A cultura da batata-doce: Cultivo, parentesco e ritual entre os Krahô

Abstract

This paper examines quotidian and ritual kinship relations between humans and plants through an ethnography of the life cycle of the sweet potato, a crop cultivated by Krahô people: from planting and growing to harvesting, when the Sweet Potato Feast takes place. The mutual process of "becoming kin" between sweet potatoes and their human owners involves corporal, affective and aesthetic engagements that imply social interactions of raising, exchange, predation, transmission of shamanic and ritual knowledge. Cultivated plants are living subjects and not mere biological entities that remain passive to human interventions. They are embedded in relational entanglements that encompass other plants, animals and beings, which become visible in the daily life of gardens and, particularly, in ritual chants and performances. Krahô knowledge and practices reveal a different way of thinking about the gardening activities which follows the reconceptualization of humanity, nature and culture by Amazonian anthropology in dialogue with indigenous theories.