Fig. 4: Haircut as in Wied’s paintings.

Barra Velha village, April 2014.

4
170

The awê ritual is considered a practice of the ancestors. Awê stands for a varied set of chants and cho-
reographies closely related to the process of cultural reclaiming and the affirmation of identity in the
interethnic arenas, which was strengthened and taken to the public arena most probably in the 1960s,
when the Pataxó began to have contact with the official indigenous agency of the Brazilian govern-
ment 5. Articulated with awê the Pataxó perform rituals like the samba of chulas, or articulate both to
have access to the saints, enchanted spirits or the dead, composing an afro-indigenous and catholic
mosaic of ritual practices. At certain times, drinks such as cauim and, sometimes, aluá, a fermented
drink made by cassava or fruit peels such as pineapple, among others, are offered along with seafood
(fish, crabs, sea urchin).

Between 2014 and 2015, the Pataxó began to reconstitute the ritual of the full moon in the village Barra
Velha. Such events, once more focused on the external public and visitors (tourists, government agents,
politicians, other ethnicities) became part of an internal calendar and instituted new roles and divisions in
the village. The awês of the full moon were organized by the local indigenous school's culture teachers
and members of the Culture Groups. Painted with urucum (Bixa orellana) and genipapo (Genipa ame-
ricana), with body adornments and headdresses, the awê was held in the moonlight night with women,
men and children performing the rhythms of marakás, strong footsteps on the floor and singing aloud.

In order to reinforce the indigenousness of the ritual the young Pataxó introduced, in the rituals of full
moon, indigenous attributes present in the engravings drawn by Wied in his book “Travels in Brazil”.
The idea was to carry out a process of "primitivization" of “culture”, that is, a return of the Pataxó to a
stage of cultural purity free from the influences of the "whites". Such a transformation, or inteiramento,
would occur through incorporating elements "of the ancients" present in the work of Wied (here treated
as memory of an earlier time), in their bodies and in the environment. The images used are the only two
which Wied drew throughout his journey between Caravelas and Belmonte and in which the Pataxó
are depicted: the picture of the Pataxó hut (Löschner et al 2001: 200; see fig. 1) and the picture of the
Pataxó Indians (Löschner et al. 2001: 189; fig. 2). The image of the hut inspired the construction of
dwellings by the Pataxó with the same design as the one painted by Wied. One of these huts was built
in the Jaqueira Reserve village, in the middle of the forest, and is part of an itinerary of ethno-tourism,
where tourists guided by the Pataxó are urged to understand the ancient history and the history of
contact with the foreigners. Another hut of this type was built during a full moon ritual in the village
of Barra Velha in May 2014. During the ritual, some beings of the Pataxó cosmogony left the hut and
introduced themselves to the public. 5
Serviço de Proteção ao Índio-SPI.
 Thiago Mota Cardoso, Raoni Pataxó, Nitinawã Pataxó, Kaiones Pataxó and Doris Kurella 171
The Pataxó facing Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied, 200 years after:
from natural history to cultural decolonization

Wied's image of the two Pataxó together, one crouching with a hatchet and another standing with bows
and arrows, adorned with a small ball and with a singular haircut, inspired a group of Pataxó youth to
a full moon night, in front of the sea, in the village of Barra Velha in April 2014. In the middle of an
awê, young men gathered for a haircut that would lead them to have the body of “pure Indians” from
ancient times – decolonized bodies (fig. 3). The next day, on the celebration of Indian Day in Brazil
(April 19) there was a great awê ritual where the Pataxó performed songs and dances and continued
with the haircutting, now in front of the whole community and the external public. The ritual was fina-
lized with the haircut of the leader of the village of Barra Velha and the Capuchin priest responsible for
the church in the village (fig. 4). The political Pataxó leadership and the church were indigenized in this
ritual process in terms of "culturalist Indianism" under the influence of the young.

