Lobato and the civilized hangmen : the building of Brazility through the rewi of rewriting Hans Staden s Warhaftige Historia / Lobato e os carrascos civilizados : construção de brasilidade via reescritura de Warhaftige Historia, de Hans Staden

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2007

RESUMO

Until recently, the representation of non-mainstream religious cultures has been natural as a reflection of the ideas forged in the dominate culture, European. In this way, what was produced by the Europeans about Latin America was considered to be the absolute truth, like the image created by Hans Staden, 16th century German adventurer, about Brazil in his book Warhaftige Historia (True History), and reinforced by the 19th century German traveler Robert Avé-Lallemant in his adaption Hans Staden von Homberg bei den brasilienischen Wilden oder die Macht des Glaubens und Betens (Hans Staden, de Homberg, with savage Brazilians or the power of faith and prayer). Once Staden claimed that he was telling the true story of a country of naked savages and cannibals called Brazil, not just referring to the region, but the whole country that is comprises, it started to be represented ? including in the modern national imagination ? as an exotic land, where snakes and decorated savages with feathers walk through the streets, without even questioning themselves about the observations of Staden. Brazil, or what we can call Brazil, is a 19th century creation, however what Staden said about the lands where he was in the second half of the 16th century can only serve to describe the lands and in that time, when there wasn?t even territorial or cultural unity nor political autonomy that could characterize what we call Brazil. However, despite the argument that eurocentrism is a post-modern phenomenon, there had already been an intelligentsia, in Brazil in the 19th century ready to contest the Eurocentric model of representation of our country. An excellent example of this argument can be found in the adaption that Monteiro Lobato, intellectual and entrepreneur, which he did to Staden´s book by deconstructing the image of the good-European presenting a true history of Staden from the perspective of members from the Tupinambá tribe (Indian tribe that inhabited the southeastern coast of modern-day Brazil and of whom he was prisoner). Of the white hero ? a self-constructed image and reinforced throughout the centuries ?, Staden became presented by Lobato as a coward that escaped being devoured in an anthropological ritual by crying and begging to his God to save his life. Considering this corpus and having these conditions of production as a background, we are trying to demonstrate how the intercultural relations between Brazil and Europe were recontextualied by the Brazilian writer, opening space for the questioning of Eurocentric ideas and for national reflection ? Brazilian ? about himself- the Brazilian ? and his country ? Brazil ?, with the intention of constructing a Brazilian identity. Our specific objective was to show how Lobato´s interest, by telling the history from a non-eurocentric perspective, deconstructing the image of the good-European and valuing indigenous culture, would be part of a larger project, related to the publishing market and in policy, that would have the final purpose of constructing a certain Brazilianity by means of non-passive abortion (adaption to local interests) of universal culture ? something similar to that which Goethe and the romantic Germans did envisioning the construction of Germanity (Deutschheit). Having touched upon the construction of identity from a linguistic perspective and as language is one of the fundamental elements of the culture, we branched out to other themes, such as the process of the formation of the Portuguese language as it is spoken in Brazil and of the Brazilian nation, considering racial, cultural and linguist groups, the compose it, along with some historical, political and involved economic aspects

ASSUNTO(S)

eurocentrismo desconstruction eurocentrism desconstrução

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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