Amazonia’s indigenous peoples: from the canoe path to the reframing of cultures and languages

Abstract

This paper reports on the experiences of indigenous peoples in Amazonia about construction and use of bũgu (tree trunk hull) and igara (wooden canoe) vessels since the arrival of the first civilizations in the amazon region and after these, the evolution which occurred in the construction of large vessels such as igarité (boat) and igaritéasu (ship) with the arrival of Europeans. Later, we did a brief analogy between the tree trunk and the linguistic trunk relating to the indigenous peoples who lost their mother tongues and assimilated Nheengatu as an ethnic language. The methodologies used was ethnography. This research is part of the ongoing doctoral project: The sociolinguistic and literacy situation in Nheengatu of indigenous students and teachers from municipal schools in Manaus, whose objective of this work was to contextualize the socio-cultural aspects to the sociolinguistic situation of these peoples from their experiences from day by day experiences to the process of acquisition and use of the Nheengatu language making a brief analogy between the term tree trunk and the term linguistic trunk. The study found based on the socio-cultural context that indigenous peoples have built and used the bũgu since their early generations, which is part of their culture and is used as the main means of transport in the rivers ygarapé (canoe path) of the Amazonia, and in the sociolinguistic context we found that the Baré, Mura and Warekena peoples lost their first mother tongues and assimilated the Nheengatu language and the brazilian portuguese language.