Introduction to the Tenetehar-Tembé psychology through the rites of construction of women leaders

Abstract

The article discusses psychological practices and knowledge from the Tenetehar-Tembé (an Indigenous people who live on many riverside regions in the states of Pará and Maranhão, Brazil) tradition. Their rites and narratives carry processes of construction of women as leaders. We argue that, through the community processes of construction of the person, Tenetehar-Tembé women effectively become references for decision-making inside each community and in the articulation between their communities. That is, through the rites and narratives, women become more deeply engaged in caring for the people in their communities. Women are progressively recognized for these practices among families and villages, where they actively participate in productive and political activities. Indigenous psychology, therefore, broadens the understanding of the processes of construction of the woman leader devoting attention to how participating in rites and sharing Indigenous narratives constitute the experiential basis for people’s feelings, thoughts, and actions reflexively oriented in the communities.

Keywords

Indigenous psychology leaders myths rites Tenetehar-Tembé women

Etymologically, the word psychology is related to two Greek terms, psyché (breath, soul, life force, immaterial essence; a goddess who symbolizes the soul’s journey) and logos (reason, word, cosmic principle, signifying rationality and universal order; the study or systematic knowledge of a field) (Krstic, 1964; Massimi, 2016). The Christian humanist philosophy of 15th century Europe impacted the modern sciences and still impacts how we reflect about knowledge construction in the scope of human experience, which is always culturally situated (Figueiredo, 1992/2007, 1989/2009, 1996/2013). The understanding of psychology as culturally situated and the situated modes of knowledge production, such as Indigenous knowledge from various traditions, is systematically disregarded and often marginalized within the wider discipline of psychology, particularly within mainstream psychology (Brock, 2016; Groot et al., 2011; Henrich et al., 2010; Hwang, 2015; Teo, 2011). For the interdisciplinary approach of cultural psychology, however, the process of meaning-making in cultural contexts is central to psychology (Boesch, 1991; Silva Guimarães, 2020; Valsiner, 2017).

The field of psychology is marked by dispersion and diversity, since the meanings of the experiences being studied are systematized by different theories and systems. In this sense, metatheory in psychology is characterized by ontological reflexivity, in which attention is given to the different ways of being-in-the-world-with-others and how they create meaning for experiences in the temporality of life (Silva Guimarães, 2021c; Silva Guimarães & Simão, 2021). Psychology produces knowledge based on its reflexive corporeality, which is gestated in the cultural fields of the psychologists.

We argue that Indigenous psychology is a field of knowledge construction that recognizes that any elaboration of psychological science is rooted in the territory in which it is constituted, paying attention to phenomena and elaborating reflections from perspectives that are always situated. However, each situated reflection is not necessarily limited to the local issues of a territory, because from the concreteness of local experiences it is possible to abstract reflections that open broader dialogues with the psychological community from several other localities in the world. In this way, a network of diversity of Indigenous perspectives is created. Thus, in the field of psychological reflection, Indigenous psychology shows the diversity in terms of corporeality and sociocultural fields.

In this article, we will present the Tenetehar-Tembé (an Indigenous people who live on many riverside regions in the states of Pará and Maranhão, Brazil) rites of construction of the person, focusing specifically on the socioculturally oriented experiences of the Indigenous woman during pregnancy, in the transition from baby to child, from child to adult, and in the preparation of the woman for pregnancy.

The Tenetehar-Tembé lifeworld

The Tenetehar-Tembé speak the Tenetehara language and they live on the banks of the upper Guamá River and the Gurupi River and its tributaries, in the municipalities of Santa Luzia do Pará, Tomé-Açú, Paragominas, and Santa Maria, in the states of Pará and Maranhão, Brazil. Subsistence in the main village derives from extractivism of açaí (a purple or black fruit of a palm tree found predominantly in the Amazon) and other fruits, hunting, the support of federal and state programs, and agricultural activities carried out in farmlands recovered from illegal occupants. The men usually hunt wild animals and fish, while women produce the manioc flour. Women also produce handicrafts from forest materials, such as seed bracelets and necklaces, earrings, headdresses and hair accessories with bird feathers, tree bark and bamboo skirts, straw baskets, among other artifacts, which are later sold in nearby cities (Mitschein et al., 2012).

The Tenetehar-Tembé of the Guamá have undergone a miscegenation process and barely speak their native language nowadays. They are gradually reclaiming their cultural heritage, such as their rituals, body paintings, and language. Many were converted to Christianity and speak Portuguese. Now, Tenetehara is being taught by teachers who come from other villages (Field Diary, May 23, 2017).

Furthermore, the Tenetehar-Tembé is characterized by a patrilineal kinship structure and belongs to the Tupi (one of the largest Indigenous peoples originating from the Amazon who migrated, millennia ago, towards the north Atlantic Coast of what is now Brazil and are characterised by a patrilineal kinship structure) group (Coelho, 2015a). The family structure is decisive in the construction of the person (Zannoni, 1999), which takes place as people participate in community ceremonies that introduce them in their society from the time they are born. We emphasize that the Tenetehar-Tembé family is dynamic, in the sense that the family includes all the people who live in the same house. There are cases of families that are composed of children from a first marriage, cases in which there is the inclusion of new people through relationships after a separation, or the death of a member of the couple (Barh, 2000). For instance, when a young woman agrees to marry a young man, she starts living in her father-in-law’s house, making up that family unit, and will only live in her own house, the couple’s house, after the birth of the first child, when they will be able to take care of the child without the support of the elders, for example, grandparents, uncles, cousins, they start a new family.

