Lost and found the tupinambá of yesterday and today

Abstract

This study consists of two parts. In the first, there is a Reading of the research carried out by the Young Florestan Fernandes on the Tupinambá people, their social organization and the function of war. The exhaustive work of the master of sociology sought in the records of the chroniclers for elements that would allow him to reconstruct the life of the lost Tupinambá. The collection of documents, crossing of information present in them and a great effort of sociological imagination resulted in a very rich landscape that went beyond the perplexed look filter with the radically different from European travelers. They viewed the practice of peoples as a more or less demonic anomaly. And, certainly, the notes of these early Europeans served as a basis for conforming a discourse on the savage that’s been settled in common sense and was part of the justification for invasion and colonization. In the second part, there is an analysis of the struggle and self-reflection of the Tupinambá de Olivença, in the South of Bahia state, who remained in part of the ancestral territory and have been land reclamations. Chief Babau presents a world perspective, a speech on the Brazilian history and a critical observation of the current capitalist world. The Tupinambá findings indicate possibilities for a social organization that would be at the root of the struggles of the Brazilian people.