Florinda Donner - Shabono

"My experience with the Iticoteri, the inhabitants of one of these unknownshabonos, is what this book is about. It is a subjective account of the surplus data, so to speak, of anthropological field research I conducted on curing practices in Venezuela.

The most important part of my training as an anthropologist emphasized the fact that objectivity is what gives validity to anthropological work. It happened that throughout my stay with thisYanomama group I did not keep the distance and detachment required of objective research. Special links of gratitude and friendship with them made it impossible for me to interpret facts or draw conclusions from what I witnessed and learned. Because I am a woman; and because of my physical appearance, and a certain bent of character, I posed no threat to the Indians. They accepted me as an amenable oddity, and I was able to fit, if only for a moment in time, into the peculiar rhythm of their lives." (DONNER, "Author's Note")

Duante seu campo, Florinda se vê confrontada pela validez de sua pesquisa: a coleta de dados se mostrava cada dia mais inútil, na medida em que as práticas de cura dos curanderos yanomami, quando escritas em papéis, de nada adiantavam, pois a cada dia que passava, os curanderos se negavam ter dito aquilo que Florinda anotara. Isto porque o passado ou o futuro nada representam para os yanomami. Como diz Dona Mercedes à Florinda,"If I really said these things, it's your doing. Every time you ask me about curing I start talking without really knowing what I am saying. You always put words into my mouth. If you knew how to cure, you wouldn't bother writing or talking about it. You would just do it.". Ou seja, dona Mercedes dizia que escrever as palavras era o que Florinda fazia: se ela soubesse curar, ela não escreveria, apenas curaria.


"After transcribing, translating, and analyzing the numerous tapes and hundreds of pages of notes gathered during months of field work among three curers in the Barlovento area, I had seriously begun doubting the validity and purpose of my research. My endeavor to organize the data into a meaningful theoretical framework proved to be futile, in that the material was ridden with inconsistencies and contradictions.

The emphasis of my work had been directed toward discovering the meaning that curing practices have for the healers and for their patients in the context of their everyday life activities. My concern had been in discerning how social reality, in terms of health and illness, was created out of their interlocked activity. I reasoned that I needed to master the manner in which practitioners regard each other and their knowledge, for only then would I be able to operate in their social setting and within their own system of interpretation. And thus the analysis of my data would come from the system in which I had been operating and would not be superimposed from my own cultural milieu.

(...)

However, dona Mercedes was not interested at all in what she had said months earlier. To her that was something in the past and thus had no validity. Boldly she gave me to understand that the tape recorder was at fault for having recorded something she had no memory of having said. "If I really said these things, it's your doing. Every time you ask me about curing I start talking without really knowing what I am saying. You always put words into my mouth. If you knew how to cure, you wouldn't bother writing or talking about it. You would just do it. (...) "I really can't understand why you get so upset about what your machine says and what I say," dona Mercedes observed, lighting another candle on the altar. "What difference does it make about what I do now and what I did a few months ago? All that matters is that the patients get well. Years ago, a psychologist and a sociologist came here and recorded everything I said on a machine like yours. I believe it was a better machine: It was much larger. They were only here for a week. With the information they got, they wrote a book about curing.""

Florinda não queria acreditar que todo seu trabalho resultava inútil. Até que, cheia de cólera, disse a dona Mercedes que, se escrever as curas era tão inútil, que ela queimasse todas as anotações de Florinda. Dona Mercedes queimou, folha por folha, as anotações de Florinda. Para Mercedes, a única forma de se aprender algo sobre a cura era praticando-a. Dona Mercedes diz que Florinda deveria desencanar um pouco dessa história de etnografia da cura e ir caçar com seus amigos. Mercedes diz, misteriosamente a Florinda, que quando ela voltasse, nada daquilo faria mais sentido para ela.

Florinda parte com seus amigos para uma missão de padres, mais adentro da floresta, mas não vai caçar com eles. Lá chegando, é interpretada por uma velha índia, Angelica, que acha que Florinda é uma mulher tão esperada por ela: quando moça, um adivinho disse à Angélica que alguém viria somente para levá-la de volta à sua terra. Florinda é posicionada por Angélica, e se deixa posicionar: parte com Angélica e seu filho, Milagros, para o interior da floresta, em direção a aldeia de origem de Angélica.


"I knew it was you who would take me to my people- I knew it the moment I saw you." There was a long pause. She either did not want to say anything else or was trying to find the appropriate words. She was watching me, a vague smile on her lips. "You also knew it- otherwise you wouldn't be here," she finally said with utter conviction.
I giggled nervously; she always succeeded in making me uneasy with that intense glint in
her eyes. "I'm not sure what I'm doing here," I said. "I don't know why I'm going with you."
"You knew you were meant to come here," Angelica insisted.
(...)
"I waited a long time," Angelica went on. "I had almost forgotten that you were supposed to come to me. But when I saw you I knew that the man had been right. Not that I ever doubted him, but he had told me so long ago that I believed I had missed my chance."
"What man?" I asked, lifting my head from her lap. "Who told you I was coming?"
"I'll tell you another time."


No sexto dia de caminhada, Angélica morre. Seu filho Milagros queima seu corpo, colocando suas cinzas e seus ossos em piras, para levá-la ao seu povo. É então que Milagros revela à Florinda:

"One of our shamans told Angelica that although she would leave her settlement, she would die among her own people, and her soul would remain a part of her tribe." Milagros looked at me sharply as I was about to interrupt him. "The shaman assured her that a girl with the color of your hair and eyes would make sure that she did."

(...)

Florinda se deixa posicionar, é colocada na posição de irmã de Ritimi, se pinta, dorme com os índios, mantém contato físico: até aí, tudo bem, nada de novo para a antropologia. O que é nova é essa sua narrativa subjetiva (ou melhor, nova para seu tempo, os anos setenta), uma antropóloga que se coloca, e se coloca muitas vezes no dilema de não conseguir ser tratada como uma antropóloga. Florinda recebe, para beber, uma sopa contendo as cinzas de Angelica: é então que ela percebe que os ianomami haviam-na deixado percorrer cabana por cabana, fazendo perguntas e conhecendo as famílias, não porque ela era uma antropóloga, mas porque ela deveria ser os olhos que Angélica não teve para rever a sua tribo pela última vez.

Quando estava caminhando pelas montanhas com Etewa e Ritimi em direção ao shabono, após uma viagem a uma tribo inimiga para participar de uma festa, Florinda avança nesta percepção de o que ela signifcava para os ianomami, além de objetivar a nova relação com o tempo que havia aprendido com os ianomami, deixando para trás a percepção de tempo que carregara anteriormente:

"Soube repentinamente que se os iticoteris nunca haviam se mostrado curiosos a respeito de meu passado era por eleição e não por falta de interesse. Para eles, eu não tinha história pessoal. Somente assim poderiam me aceitar como algo mais que um ser estranho. Os acontecimentos e relações do passado haviam começado a desaparecer da minha cabeça. Não que eu os houvesse esquecido: simplesmente havia deixado de pensar neles, porque não tinham significado ali, na floresta. Como os iticoteris, eu havia aprendido a viver o presente. O tempo estava fora de mim. Era algo que eu deveria utilizar somente no momento. Uma vez usado, se fundia novamente em si mesmo e se convertia em uma parte imperceptivel em meu ser interior."