Method

A field research was carried out by a Tenetehar-Tembé woman, researcher, and psychologist. Data construction was done in two places: (1) in the main village of the Tenetehar-Tembé ethnic group, part of a group of villages located on the banks of the Guamá River in the municipality of Santa Luzia do Pará, State of Pará, Brazil; (2) at the headquarters of the Indigenous Special Sanitary District Guamá Tocantins, in the Special Secretariat of Indigenous Health (SESAI), in the city of Belém, State of Pará, Brazil, during an occupation in protest of the nomination of the SESAI director.

The research began in the main village after authorization from the National Indigenous Foundation and the village cacique (chief). The project was submitted and approved by the Research Ethics Committee, National Commission on Research Ethics, linked to Brazil’s National Health Council.

This article’s first author registered her visits to the village, including her participation in rituals and time spent in people’s homes in her field diary. She included, in her notes, the speeches, gestures, body expressions, emotions, songs, dances, and laughter she observed, and descriptions of Indigenous paintings, as well as her impressions during this experience.

Excerpts selected from the field diary of the first author (M.D.A.) were addressed focusing on the socially shared rites and narratives.

The analysis is grounded in an Indigenous psychology under construction (Silva Guimarães, 2020), which presupposes the participation of the rites and myths of the community where a person is born and lives in the construction of their affective-cognitive possibilities for feeling, thinking, and acting (Silva Guimarães, 2021a, 2021b). We highlight regularities arise from the experience of being with others and in the world which lead to stability in the irreversible flow of temporality (Simão et al., 2015). From this process, we understand how people gain awareness as to who they are and the meanings of their actions. Experiences can be narrated both in terms of what one actively strives to keep the same and what emerges as unusual, different, and disquieting (Simão, 2015), thus demanding efforts of sense-making (Leão & Silva Guimarães, 2021). Narratives are also part of socially regulated experiences, when they are, for instance, told in daily rites and conversation circles, often around bonfires. Some of these stories are retold creatively by many generations and become consistent bases for reflection about the events of life. They are examples left by the ancestors that present solutions for the fundamental questions in the life of a people.

Results and discussion

We present and discuss aspects of the rites experienced by the first author of this article in her field work, which indicate paths for feeling, thinking, and acting that impact the construction of the Tenetehar-Tembé woman.

From pregnancy to the birth of a Tenetehar-Tembé child

Some important rites among the Tenetehar-Tembé are related to pregnancy. The construction of the person also happens during the entire pregnancy, because “when the child is still in the uterus, their humanity is not yet actually formed. All the precautions are taken so that they are not affected by the actions of a close person” (Coelho, 2015a, p. 66). During the entire pregnancy, knowledge is passed on to the new parents, through the teachings of the village elders, who are considered wiser and therefore highly valued. In fact, this knowledge is transmitted to the younger generations since their childhood.

When a woman’s pregnancy is confirmed, treatments and care practices are started right away to safeguard the baby’s and parents’ health. As soon as the mother finds out she is pregnant, both parents suspend heavy work. Everything the parents do has a consequence for the baby in the womb since the unborn child is regarded as an extension of the parents. Restrictions apply during and after childbirth and must be obeyed to prevent negative outcomes for the baby.

For the pregnant woman, certain activities are forbidden such as going into dense woods, washing clothes alone by the river, going into farmlands, among others. She will only do light domestic chores, will not carry heavy objects, and will have a specific diet. She cannot eat certain animals like the paca (a kind of large rodent; Cuniculus paca), anta (tapir; Tapirus terrestris), porco (pig; Sus scrofa domesticus), and surubim (catfish; Pseudoplatystoma fasciatum). Such foods are dangerous because they carry strong spirits called tapiwara (strong spirit that is present in some specific game meats, usually predators, making it harmful to eat) (Wagley & Galvão, 1961). Tapiwara is usually related to predators, whose predatory effects can persist in the person who consumes them, making them dangerous even after ingestion. According to the common knowledge of the community where the first author, who is also Tenetehar-Tembé, carried out her fieldwork, if the mother-to-be eats these animals, she may put her pregnancy and the baby’s life at risk. Women may eat other animals until moments before delivery since their spirits are weaker.

Among the prohibitions, women must also refrain from handling fishing and hunting instruments. If they do, the fisher or hunter runs the risk of being affected and becoming panema (jinxed; temporary bad luck due to ritual transgression) (Galvão, 1979). Galvão (1979) understands this expression not only as a lack of luck or occasional misfortune but as the temporary incapability that befalls the person or object. The causes and symptoms of panema are varied: one of the most common reasons is a pregnant woman eating the game or fish caught by someone who does not belong to her family. These precautions last throughout the pregnancy until childbirth.

When the mothers who were not accompanied by the community midwives leave the hospital and present postpartum complications, the women from the main village understand that if childbirth had taken place in the village, the midwife would know how to take care of the child and prevent health issues. (Field Diary, May 25, 2017)

The interaction between relatives who act as caretakers during a pregnancy is intense, as well as the concerns for the woman who gives birth at the hospital, outside the village’s control (Dias-Scopel, 2014). Many mothers said they would like to have the child delivered, as in the past, but are induced to give birth in the hospital, because the nurses, who are not Indigenous, make them insecure, creating narratives about the risks of death of the child or the mother if the birth does not take place in the hospital, generating fear and anxiety in the in pregnant women. Because the SESAI health teams disregard the knowledge of the midwife, today, women prefer to give birth in the city hospitals (Gusman et al., 2015). They go to the city and to the hospital to find out the sex of the baby, for prenatal care, and to buy the newborn baby essentials.