The ritual action of the Pataxó attaching objects to their bodies and resuming habitation habits through
appropriation of Wied’s pictures, is nevertheless a way of updating history, of bringing into the present
the possibility of being "primitive", a contemporary primitivism that affirms and confirms that indi-
genousness is not lost, with the possibility of becoming, at the same time, "wild Indian" and "Catholic
Indian", and of inhabiting various bodies-worlds.

Dwelling histories

A film6 has been produced by the Pataxó in the Jaqueira Reserve village, with indigenous actors based
on stories told by an old woman about the meetings between the Pataxó and other indigenous groups,
and on scenes inspired by Wied's pictures: the painting of the scene of the struggle between Botocudos
and Pataxós (Löschner et al. 2001: 115, fig. 5). It starts by showing the back of an indigenous child
walking through the landscape. The scene is cut off and a group of painted and ornate men enters,
carrying bows-and-arrows. They are Botocudos, talking among themselves in Patxohã. Another scene
begins in a Pataxó village, where women and children play and amuse themselves in front of a dwelling
built in the style of the image painted by Wied. This is followed by the incursion of the Botocudos,
showing scenes of kidnapping of women and murder, and then followed by the revenge of the Pataxó
and a war between the two groups of men.

6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?-
The re-encounter with Wied, as staged in the Jaqueira Reserve, allowed the Pataxó to strategically in-
v=AfxYQWixVT8. habit the historiographical schemes of naturalists and anthropologists, without abandoning their ways
172

Fig. 5: Wied’s painting of the scene
of the struggle between Botocudos
and Pataxós. Courtesy Brasilien-
Bibliothek der Robert Bosch GmbH,
Stuttgart.
Thiago Mota Cardoso, Raoni Pataxó, Nitinawã Pataxó, Kaiones Pataxó and Doris Kurella 173
The Pataxó facing Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied, 200 years after:
from natural history to cultural decolonization
of historicizing, i. e. to understand and live the time, thus expanding the possibilities of standing in
front of the other through strategic uses of history. Through excerpts from the book “Travels in Brazil”
and its pictures, the Pataxó began to adopt in the first person (us) the discourse that the Pataxó way of
life in the past was nomadic and that they lived in the forest in small groups walking through a whole
territory between the states of Espírito Santo and Bahia – despite the controversies surrounding this
statement. At the same time they reaffirmed old certainties, that they have cultural, linguistic and affini-
ty ties with other indigenous peoples of the East such as the Maxakali. All this historical discursiveness
is present in books and academic monographs written by the Pataxó today.
A good example is the excerpt from a book made by the Pataxó Ecotourism Association, from the Jaqueira
village Reserve, in which the authors affirm that "we always walked from one place to another because
we were nomads" (Aspectur 2011: 17), and they continue by stating that “we occupied an area from the
rivers of Porto Seguro in the extreme south of Bahia until the river São Mateus in the north of Espírito
Santo. This region was also inhabited by groups like Amixocori, Kumanaxo, Kutaxó, Kutatai, Maxakali,
Malali, Macani, besides Botocudos and Kamacãs. We always existed but the travellers only discovered us
from the nineteenth century" (ibid.). On the proximity to the Maxakali, the text points out that "according
to Wied, there was a similarity of language and customs among the Indians of the region, the Pataxó lan-
guage and Maxakali had many similar words" (Aspectur 2011: 18). Through the excerpts from the book
in which Wied describes the Pataxó as wild and brave Indians, as well as a people composed of warriors
who knew how to defend themselves, the Pataxó affirmed that "Pataxó had always been a warlike people,
skilled with arrows " (ibid.), which is also described in other publications (Uma história de resistência Pa-
taxó, 2007; Leituras Pataxó, 2005). This was a time when the Pataxó lived free, could walk across a vast
territory, live among forests and rivers that were always clean and rich in animals and fish. The forest was
their home in a land where fences and divisions were not part of the landscape: A time of abundance and
freedom, something remarkable in the Pataxó discourse, and that began to erode at the moment of contact.
Traveling through the village of Prado, Wied-Neuwied reports that he witnessed a moment when a group
of Pataxó arrived in this same village to exchange products with the residents. It was the first and only
time that the traveller was able to have face-to-face contact with the Pataxó. In the book he described that
the Pataxó "brought large balls of wax to sell", and that he himself "had gotten bows and arrows in ex-
change for knives and red scarves" (Wied-Neuwied 1989: 214). Earlier, on the pages related to Alcobaça,
Wied reports how he realized that both the Pataxó and the Maxacali "peacefully visited the homes of the
whites, sometimes offering wax or game in exchange for other products" (Wied-Neuwied 1989: 212).
174

