Photography and (mis)encounter: a photographic narrative of the oficial contact of the Asuriní of Xingu

Abstract

This study deals with the agreements and disagreements of conceptions and
understandings between the Xingu Asuriní and the ethnologist-priests who made the official contact with the group in 1971, regarding the presence of photography during the first contact. I will make a comparative analysis of the photographs included in Lukesch’s documentary and scientific project published in 1976 in the book Bearded Indians of the Tropical Forest, in contrast to its agency among the Asuriní almost forty years later. The idea is to construct a photographic narrative of the ethnologist-priests’ and indigenous versions of the contact. Such versions often contradict each other, while also revealing that photographs mediate the relations between natives and non-indigenous people. Although referring to the same photographs, their use is quite different: the priests employ them as evidence that the contact was peaceful, and the Asuriní use them as artifacts of memory.