The village cacique reported a problem that still happens because mothers seek hospitals to the detriment of midwives for delivery. He said that the midwife knows how to return the woman’s hip to its place and that she recommends women to take a forty-day rest (quarantine), besides other precautions. He said that women who go to the hospital now don’t receive this care and complain of fatigue in the hip. (Field Diary, October 15, 2017)

From the selected excerpts, we can see a conflict surrounding childbirth, situated in between the traditional, that is, Indigenous and modern, that is, hospital worlds. The cacique’s report indicates that hospital procedures clearly leave painful surgical marks on the mothers who give birth outside the village. Those who have been traditionally aided by midwives told the cacique they had no problems after giving birth. For this reason, childbirth in hospitals is not usually well regarded by many in the village. From the rites during the pregnancy period to the narratives of the unique experience of giving birth to a child, the Tenetehar-Tembé develop the reflections that guide decision-making regarding the arrival of a new member in the community. During the pandemic, due to difficulties in accessing the hospital, some deliveries were performed in the village, in a move that strengthened the traditional midwives. In addition, the inclusion of a health center in the village with a medical team open to dialogue and interaction with the midwives seems to be producing a better quality of care for mothers and newborn children.

The Wiraohawo-i (Children’s Ceremony)

In the villages of the Guamá River, the Wiraohawo-i is the rite of passage from nenê-y (baby) to kwaharer-y (child). The Wiraohawo-i marks the pre-initiation of the Tenetehar-Tembé boys and girls. This rite takes place starting at 5 months of age. It marks the end of the breastfeeding period, which happens when the mother decides to introduce food that is considered strong in the child’s diet: meat and other solid products. Besides food, in the ceremony, the children receive body painting with a black paint produced from the jenipapo (genipap tree; Genipa americana), to purify the body and prevent diseases (Coelho, 2015a).

For the Tenetehar-Tembé, certain people can paint others without being affected, whereas others cannot paint the children because when they do, the child turns white in the face and feels faint, so it is understood that the spirits have not united. Because of this, after the first painting done by the mother, the children will paint themselves, spreading paint over the body. (Field Diary, May 25, 2017)

The child is assumed to be autonomous. The activity of painting oneself is seen as a form of game of exploration of the body and enables the child to move freely in the village. The Children’s Ceremony lasts one day and is led by the village pajé (shaman), who can be a woman or a man. Only after this ritual is the child protected and may receive the visit of non-Indigenous people or people from other communities.

During the ceremony, the maraca, an instrument which is played only by the men, can be played by the small children as well. The maraca is used to mark a special moment or situation. This is the case when it is offered to children who want to use the maraca for some game (Lobo, 2016). According to the mothers, the maraca is also used to promote peaceful and pleasant sleep for the children at night.

The Wiraohawo-i happens for two reasons: (1) on the occasion of a mother’s new pregnancy, when the baby must be weaned; and (2) when the child’s teeth begin to grow, since from then on, the child is considered to be able to eat solid food. When one of these events occurs, the mother arranges a meeting to set the date of the Children’s Ceremony (Coelho, 2015a). The rite will take place during the rainy season, because this is when it is easier to find the nambusinha (a kind of small bird, Tinamus guttatus), which is a bird served for the child’s first meal because it is not harmful for their health (de Brito Júnior & Estácio, 2013).

In the old days, we gave red deer meat to the child at the ceremony as their first solid meal, so the child would become like the red deer, which is smart, strong, and runs a lot. But now it has become very hard to hunt them, because they have become scarce, so we substituted the deer. Now, in the week of the ceremony, the child’s father, brothers, and uncles go into the woods to search for the nambusinha so the child can eat the white nambusinha, which is a small bird, so it is not harmful for the child’s health. (Field Diary, April 10, 2017)

The substitution of deer meat for the meat of a bird shows that culture is dynamic, creatively sustained by reflection on lived and narrated experiences and current conditions for action. Many examples of this kind can be found in different contexts where Indigenous people have to resist the dead ends of the colonization process.

Whether through the reinvention of Indigenous ways of being and interacting with urban contexts (Groot et al., 2011), or through the strengthening of ancestral practices and resumptions based on collective memory and documentary research (Tupinambá, 2021), this is one of the most relevant activities of Indigenous interest for research in academic-scientific contexts around the world (Smith, 2012).

The food served during the Wiraohawo-i is related to notions thought over by the community and adopted to justify the rite. Small adjustments and changes that eventually may happen highlight the community’s reflexivity when facing obstacles for performing the rite, ensuring its function is not lost in the process of transformation. In the substitution of the deer meat for nambusinha, the original values that make the rite legitimate for the community are maintained.

When the father and relatives arrive from the woods with the game, we paint the child all over with jenipapo, then we adorn the child using a glue taken from a tree and some nambusinha feathers. When they are all painted and ready to go, we place them one next to the other and they cry and get scared because they don’t recognize each other. It takes some time for them get used to each other and only after that we place them on the baby carrier and start the ceremony. I jumped with my daughter, but I got really tired because I was pregnant, so I handed my daughter over to my sister and they jumped for the rest of the ceremony. (Field Diary, April 4, 2017)

The ceremonial dance of Tenetehar-Tembé is based on rhythmic jumping, for long periods of time, which can cause fatigue and lead to exhaustion. The village mothers know this practice is a milestone in the child’s life, making the ceremony extremely important, even if she can’t complete the entire rite and needs another caretaker’s help.

