From Caminha to Zé Carioca: invisibility, erasure, and silencing of indigenous cultural identity

Abstract

This article aims to understand, through a comparative study, how indigenous cultural identity is represented in the narratives presented in Pero Vaz de Caminha’s letter and the comic book Especial Brasil 500 Anos − Zé Carioca, in the light of anthropological studies on identity and cultural processes. It is understandable that the magazine is almost a contemporary illustration of the letter of Caminha, since both portray the cultural differences that exist between the Indigenous and Portuguese people, representing the image of the colonizer with strong moral principles, religious and domination, as opposed to the image of the archaic native, without culture and ambition, stagnant in time waiting for those who explore their resources and potentiality. The narratives, textual and imagetic, create stereotypes that contribute to the situation of invisibility, erasure, and silencing of indigenous cultural identity, especially by depreciating it in the face of the Eurocentric culture of the colonizer.