When he passed Cramimoã, today Caraíva, he learned that the locals, also indigenous people, exchanged
products for bows from Pataxó that came from the forests. Such descriptions enhanced the understanding
of the Pataxós' relationship with the Maxakali by recognizing the ancient ties of kinship, affinity, and
friendship among these ethnic groups. This connection has also been affirmed by anthropology and his-
tory (Carvalho1977, Paraíso 1998), and by Pataxó researchers like Leandro Santos, an indigenous intel-
lectual from the village of Barra Velha, who also used Wied to reinforce this argument (Santos 2017: 14).

Museum as contact zone: following material culture

The Pataxó Project of Material Culture at the Museu do Índio

In 2014 the Museu do Índio in Rio de Janeiro, an institution linked to the National Indian Foundation
(FUNAI), the Brazilian agency responsible for dealing with indigenous rights in Brazil, selected proj-
ects with a focus on Documentation of Indigenous Languages ​​and Cultures (PRODOCULT project).
The Pataxó project, under PRODOCULT, which was carried out from 2013 to 2015, aimed to develop
museological documentation, ethnographic research, workshops for qualification of existing collec-
tions and the creation of contemporary collections for the safeguarding and dissemination of material
culture and knowledge related to the production of artifacts by the Pataxó people.

The activities which were planned and carried out included research and work with collections in ethno-
graphic museums, in particular with the ethnographic collection of the indigenous ethnicity in the Museu
do Índio, with focus on the description of the pieces; the promotion of workshops for the production of ar-
tifacts, including the participation of artisans in order to replicate the knowledge generated in the qualifi-
cation workshop of the collection; through the practice of producing objects, the formation of collections
and supervision of their incorporation into the collection of the Museu do Índio in an ethnographically and
museologically qualified way; and finally, the outline for a concept of museographic and photographic
exhibitions, as well as catalogues and the photographic and film record of the "cultural assets studied".

Bibliographical research on the subject of material culture among the Pataxó has pointed to academic
voids in the anthropological and archaeological research on this people. The main studies only touch the
theme superficially, describing some items of material culture related to their functions: to economic-­
ecological aspects, nutrition, ethnobotany and, rarely, rituals (Carvalho 1977). We believe that the greatest
Thiago Mota Cardoso, Raoni Pataxó, Nitinawã Pataxó, Kaiones Pataxó and Doris Kurella 175
The Pataxó facing Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied, 200 years after:
from natural history to cultural decolonization

efforts to register the material culture come from initiatives of the Pataxó themselves, through monograph-
ic writings of indigenous students in undergraduate programs (Santos 2012) — in intercultural degrees in
general — and postgraduate studies (Bonfim dos Santos 2012 ) and in books published as a way of valuing
the Pataxó "culture". Recently, about 30 Pataxó students from Barra Velha finished the Indigenous Studies
graduate program at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, with monographs on topics such as cosmolo-
gy, technology, territory, and including material as well as immaterial culture – the latter subject has been
elaborated by Kaiones Santos, researcher of the project (Santos 2013) and co-author of this article.