The passage into adulthood

For the Tenetehar-Tembé, the transition from childhood to adulthood is marked by the emergence of embarrassment that signals a child’s realization of his or her own body as it appears to others:

According to Tenetehar-Tembé custom, a girl or a boy only cease to be children when they feel embarrassed to walk around naked. Embarrassment is like a mark in the person’s development in their transition to adulthood, which should not be fast, because the longer a person takes to become an adult, the longer they will take to grow old. (Field Diary, April 12, 2017)

The Kuzà Waza Ipiynykaw (Girls’ Ceremony) is a milestone in the course of life of the Tenetehar-Tembé, marking the passage from childhood to adulthood. This rite of passage for girls and boys allows us to understand the organizational structure that describes the women’s preparation for pregnancy. It marks a new stage in the life of a couple and the beginning of a life of responsibilities. Prayers, dances, chants, and shamanism happen during the ceremony. Besides the protagonists—the boys and girls—singers and the pajé also participate. The latter is a figure of central importance in this rite because he or she removes the karuwara (the spirit of a deceased person or animal, such as any loved non-human being that may have social characteristics) (Coelho, 2015a) that manifests itself in the people at the ceremony, whether community members or visitors.

The Kuzà Waza Ipiynykaw is divided in three phases: (1) the Tocaia (an ambush, the act of lying in wait, hidden, to attack someone or to hunt), (2) the Pinakapememeke (Porridge Ceremony) involving a typical food called mingau (porridge), and (3) Wira’u-haw, a ceremony involving a typical food called moqueado (roast meat pounded with cassava flour using a pestle and mortar) (Coelho, 2015b). The three events together often give rise to new families and comprise the initial stage for the formation of couples, who leave the festivity aiming at a union.

The Tocaia

The first part of a young woman’s rite of passage is the Tocaia, which happens on the day of the girl’s first menstrual period, or menarche, and varies according to age. As soon as the girl menstruates, a ceremony begins in her house. The girl stays in a separate room where only her most intimate female family members enter. However, the pajé, whether man or woman, and even if not a family member, has access to the Tocaia. Under no circumstance may the girl be seen by her father or any man other than the pajé. The first phase of the ritual is a 3- to 6-day confinement, depending on the menstrual cycle. No boy can approach the girl during the menarche: this would puncture the Tocaia, as it is said in the village (Field Diary, May 7, 2017). In case this happens, the girl will dance with the boy who had already been chosen by the families to dance with her and the boy who punctured the Tocaia, that is, who saw her during confinement (Coelho, 2014). We can see that breaking the rules of the Tocaia has practical consequences in a person’s life. Variations in a rite’s typical events require adjustments to avoid new social breaches, for example, in this case, the possible death of the baby when she gives birth to her second child. This death is associated with the sadness felt by the mother when she has her second child, since the first one always brings joy (Field Diary, May 7, 2017).

At the end of the Tocaia period, the initiate is looked after by her grandmother. Priority is given to the maternal grandmother, but if she is not alive or available, the paternal grandmother will accompany the girl, who will receive a bath prepared the night before with herbs. The bath is meant to strengthen the body against future illness (Wagley & Galvão, 1961; Zannoni, 1999). Before the initiate takes her bath, she is chased by a man of the village, an elder or a boy who will run after her around her house, trying to catch her. She must not let herself be caught. If she does, she will return to the confinement of the Tocaia for one more day, until she can escape.

To the community, the events of the ritual presently described form a woman capable of caring for children and the elderly. Dexterity and agility allow her to bear children and care for them, as well as for parents and grandparents when they come to need it. Considering that each phase of the ceremony is guided by preventive or prospective measures, to avoid illness and prepare the person for taking care of the community, respectively, here are other provisions for a new ritual. On the last day of the Tocaia, the organizers, usually the women in the family, provide and schedule the Pinakapememeke. The Pinakapememeke is marked when at least three girls have gone through the Tocaia, allowing the girls to perform the practices defined in this ritual together and in cooperation with each other, since collaboration among women is a formative activity of leadership.

The Pinakapememeke

This ritual begins at six in the morning, when mothers and aunts begin to grate the mandiocaba (a type of cassava). The girls have their bodies painted with jenipapo dye, with paintings representing Zary (the half-moon; mythical ancestor who fell in love with his aunt and could not control his love, coming to sleep with her every night). However, he disappeared before dawn, and she did not know who she slept with. So, she asked the advice of the oldest person in the village to help her unravel the secret. The elderly woman advised her to dip her fingers in the jenipapo fruit and paint half his face. The following day, the man appeared with his face painted and everyone learned that the nephew was the one sleeping with his aunt. Embarrassed, Zary went away and became the moon (Coelho, 2014).

With the myth of Zary, the rite gains more sense to all the participants.

During the ritual, the girls’ faces are painted with marks like the surubim fish or the jaguar. And, when the mandiocaba is cooked, the pieces are removed still hot from the cauldron and placed on the ground for the initiated to step on, to strengthen their legs and protect against bites from poisonous animals. (Field Diary, June 8, 2017)

The measures taken to prevent the initiates from becoming ill and to protect them against dangerous forest spirits are present throughout the ceremonies. In the ceremony, the initiated girls spend an entire day preparing the porridge made from overcooked mandiocaba.

