The name “índio”: ethnic patronimic as a bearer of indigenous memory and emergence in Middle Jequitinhonha, Minas Gerais

Abstract

This paper deals with the ethnic emergence of anextended family in the area of Vale do Jequitinhonha River. Thisprocess took place, both in the personal and social levels, as thefinding out of Indian patronymic, also used in the area forethnically labeling out people. The aim is to follow analytically aprocess through which names occur as symbolic carriers ofmeaning, which make it possible for the actors to criticallyelaborate social vectors present in the field of interethnic relationsof categories for the self-identification of Brazilian Indians. Forthis research, several methodological approaches have been usedin a complementary way, according to procedures for onomasticstudies. These studies deal with proper names, based on theepistemological presupposition that there is a close relationshipbetween the name and the Person. The hypothesis, bothpsychoanalytical and anthropological, of a “fetishism of a name”   has been taken to a social arena where interethnic relations have  historically been dealt with in a confliting way. This takes place on the inside of a “struggle of taxonomies”, here as a movement    of the re-shaping of social vectors, after the setting up of a   Pankararu settlement in the rural area of Aracuai- State of Minas  Gerais, Brazil, which was made possible by the action of the Indian Workforce from the local Diocese.