External Relations in the Indigenous Politics at São Gabriel da Cachoeira (AM): Indigenization of the Town Hall and Incorporation of Otherness

Abstract

Based on some ethnographic considerations about the ethos of valorization and incorporation of otherness in Upper Rio Negro, this article reflects on the assessment made by the Indians themselves of the "indigenous administration" of the Town Hall of São Gabriel da Cachoeira (Amazonas State, Brazil). The argument is that since the Town Hall is an element that imposes relations exterior to the indigenous world, the attempt to indigenize it would require at least two procedures: the incorporation of relations and "elements of otherness"; and the incorporation of Indians in the Town Hall. According to some of those involved in this experience, the administration “wasn’t indigenous" due to the excess of "people from the outside" and a certain "contamination" of the mayor by the “politics of the whites”. However, an inescapable question is: to what degree could the state itself support dynamics that bring the simultaneity of differences intrinsic to the relations between Indians in the region? The analysis suggests that instead of a supposed incapacity of the Indians for state administration, there is the inability of the state to deal with and/or incorporate differences and alterities.