After stepping on the hot tuber, a portion of the porridge is placed in a bowl. The initiated squat over these bowls and receive the heat. This practice serves to avoid future gynecological diseases and problems in childbirth. Soon after, a beiju (manioc pancake) is made and while it’s still hot it’s placed over the girls’ heads to delay the greying of hair and prevent them from going mad in adulthood. (Field Diary, June 9, 2017)

After the porridge, which will be served by the girls, has been prepared, their mothers start preparing them for the ceremony, which begins at dusk and ends only the next day. This collective ritual lasts one night. When the ceremony is over, the planning of the Wira’u-haw begins, with the participation of many Indigenous people, which amplifies the possibilities of encounters in the village. The Wira’u-haw is larger than the previous ones because it brings together people from more distant Tenetehar-Tembé communities, sometimes reaching a few thousand people in the ritual. This requires great organization to accommodate all the visitors. It is therefore a ritual of great political value for the Tenetehar-Tembé people, which is open to the press and has attracted international public interest, giving visibility to the strength of the Tenetehar-Tembé people’s resistance.

The Wira’u-haw

The Wira’u-haw is the last phase of the rite of passage of the girl into adulthood, after which she is ready for marriage. Although we have not discussed here the specific events which the boys undergo during the rite, it also marks their passage into adulthood, after which they will have many new attributions. On the first day of the event, the women decorate the ramada (the hut where the ceremony takes place) and make the skirts with cotton threads and vegetable fibers to use in the dances. The village men start renovating the existing huts and building new accommodations made of straw to receive relatives from other villages that come and stay until the end of the ceremony.

The organization of the event is the entire community’s responsibility, but only one of the initiated girls will be regarded as the owner of the ceremony. The families of all the initiated contribute as they can to make the ceremony happen. The community will lodge different families, be they Tenetehar-Tembé, other Indigenous groups or even karawias (non-Indigenous) groups (Coelho, 2015a). While some men work in the village, others go into the woods to hunt animals to prepare the moqueado, which will be served on the last day of the festivity.

The ceremony is marked by singing, circular dances, and maraca beats. The initiates and her partners step heavily with their right foot, indicating that everything must start with the right foot, since they are beginning a new phase in their life. Another important aspect is that the dancers move counterclockwise on the dance floor, which is a measure of protection, to keep evil away. The men sing songs praising the birds and animals of the forest, and the women sing along in affirmation, in a type of chorus. The female chorus is also important when the karuwara enter the bodies of those present.

The women sing more powerfully, showing their strength through singing. Another important aspect is that everything in the Ramada happens from dusk to dawn. These are the secrets of pajé’s work that legitimize the initiates and bring joy to those present at the ramada ceremony. (Field Diary, July 15, 2017)

In the week of the ritual, the initiates and their partners dance in a counterclockwise circle every night, except on Saturday, when they rest, because on Sunday, which is the last day of the ceremony, they will dance all day.

On Saturday, besides having their hair cut by the village cacique, the initiates receive a full body jeninapo painting and are adorned with nambusinha feathers. Previously, the ornaments were made from the feathers of the harpy eagle (Wagley & Galvão, 1961; Zannoni, 1999). Besides the jenipapo painting, the eagle’s feathers emphasized even more the idea of the woman being strong as a predator in the ritual, because the eagle, the jaguar, and the surubim fish are predators in the air, on land and in water. In the ritual, the girl presents herself as someone seeking strength, courage, and determination in her cycle of development.

On the last day, the girls receive the waza, a female headdress made from colorful bird feathers, which half covers the face, and the girls have their breasts bare. This waza is used with a long white skirt with a red stripe at knee height, a complementary clothing that only the girls can wear. The boys wear red shorts and a straw skirt (Coelho, 2015a). On this day, one of the Indigenous leaders, dressed in a straw skirt, will dance in front of the girls and show them a guariba (red howler monkey, Alouatta guariba) roasted on coals, with a tauari (straw cigarette) in its mouth and its penis visible.

The girls cannot smile at all, because if they do, they will show they are no longer pure and are also not ready for marriage. In the same way, if on Sunday the body painting from the previous day has not turned entirely dark, it is understood that the girl has had sexual relations. Furthermore, if the monkey chosen to brighten up the ceremony starts smelling bad on that day, it means that one of the initiates has had sexual relations. (Field Diary, July 16, 2017)

The girls must withstand the jokes and laughter of the community at the time of the ritual and demonstrate the ability to maintain seriousness, understood as a necessary strength for building a family. They are not punished for failing to remain serious, but the caretakers are held responsible for the education and protection of the girl now initiated into adulthood. The notion of purity here, although it includes the dimension of sexuality, does not concern Christian colonization processes, but indicates that for the community, sexual relations are not expected to have been experienced until the body is properly mature, and the ritual marks that moment of maturation. The sense of purity refers to the ability of the community to provide its members with the personal and collective needs to maintain a healthy life.

An interesting aspect of the ritual can be seen in how those in trance are protected and treated with respect. People watch over them until they wake up, so they don’t fall and hurt themselves. Trances are a constant during the entire week of the ceremony. However, on Sunday, the last day, when the pajé is summoned, ecstasy takes over the community and guests and lasts the entire day until the closing of the ceremony, with sunset, when the karuwara return to the forest.