One of the foci of the ethnographic work in PRODOCULT was to carry out a documentation process
aiming to safeguard the material and immaterial heritage of this people, working with a notion not
based on loss, but with a consequent museological agenda towards the rescue of “culture”. To under-
stand the conception of Pataxó “culture”, the objects are being considered part of everyday life and of
value for the group, as well as the knowledge systems associated with them. The project, therefore, was
carried out along the path already opened by the processes of cultural reinvention seeking not only to
resist the "homogenizing" processes of globalization, but to actively recreate the Pataxó patrimony of
knowledge and practice. In addition to linguistic, musical-ritualistic and historical dimensions, it also
focuses on the collections of objects and associated knowledge.

To that objective, we rely on theoretical-methodological approaches of contemporary studies on mate-

rial culture, which seek not only to describe the forms, functions and uses of artifacts, but which also
analyze how things are entangled, or intertwined by multiple relationships, being agents and not only
objects (Tilley 2004): How do things constitute people and how are people constituted by them (Ingold
2013)? At the same time, this process or set of activities, took place through the active interconnection
between and with indigenous researchers in the entire process, through shared ethnography, creating
symmetric relations between the anthropologist and indigenous researchers. Thus, the actors involved in
the research expressed themselves in a formative-practical process that considered the ethnography and
documentation process (audiovisual and textual) as the privileged way of recording the studied material
and associated knowledge.

The indigenous researchers participated in the whole process, formulating the proposal, performing the
ethnographic research and helping in the argumentation and translation of the importance of the research
for the Pataxó people, both culturally and economically. The leaders of the Pataxó legitimized the roles
assigned to them. It was up to the researchers to define the thematic focus of the ethnographic and mu-
176

seological study: ancient places/mythical narratives; seed and wood art; artifacts used in production (bas-
kets, sieves, traps); ritual objects; food techniques/plants. At the same time, in meetings, the participating
researchers identified those elements of the "material Pataxó culture" with potential for further research.
These encounters involved joint reflections on the multiple ways the Pataxó deal with the concepts of
"culture", "materiality" and "heritage", a fundamental debate in the field of studies on material culture in
anthropology and for the Pataxó.

One of the great goals of the project was to map and describe objects of Pataxó material culture present
in national and international ethnological museums. The research in the museums would consist of the
description of the objects or audio-visual presentations found, with initial record of form and function, as
well as the context of use of the objects. There were few, if any, references to systematized and organized
collections of Pataxó "material culture" in Brazilian museums. It should be noted that the Pataxó have
been studied more recently and that much of the production of/on "material culture" comes from the con-
temporary production of artisans and indigenous researchers. It is important to note that even with a sig-
nificant advance of anthropological and archaeological research in the State of Bahia, little attention has
been given to the systematic record of the material culture of the indigenous peoples who inhabited and
inhabit the region. In the introduction of a project prepared by PINEB researchers, called "Pataxó Collec-
tions" (Carvalho and Barcelos Neto 1999), the anthropologists go so far as to state that: "Of the present
14 Bahian indigenous groups, there is not even a single collection of material culture, systematically or
extensively documented, collected by the cultural and scientific institutions of the State". The absence of
collections in the various museums and research centres in Bahia extends to practically all museums and
research centres in Brazil, except for the Museu do Índio, which has registered a few pieces obtained in
a non-systematized way.

Following the paths indicated by Schumann and Hartmann (1992) and Carvalho and Barcelos Neto
(1999), we conducted informal consultations with the Linden-Museum in Stuttgart and the Museum of
Ethnology in Berlin. We knew that there were ethnological collections of the naturalist Maximilian zu
Wied-Neuwied gathered in these museums that perhaps could represent a small memory of the nineteenth
century about the Pataxó. The Linden-Museum responded through Dr. Doris Kurella, who is responsible
for the Latin American collections. The answer confirmed the existence of Pataxó objects. The pieces
were photographed and the photographs sent by e-mail. These pieces apparently had not been properly
described, which motivated the organization of a trip to this museum, along with a Pataxó group, in order
to study the respective artifacts.
Thiago Mota Cardoso, Raoni Pataxó, Nitinawã Pataxó, Kaiones Pataxó and Doris Kurella 177
The Pataxó facing Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied, 200 years after:
from natural history to cultural decolonization

First trip to the Linden-Museum Stuttgart

A first, trip to the Linden-Museum in Stuttgart, Germany, took place on April 29 and 30, 2015. For this
meeting, only the anthropologist coordinator of the project, Dr. Thiago Mota Cardoso, was present,
and was received by Dr. Doris Kurella. The visit was supported and arranged through the Museu do
Índio and had as objective to study and to qualify Wied’s ethnological collection preserved in the Lin-
den-Museum’s Latin American Department’s collection.

