Paper short abstract:

The ethnographic collection preserved at the Lisbon Science Academy hosts, among other Amazonian objects, a bamboo tablet belonging to the Kambeba people. While museum’s curator decided not to put it on display, the original population considers it highly representative of its history and identity.

Paper long 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 used in the practice of cranial deformation. It was collected between 1783 and 1792 by Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira, who found it appropriate to represent Kambeba’s monstrosity and alterity compared to European civilization. It is a materially very simple object, aesthetically quite insignificant. Probably for this reason, museum’s curators decided not to put it on display, using other objects to talk about Kambeba people instead. However, it is of great importance for the original population. The practice of cranial deformation occurred during the baptism of a child and represented his/her social birth. The whole ritual, called Kãnga Pewa (“flat head” in tupi nheengatu), was silenced during the colonial period because of discrimination and missionary persecution but is currently part of a broader process of cultural revitalization and ethnic emergence. Within it, the practice of cranial deformation is being reintroduced and interpreted as a symbol of existence and resistance of Kambeba people. Thus, also the objects which carry its memory are given a specific cultural and political meaning, proving to be highly representative of Kambeba people of the past, of the present and of the future.