Do dois ao múltiplo na terra do um: a experiência antropológica de David Maybury-Lewis

Abstract

This article reaches a further understanding about the trajectory of the british anthropologist, living in USA, David Maybury-Lewis. It discusses some aspects of his intellectual formation, which includes a long period of research among the Xavante e and a comparative study on the gê and bororo speaking people of Central Brazil. Maybury-Lewis is a central character in the development of the so called "tropical Americanism". Among his ethnografical and theoretical contributions, one can quote the elaboration of a gê and bororo analythical model, the renovation of the kinship studies e and the reflection on the relationship between indigenous peoples and the State. A theme seems, in fact, to be present along all his work: the dual organizations. This was, in effect, the motive of a long debate with Lévi-Strauss' works, which will be here reviewed.