Mito e cultura na narrativa etnográfica

Abstract

Who is the one that observes and narrates the life of another mode? Is this one so different from each other, even getting roots so close? The anthropological and ethnographic narrative fiction, such as Nine Nights, by Bernardo Carvalho and The Speaker, by Mario Vargas Llosa, portray different perceptions of the imaginary character of urban, in contact with indigenous societies. While The Speaker presents a jewish resident in Peru who renounces familiar religious heritage and adopts the indian belief, of the Machiguengas, whose worldview is based on myths as the only viable means of living in society, Nine Nights presents a brasilian narrator that collides with the customs of the nation Krahô, Mato Grosso, which is observed by him during the whole period of coexistence and interaction. It is from these two literary perspective which takes place the following analysis about the myths, culture and the non-indigenous narrator‟s view in contact with native peoples. Through literary theoretical and anthropological texts, such as the studies of Diana Klinger and Maria José de Queiroz, we‟ll try to reveal their encounters, misunderstandings and cultural encounters present in the same universe: the Latin-American modern and contemporary, post-colonized and underdeveloped in search of their own identity and discovering on your own culture sometimes its reference, sometimes the reason of their status of former colony. Which narrator is the one that comes out of its urban context and culturally influenced by the disparate ideas and gets entangled in the native forest in search of a contact with a civilization apparently so different from yours? What he seeks? Who is he? Who gets it after this meeting? Such issues are raised and analyzed in this study we seek to bring a little more proximity between narrator and characters in the midst of all conflict present in both ethnographic fictions discussed here.