Religião e Cultura dos Koripako sob a mira de Católicos e Protestantes na Amazônia Brasileira

Abstract

War has been a recurring practice against indigenous peoples since colonial times, targeted by Catholics, Protestants, and the military as an expansionist practice of Christianity in the Amazon. The situation has been no different for the Kori pako/Baniwa of the Arawak linguistic family, located in the Rio Negro/Içana region on the Brazil/Colombia/Venezuela border. It is in the Rio Negro/Alto Içana region, the traditional territory of the Kori-pako, that we conduct our research, motivated by various sources and strategies to discuss, analyze, and understand the process of Christianization of this native people, inserted within the power field of Catholic/Salesian and Protestant/New Tribes Missions, starting in 1950, when religious fronts vied for control and dominance in the conversion of the Arawak people in the municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, in the state of Amazonas. The work is structured in four chapters, the first being - History of contact and interethnic relations as the social genesis of habitus; second - Religious conversion and cultural transformations; third - Protagonism and management of the religious field; fourth - Indigenous movement and the maintenance of Aruak unity, plus the Conclusion. In this minefield of diffuse interests among the agents circulating in the region – rubber tappers, river traders, gold miners, missionaries, military personnel, among others – a specific focus was placed on the impacts of productive and social relations related to missionary actions, culture, and religiosity of the Koripako/Aruak people. We used our theoretical and methodological tools to clarify the interpretation, understanding, and explanation of the problem's complexity, politically empowering the Koripako/Baniwa Indigenous Movement to perhaps overcome the associative fragmentation instituted by NGOs and churches of various denominations scattered throughout the Içana River region. The purpose was to discuss and define a unified agenda favorable to holding a multi-national border plenary that would sustain the unity of the Aruak people in northwestern Amazonas, at the tri-border area. The analysis examines the Indigenous Movement and the model of associativism in vogue in the Rio Negro region, spearheaded by the Socio-environmental Institute.