The centrality of women in the social and political life of the Tenetehar-Tembé

Among the Tenetehar-Tembé, the highest authority and the ability to offer guidance to the cacique is reserved for the capitoa (an important female leader) (Hannud et al., 2022). We will discuss this further on with the example of two prominent capitoa: Miss Verônica and Miss Brasilicia.

Miss Verônica left a legacy of courage, determination, and autonomy for many generations and villages of the Tenetehar-Tembé people. According to accounts from the research participants, Veronica is remembered for her resistance against changes in practices that would undermine the Indigenous culture such as marriages based on the economic interests of the invaders and inappropriate land use. When there was no room for reconsidering these viewpoints within the community, she would gather her family on a boat and go down the river, looking for another place to set up a new village to bring her family and relatives together. She did this a few times in her life (Field Diary, July 10, 2017).

By doing this, Miss Verônica and her family were responsible for the rise of several new villages in the Guamá and Gurupi regions, between the States of Pará and Maranhão (Valadão, 1981). From her experience of being in charge in difficult situations, Miss Verônica accumulated much knowledge in her family, which set them apart from other families. She had the courage to start from scratch in the wilderness, build huts, and begin a new life, passing on to the next generation all the experience and knowledge of her people. She also made it a point to speak only Tenetehara, although she understood Portuguese, promoting the discussion of community issues in her native tongue.

The knowledge transmitted by Miss Verônica provided guidance to the youngest members of the Tekohaw village. She also had the final word in the more decisive subjects that involved other villages of her people. This capitoa had authority over the caciques, who were considered the main leaders in their villages. After the meetings in their own communities ended, they would come to her for counseling. Her words led to positive outcomes for the villages in complicated situations like the interventions by invaders, especially the influence they had on younger people who were invited to social gatherings and other engagements resulting in conflicts between generations of the Indigenous community, in which she acted as a conflict mediator. Her success in this activity was accompanied by respect and consideration from government authorities and the Indigenous communities for which she fought for years in the struggle to preserve the culture and the rights achieved.

From the analyzed data from the first author’s field diary, Miss Verônica can be considered the strongest capitoa of the Tenetehar-Tembé people. After having gone blind for unknown reasons, she passed away in 2013 due to severe malnutrition. The Verônica Tembé Memorial (Figure 1) was built in her honor inside the Utinga State Park, Belém do Pará in 2020 (Figure 2) and inaugurated on January 11, 2021. The memorial, which reminds us of the history of Indigenous peoples in Pará, displays artifacts made by the communities and now serves as a tourist spot.

Figure 1.

Verônica Tembé Memorial (Photo by Miriam Dantas de Almeida).

Figure 2.

Utinga State Park, Belém, Pará, Brazil (Photo by Miriam Dantas de Almeida).

From the field research, the first author observed that another capitoa is Miss Brasilícia, from Sussuarana village, also in the Gurupi region. She represents the interests of the women of Sussuarana village and its surroundings in the meetings of the Tenetehar-Tembé. Among the Indigenous women, she is the main leader of the villages on the banks of the Gurupi River. The women in the village have their viewpoints, they contest, complain, and sometimes speak ill of leaders. They complain about the men not participating in the harvest of medicinal herbs and in gathering seeds for handicrafts. They say the leaders from other villages fail to incentivize men to do such tasks.

The capitoa hears the other women’s demands and mediates the disputes between them and the other leaders from the different communities. She does this in conversation circles, in meetings with leaders at the ramada, a place exclusively used for rituals, community meetings, and sessions for planning actions (Ponte, 2014). Miss Brasilícia is a capitoa with a powerful, compelling, and often harsh message, meant to detain possible abuses from the men in her village.

Considering the cases of these two women, it is worth mentioning that capitoas, nominated by the community to take stances regarding community interests, are frequent among the Tenetehar-Tembé. Women leaders occupying different positions are found in the villages of the upper Guamá River, of the Gurupi River, and in villages spread across the State of Pará, Brazil. Many women leaders lack the title of capitoa but are legitimate leaders nonetheless, since they mediate relations between government bodies, social institutions, and villages. They strive to promote daily activities that may increase Indigenous people’s social and political status in the surrounding society. Their participation is particularly valuable in the field of healthcare.

We are not able to cover the entire subject of the centrality of women in the social and political life of the Tenetehar-Tembé. Women certainly still struggle to create more satisfactory relations between them and men in the communities. It is a continuous process that requires women to take part in specific rites aimed at strengthening them as persons and future leaders in their communities.

Discussion

The set of rites presented here constitute the process of leadership formation that the Tenetehar-Tembé people carry out in their communities from early childhood. All people are trained to become leaders and can exercise this role in different contexts of community life, depending on the interest and abilities of each person, such as health and well-being, as in the case of midwives, family and village life obtaining resources for subsistence, organizing ceremonies, by participating in decisions that involve relationship between villages and communities that do not belong to the Tenetehar-Tembé people, including dialogue with institutions in the urban context and the university. At the end of the discussion, we highlight two women who have become prominent in this role, with the exercise of women’s leadership involving the entire life of the Tenetehar-Tembé people.

