Confrontando mundos: os Xerente, Xavante, Xakriabá e Akroá e os contatoscom os conquistadores da Capitania de Goiás (1749-1851)

Abstract

This work discusses how, from 1749 to 1851, the indigenous groups of the Akroá, Xakriabá, Xerente and Xavante in the Captaincy of Goiás created new cultural and ethnic connections as a result of contact with Luso-Brazilian colonial explorers. Each of these groups devised their own contextual interpretationsof the experiental process, which raises the questions of how culturally similar groups havediffered in their interactions with non indigenous groups. It is not in fact an ethnohistorical work, but makes use of official documents, travel registers and the books of chroniclers to research, from an ethnological perspective, the role of indigenous groups as sociopolitical agents from a rich cultural heritage, who have found various means of interacting with the Luso-Brazilians. It focusses on the struggle of indigenous groups to develop methods of living with the Luso Brazilian explorers, by making adjustments to theirinternal cultural structure in order to confront new interactions. It examines how the indigenous groups had to restructure in order to face the new situation and to function within it. Furthermore it asserts that the indigenous groups were not always the losers in their dealings with the new settlements; at times an negotiated equilibrium was reached between the opposing forces. The result depended on an exchange of forces between those involved, and can be seen to have been affected but the cultural influences of each ethnicgroup.