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The villages is the centre of the Kayapó
universe, the most socialized space. The surrounding forest
is considered an anti-social space, where men can transform
into animals or spirits, sicken without reason or even
kill their relatives. Beings who are half-animal, half-people
dwell there. The further from the village, the more anti-social
the forest becomes and its associated dangers increase.
As there is always the danger that the ‘social’
may be appropriated by the natural domain, escaping human
control, the Kayapó engage in a symbolic appropriation
of the natural, transforming it into the social through
curing chants and ceremonies which establish a constant
exchange between man and the world of nature.
The section of forest in which the village population
hunts, fishes and cultivates land is first socialized
by the attribution of place names. Thereafter, human
modifcations of the nature world are accompanied by
rituals. For example, the opening of new swiddens is
preceded by a dance presenting many structural similarities
to the war ritual. Opening up new swiddens is indeed
a symbolic war against a natural rather than human enemy.
Returning from the hunt, men must sing to the spirits
of the game they themselves have killed in order for
the spirits to remain in the forest. Each animal species
designates a song that always begins with the cry of
the dead animal.
The Kayapó ritual complex consists of
a very particular language: the rites express and actualize
fundamental values of the society, reflecting in equal
portion the image the group has of itself, the society
and the universe. Each rite translates a part of this
cosmological vision and establishes a link between man
and nature, in which above all the human-animal relationship
is reinforced.
Kayapó rituals are numerous and diverse,
but their importance and duration varies greatly. They
divide into three main categories: the large ceremonies
for confirming personal names; certain agricultural,
hunting, fishing and occasional rites – for example,
those performed during solar or lunar eclipses –
and, finally, rites of passage. The latter are frequently
solemn affairs, though short and only rarely accompanied
by dances or songs: they are organized so as to announce
publicly the passage of some people from one age set
to another.
Examples of rites of passage include all the
ceremonies qualified by the term mereremex (‘people
who extend their beauty’), a reference to the highly
elaborate fashion in which people decorate themselves
on such occasions. Such ceremonies comprise group-based
activities whose purpose is to socialize ‘wild’
or anti-social values. This applies to the attribution
of names, a central theme of most Kayapó ceremonies;
in fact, personal names are borrowed from nature. Shamans
enter into contact with the natural spirits and learn
new songs and names from them. These names, alongside
the songs to which they refer, are elements borrowed
from the ‘natural’ world, which must be introduced
into culture at the moment of the large naming ceremonies.
On these occasions, most of the ritual sequences
take place in the village’s central plaza. Here
an inversion of ordinary social space may be noted:
the centre of the village, normally organized on the
basis of friendship and non-kinship, is converted into
the domain of activities in which both personal family
bonds and natural – and therefore ‘wild’
elements, such as the personal names or those of killed
prey – are central. The true nature of ‘beauty’,
referred to by the Kayapó by the term mereremex,
is not only visual, but also constituted by an interior
beauty that results from the group’s activity,
from the common effort required to ‘socialize’
the names of people or of other precious objects.
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