The rites and narratives of a people, often connected to specific daily practices, indicate different experiences that objectively and subjectively construct the people involved. If we investigate the realities and dynamics of the Tenetehar-Tembé villages, we can recognize the active role of women. They are productive workers who are economically and politically organized, for example, by means of the Gurupi Women’s Association (Ponte & Aquino, 2013), which aims at the commercialization of handicrafts, ceremony ornaments such as skirts, bras, necklaces, headdresses, earrings, and bracelets, all made by the women of the Gurupi region. However, the organization of women in associations gives rise to controversy, since women question the division of labor with men. To them, men and women should work together. In these circumstances, the ways the capitoas handle daily affairs in the village are more compatible and legitimate to the Tenetehar-Tembé women, who are proud of being represented by a woman with significant authority in their villages.

Psychology, a field of knowledge that emerged from European and North American contexts, is dedicated to the study of actual individuals’ feelings, thoughts, and actions (James, 1890). We saw, from the reports on the Tenetehar-Tembé rites of the construction of the person—related to pregnancy, the passage from baby to child and child to adult, and the preparation of the woman for pregnancy—that feelings, thoughts, and actions are culturally oriented by rites that produce meaningful events in the course of life of individuals. The meanings of ritualized practices are discussed in narratives that may refer to actually close people, relatives and community members, as Miss Verônica and Miss Brasilícia, or ancestors, like in the story of Zary, the mythical ancestor who became the moon, mentioned before, when reporting the Pinakapememeke. The reflections about the experienced rites and shared narratives guide people’s decisions in life, for example, in the choice of partners for marriage, in the assessment of someone’s ability or inability to take care of children and the elderly.

The birth of a Tenetehar-Tembé child is an important moment in the life of the community. The event is understood as the arrival of happiness and the continuity of culture through oral transmission to the next generations (Coelho, 2015a). The teachings are passed on in the form of stories told by the elders, the Tenetehara language, rituals and worldviews.

The Tenetehar-Tembé psychology, therefore, is connected to specific rites and myths that guide reflections and ways of life, personal and collective actions with a meaning in the lifeworld of an Indigenous people. The present study gave us access to aspects of the lifeworld through the speech of caciques, mothers, teachers, and the observation of community rites. However, the meanings of these experiences may be further explored through dialogue with the pajés, both men and women, those who hold the so-called secrets that sustain community life. These secrets, in turn, are partially opened and shared in rituals. Such knowledge can be directed to the construction of new ideas in the field of psychology about the cultural constraints (Valsiner, 1998) that guide feelings, thoughts, and actions of Tenetehar-Tembé people.

Table 1 presents a synthesis of rites, myth themes, reflection, and operations involved in the construction of the Tenetehar-Tembé Indigenous psychology.

Table 1.

The construction of the Tenetehar-Tembé Indigenous psychology.

Rites	Narrative topics	Reflection	Operations
Pregnancy	Danger rests	Community care is more adequate	Resuming traditions
Wiraohawo-i	The child is autonomous	Progressive liberation of the adults in relation to childcare	Initiation of the child into adult food
Kuzà Waza Ipiynykaw	Knowing how to care for others and protect oneself	Shame for failing to fulfill social expectations	Public demonstration of strength and concentration

Tenetehar-Tembé = an Indigenous people who live on many riverside regions in the states of Pará and Maranhão, Brazil; Wiraohawo-I = Child’s Ceremony; Kuzà Waza Ipiynykaw = Girl’s Ceremony.

The set of rites that make up the Kuzà Waza Ipiynykaw indicates how the Tenetehar-Tembé understand the construction of the person as a progressive preparation for the encounter with the other according to different relational positions: from a state of enclosure and dependence on the older women to a condition of openness to people from the community and outsiders. The rite involves the woman’s demonstration that she can handle and free herself from the spirits’ attempts to hit her. All the rites point to healthcare, well-being, and the strengthening of women’s resistance, which is their central meaning in the Tenetehar-Tembé conception. In this process, she gains relevant knowledge for the maintenance of life. Under these conditions, the adult person can become a leader, a caretaker in her community, who looks after children and the elderly, growing in respect in the eyes of families and villages.

Conclusion

The considerations presented so far, including the synthesis made in Table 1, do not intend to exhaust the subject, but to introduce reflections on central matters in the life and, therefore, psychology of the Tenetehar-Tembé. The constructed data focus on the worldviews of the Tenetehar-Tembé related to the processes of human development, which include the practices of psychological care. The reflexivity and the health and wellness practices of the Indigenous communities are based on the experience and later narrative elaboration of their rites, which opens new possibilities for interpreting the events that take place in the temporality of community life. Further development of the Tenetehar-Tembé psychology depends on psychology’s participation in the process of cultivation of life, in which the construction of the person for community caretaking is central. These new forms of knowledge may, then, be systematized and made available for reflexive questioning, in a relation of continuity with the rites and myths that characterize the Indigenous lifeworld.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the Tenetehar-Tembé communities for guiding the first author in her field research process and making available the knowledge construction reported in this paper.

Authors’ note

Miriam Dantas de Almeida (Tenetehar-Tembé) has a BA in Psychology Society and Health, from the University of Amazonia/UNAMA (2000), psychologist training at the University of Amazonia (2002) with Specialization in Mental Health from State University/UEPA (2003), a master’s degree in Clinical and Social Psychology from UFPA (2017). She has worked for the Department of Social Action Tomé-Açú City Hall (2006), was a SESAI Psychologist (Dsei Guamá Tocantins) from 2012 to 2013, and Temporary Professor of Indigenous Health at UEPA (2018). Miriam was a researcher in the field of Indigenous childhood and pregnancy (2017), and member of the CRP-10 Indigenous Peoples Commission Group (2012), the UFPA Indigenous Students’ Association (APYEUFPA), the Brazilian Articulation of Indigenous Psychologists (ABIPSI), the Psychology Council, CRP:10th Region PARÁ/AMAPÁ, the CRP 10 2023 Indigenous Peoples Commission, Articulação Nômade de Psicologia Indígenas e Quilombolas Pindorama (ANPIQP) and the Academic League of Indigenous Health (LASIPA). She is also a member of the Editorial Board FIOCRUZ Rio de Janeiro 2023 and the Gender Equity Commission (UFPA) 2024.

