The Center for Amerindian Studies invites you to:
CEstA Duo with Nian Pissolati Lopes (Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Anthropology at FFLCH/PNPD/Capes Scholarship) and João Kelmer (Fapesp Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Anthropology at FFLCH)
Nian Pissolati Lopes: The Sounds and the Others: Reflections on the Verbal Art of the Nadëb People (Upper Uneiuxi River, Northwest Amazon)
The Nadëb people inhabit the interfluve of the Negro and Japurá rivers in the Northwest Amazon of Brazil, and their language belongs to the Naduhup linguistic family, which also includes Dâw, Hupd’äh, and Yuhupdeh. In the specialized literature, the peoples who speak these languages are generally characterized by high spatial mobility and by having lived, until recently, mainly in headwater regions of streams in the interior of the forest. In this presentation, I showcase some translations of songs and blessings carried out in partnership with Nadëb teachers and specialists, based on the repertoire I recorded in field research between 2016 and 2019 in the Upper Uneiuxi River (AM). I then propose a reflection on the sound regime and the Nadëb verbal art and its role in the system of interspecific relations in everyday and ritual moments and spaces. The discussion also considers the alliances created with other human groups. I also offer brief considerations on elements present in this repertoire in light of observable aspects in the Rio Negro shamanic verbal art.
João Kelmer: Why do Boe (Bororo) singers cry? Mourning, time and nostalgia in a Central Brazilian funeral ritual
During the singing performances in Boe funeral ceremonies, it is common to see the singers shedding tears. What awakens their grief, they explain, is not the most recent death, but the memory of deceased singers who, in other times, chanted these same words. Their voices and maracas evoke the presence of others, but only to deny it. This rupture with their masters, in turn, amplifies into a more encompassing feeling of “cultural” loss. Taking the songs and laments as a guiding thread, this presentation explores three temporal dimensions of these ritual performances and the constitution of the Boe chief-singers: the biographical, the intergenerational, and the metacultural or “historical.” Thus, it seeks to show how a ritual focused on elaborating generational rupture and loss makes these images a model for thinking about the collective past, present, and future—a mechanism that converts grief into nostalgia. Finally, I argue that these images of time do not express a passive and contemplative pessimism, but rather an active form of nostalgia that transforms people in the present and constitutes the very force that propels ritual life toward the future.
Nian Pissolati Lopes holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the Postgraduate Program in Social Anthropology at the National Museum, UFRJ (2023), a Master's degree in Anthropology from UFMG (2023), and a Bachelor's degree in Social Communication from UFMG. Currently, she is conducting postdoctoral research in the Department of Anthropology at USP. Since 2016, she has been researching the Nadëb people, who live in the Northwest Amazon region of Brazil, focusing on shamanism, verbal art, territoriality, and mobility. She has worked on projects with the Nadëb related to territorial management, such as the development of Territorial and Environmental Management Plans for the Uneiuxi Indigenous Territory and the Paraná do Boá-Boá Indigenous Territory, and on cultural safeguarding projects. She is a member of the Collective for Support of the Yuhup-Hup-Dâw-Nadëb Peoples (CAPYHDN). She has experience in the areas of indigenous ethnology, anthropology of image, audiovisual and photographic production.
João Kelmer is an anthropologist, with a master's degree from the National Museum of UFRJ and a doctorate in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge. Currently, he is a FAPESP postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Anthropology at USP. Since 2020, he has been conducting ethnographic research with the Boe (Bororo) people in the Tadarimana Indigenous Territory, in Mato Grosso, investigating the relationships between mourning, time, and historicity.
November 14, 2025, at 5:30 PM
CEstA Headquarters: Rua do Anfiteatro, 181, Colmeia - Favo 8
University City, São Paulo-SP
Free admission, subject to space limitations
No registration required