A tábua Kambeba para achatar a cabeça e seus significados através do tempo, do espaço e das epistemologias

Abstract

The ethnographic collection preserved at the Science Academy of Lisbon hosts a wide range of Amazonian objects. Among them we find a bamboo tablet belonging to the Kambeba people of the Upper Solimões region that was collected between 1783 and 1792 by Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira. It was used for cranial deformation, a practice that is being recovered by the Kambeba as a way to reinforce their ethnic identity. In this essay, we will focus on the different meanings that tablet have been holding according to the political, economic and cultural context, in particular as far as it concerns the perspective of the naturalist and that of the contemporary Kambeba.