Danilo Silva Guimarães (Tikmu’un Maxakali) (PhD) is a Full Professor (2017) in the area of History and Philosophy of Psychology at the Department of Experimental Psychology of the Institute of Psychology of the University of São Paulo, Brazil, where he carries out teaching and research activities on a full-time basis. He develops and supervises research in the area of theoretical and methodological problems of psychological research: semiotic-cultural constructivism, with an emphasis on Indigenous psychology. Danilo is an advisor to a research development agency and sits on the editorial boards of national and international scientific journals. He has been coordinating the university service Indigenous Support Network since 2015 and the Graduate Program in Experimental Psychology since 2020.

Pâmela Damilano dos Santos is a psychologist (CRP 06/165367) and has bachelor in Psychology (2019) from the Institute of Psychology at the University of São Paulo (IPUSP), Brazil. She is a PhD student in Experimental Psychology at IPUSP, supervised by Professor Danilo Silva Guimarães, in the area of theoretical and methodological problems of psychological research: semiotic-cultural constructivism, with an emphasis on Indigenous psychology. Pâmela received scholarships from FAPESP and CNPq during her undergraduate studies in Anthropology (2019) and master’s degree in Experimental Psychology (2020–2021) and is currently a doctoral researcher funded by CNPq. Her research emphasizes psychological care attuned to cultural diversity and fosters intercultural dialogues beyond Western frameworks. Pâmela is member of the Indigenous Support Network, a university service where she works as psychologist and clinical supervisor for psychological care for Indigenous peoples. She is also a member of the National Association for Research and Postgraduate Studies in Psychology.

Nandita Chaudhary taught at the University of Delhi, Lady Irwin College from 1982 to 2017. She was a Fulbright scholar at the Psychology Department of Clark University, USA, during 1993–1994 and was awarded a Senior Fellowship by the Indian Council for Social Science Research from 2012 to 2014. Nandita has participated in international collaborations in the areas of culture, children’s development, and family studies. She has several publications in books and journals in the field of cultural psychology: Listening to Culture: Constructing Reality from Everyday Talk (Sage, 2004), co-edited five volumes. Since March 2023, Nandita has served as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Cultural Psychology at the Federal University of Bahia, Brazil, for a 2-year period.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and publication of this article.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and publication of this article: Danilos Silva Guimarães reports a grant awarded from São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP, grant number 2022/04906-3) and from The Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq, grant number 306149/2023-0) for the project “Indigenous Support Network: conceptions, practices and environments for health and well-being”; Pâmela Damilano dos Santos reports a PhD scholarship awarded from the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico—CNPq, Brazil (grant # 140443/2022-3); Nandita Chaudhary acknowledges Federal University of Bahia, Brazil (Edital Professor Visitante/PVB/UFBA and CAPES-PRINT).

ORCID iDs

Miriam Dantas de Almeida

Danilo Silva Guimarães

Glossary

açaí a purple or black fruit of a palm tree found predominantly in the Amazon

anta tapir; Tapirus terrestris

beiju manioc pancake

cacique chief

capitoa important female leader

guariba red howler monkey; Alouatta guariba

jenipapo genipap tree; Genipa americana

karawias non-Indigenous

karuwara the spirit of a deceased person or animal, such as any loved non-human being that may have social characteristics

Kuzà Waza Ipiynykaw Girls’ Ceremony

kwaharer-y child

logos reason, word, cosmic principle, signifying rationality and universal order; the study or systematic knowledge of a field

mandiocaba a type of cassava

mingau porridge

moqueado roast meat pounded with cassava flour using a pestle and mortar with cassava flour

nambusinha a kind of small bird; Tinamus guttatus

nenê-y baby

paca a kind of large rodent; Cuniculus paca

pajé shaman

panema jinxed; temporary bad luck due to ritual transgression

Pinakapememeke Porridge Ceremony

porco pig; Sus scrofa domesticus

psyché breath, soul, life force, immaterial essence; a goddess who symbolizes the soul’s journey

ramada the hut where the ceremony takes place

surubim catfish; Pseudoplatystoma fasciatum

tapiwara strong spirit that is present in some specific game meats, usually predators, making it harmful to eat

tauari straw cigarette

Tocaia an ambush, the act of lying in wait, hidden, to attack someone or to hunt

Tenetehara the language spoken by the Tenetehar-Tembé

Tenetehar-Tembé an Indigenous people who live on many riverside regions in the states of Pará and Maranhão, Brazil

Tupi one of the largest Indigenous peoples originating from the Amazon who migrated, millennia ago, towards the north Atlantic Coast of what is now Brazil and are characterised by a patrilineal kinship structure

waza a female headdress made of colorful bird feathers, which half covers the face

Wiraohawo-i Children’s Ceremony

Wira’u-haw a ceremony involving a typical food, called moqueado

Zary the half-moon; mythical ancestor who fell in love with his aunt and could not control his love, coming to sleep with her every night

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