Musicalidade e ambientalismo na redescoberta do Eldorado e Caraíba: uma Antropologia do encontro Raoni-Sting

Abstract

ln 1989, Raoni, Chief of the Txukahamae Indians of Brazil, and the rock star Sting traveled to Europe to raise funds for the protection of Indian rights in the Amazon. Thereafter, Raoni appeared in concerts with Sting and other popular music celebrities. ln this context, music appears as the signifier of a language that has in environmentalism its meanings. Ethically, thes encounters problematized the authenticity of their participants, while politically they raised the question of national sove reignty in the Amazon. This picture will be exarnined as an encounler between two socio-cultural uni erses through music; the capitalist Western nation/states and the Xinguano- Txukahainae. In the former, popular music will be exarnined as the codifier of individualist-universalist ideology. in the second, music will be seen as linked to politics. An analysis of Raoni's shamanic status will provide evidence of this Xinguano pertinence. The paper intends to contribute to the ethnography of the colonial encounter, seeing contradiction as its basic rationale.