During this visit, both also had a productive meeting with Dr. Christian Feest, a renowned museologist
and anthropologist who for decades has been studying the material culture of indigenous peoples in North
America, with a special focus on Wied's works. We had communicated with him beforehand to cooper-
ate regarding the South American pieces of the Wied collection. Dr. Feest knew a document from 1904
listing the pieces that were donated to the Linden-Museum and which were owned by the Württemberg
Crown (Krongut). During our investigation of the Pataxó material, we discovered that some of the pieces
on the list that are in the museum relate to the pictures drawn by the naturalist. Of the 29 objects in the
Wied collection listed in 1904 and that were handed over to the museum, only 19 are designated as "Pa-
taxó": 6 bows and arrows of which only one arrow appears to have survived. The 7 tukum bags presented
problems because the 1904 list mentioned only 5 of them as Pataxó. They were counted in this way, as
Feest argued, because they looked similar, but they did not enter the catalogue. The list from 1904 only
describes them as objects from “South America”; the identification "Pataxó" is a later addition to the
inventory of a "different hand", perhaps based on the illustration in Wied's book, Feest told us. The piece
"enchantment of the hunter" is also only designated as originating from “South America” in the list from
1904; the ethnonym "Pataxó" is, again, a later addition in the catalogue. The two similar items of "crown
ownership" did not have proper identification of their ethnic origin. The catalogue presents another bow
as "Pataxó", but the 1904 list describes it as coming from "South America"; perhaps it comes from the
Pataxó. The arrow, which on its axis is inscribed "patachos" was catalogued as "Botocudos" and also ap-
pears as "Botocudos" in the 1904 list. It is possible that it has been catalogued incorrectly at some point.

We concluded that in museological terms we had some very problematic material regarding its origin,
and with a few pieces which obviously came directly from the hands of the Pataxó. It should be noted
that many pieces of the collection were lost during the last century because of the two World Wars,
which is a pity. The ones that still exist have great historical value for the Pataxó, even more so because
they have been documented in Wied’s drawings.
178

Fig. 6: A Pataxó bag in the Wied

Collection at the Linden-Museum
Stuttgart. Foto: Linden-Museum.

Fig. 7: A Pataxó ritual and hunter

artefact in the Wied Collection
at the Linden-Museum Stuttgart.
Foto: Linden-Museum.

7
Thiago Mota Cardoso, Raoni Pataxó, Nitinawã Pataxó, Kaiones Pataxó and Doris Kurella 179
The Pataxó facing Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied, 200 years after:
from natural history to cultural decolonization

Two Pataxó meet Wied — second trip to the Linden-Museum

With the return of Dr. Mota Cardoso to Brazil, photographs of the pieces found in Stuttgart were shown
to elders and teachers of culture in the Barra Velha and Jaqueira villages. All were fascinated with the
pieces, but expressing greater interest in their aesthetic dimensions than in the historical or museologi-
cal point of view. They were attracted by the possibility of seeing those pieces and understanding them,
so that, through the encounter with these objects, they could re-make and re-create them, use them and
incorporate them into the set of Pataxó body artifacts. Far from thinking of these things as a mark of the
past, the Pataxó who saw the pictures apparently transmitted an interest in the process of reactivation of
the present through continuous corporal differentiation as well as to be able to give more authenticity
to the set of objects of today’s production.

