Cartas a Davi

Abstract

In this thesis, which spans the entire Covid-19 pandemic, I argue that there is an intimate relationship between T/land and the word. Compulsory confinement, coupled with the genocidal project underway in the 2016-2022 period, has brought indigenous and non-indigenous people together in virtual spaces, inaugurating interlocutions on different worldviews. With a strong desire to broaden the conversation with the forest world (LE GUIN, 2020), I delved into The Fall of Heaven: Words of a Yanomami Shaman (KOPENAWA; ALBERT, 2015) to hear what the words of the shaman are and can be in the time of merchandise and the pimping of life (ROLNIK, 2018). Based on the theoretical assumption of staying with the problem and making kinships (HARAWAY, 2023), I organize this work in three sections: Section I - Letters-Thë ã oni (written words), when I perform an exercise with the terms <word image, protoword and T/word>, compositions found during the research experience. Section II - Letters-Heãmuu (mark presence by a sound), when I stage a reading song with the shaman's voice; Section III - Letters-Utupa pë (thought without words), when I outline my process of approaching the shaman's drawings imagistically. The method consisted of moving to the side of nature (LLANSOL, 2020) and living the tremor of experience (LARROSA, 2014), letting myself be affected by the encounter with the shaman's words and reaching the pajebó. Finally, the approaches I experienced with the written words, singing and drawings of the shaman inspired developments in the ongoing project of critical reading for a counter-colonial Brazil.