Taking into perspective the continuity of the research work on the Pataxó material culture, the team of re-
searchers contacted the Linden-Museum again, in order to seek support for a visit of a Pataxó committee to
the museum to have a first contact with the Pataxó objects there. It would be an occasion to know and qual-
ify the existing pieces in the storage, and reflect on the future relationship with these objects. The director
of the museum, Prof. Dr. Inés de Castro, and the specialist in Latin America, Dr. Doris Kurella – responded
positively to this request, and the visit was realized in 2017 with funding from the Linden-Museum. This
provided a continuation of a collaborative ethnographic work together with the Pataxó on their material
culture, carried out within the framework of the Cultural Documentation Project of the Documentation
Program for Indigenous Languages and ​​ Cultures coordinated by the Museu do Índio in Rio de Janeiro.

A committee of the indigenous Pataxó people, made up of Raoni and Nitinawã, accompanied by the
anthropologist Thiago Mota Cardoso, visited the Linden-Museum in Stuttgart from September 24 to
October 2, 2017. Besides the study of the collection of Pataxó pieces found in the collection, the
Robert Bosch Brasiliana Library was also visited, to access the Wied’s original manuscripts and paint-
ings, as well as the editions of the book “Travels in Brazil” and other notes.

Raoni and Nitinawã were able to study pieces previously inaccessible to the Pataxó and compare them
with their current practices and those of other peoples with whom they have a close relationship, such
as the Maxakali. In the dialogues between Raoni and Nitinawã held in the Linden-Museum the prox-
imity of the Pataxó to the Maxakali was emphasized by means of careful material and technological
analysis of the pieces acquired by Wied. According to Nitinawã, "it was a meeting with the relatives of
180

the past to address the present, where we seek to strengthen our culture and our identity". According to
her, the first encounter with the objects in the museum's storage was surrounded by bodily sensations
"it was as if the spirit of the ancients was here ... it is very strong and I feel it all in the body". For Raoni,
the encounter with the material of the ancestors was very emotional. It shows “how the Pataxó were a
warrior people who persisted during the colonization –if the naturalist met the two Pataxó two hundred
years ago, now two of us are here in Germany in his encounter to tell our history, that we are alive. This
moment is an important form of decolonization for our people", he said.

Conclusions

It is uncertain what the Pataxós’ next steps are in their process of “cultural” reclaim. In this respect,
the contact zone can be very important to establish relations. By inhabiting the world of Wied, if only
for a moment, the Pataxó were able to extract important materials for this process of weaving paths for
differentiation of bodies, rituals and ways of life from the work of the naturalist. Paradoxically, this
occurred in the context of working with material derived from colonial extraction – that of the Pataxó
image — for the construction of another image — that of the savage Indians.

Wied, in a way, has contributed to the construction of the image of the Indians of the Brazilian East
as “savages”, as people who would not have territorial rights or a differentiated identity. By coloniz-
ing Wied's work to decolonize their world, the Pataxó open many possibilities for us to understand
indigenous history, and activism with its process of contact of the colonial project to to continue their
striving for affirming difference and identity.

Acknowledgements

We thank the Museu do Índio of Rio de Janeiro through Dr. Chang Whan for institutional and financial
support and the Linden-Museum on behalf of the director Dr. Inés de Castro and Dr. Doris Kurella for the
research grant and access to the collection. Thanks to the Postgraduate Program of Anthropology at the
Federal University of Bahia for the PNPD/CAPES fellowship. We thank Maria do Rosário Carvalho from
PINEB for the support and Majbritt Meincke for revision and translation.
 Thiago Mota Cardoso, Raoni Pataxó, Nitinawã Pataxó, Kaiones Pataxó and Doris Kurella 181
The Pataxó facing Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied, 200 years after:
from natural history to cultural decolonization

Fig. 8: Raoni and Nitinawã studying

the Pataxó pieces at the Linden-
Museum Stuttgart. Foto: Thiago Mota
Cardoso.
182
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Agostinho, Pedro: Bases para o estabelecimento
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