Paletó and Me: Memories of My Indigenous Father

231 Pages·2021·21.016 MB·English

by  Aparecida Vilaça

Praise for Paletó and Me
“Simple and profound, this book is a testament to an ethical, moral,
and political commitment to the colonized peoples of America.”
—Casa de las Américas Prize committee
“When I read Paletó and Me, I had a wonderful revelation. Our an-
cestors, with wisdom and magic, foresaw an irrepressible capacity of
people to affect worlds and to make families across cultures. And I
gained a ‘relative’ in the talented writer Aparecida Vilaça, whose an-
thropology is made of affects between worlds.”
—Ailton Krenak, author of
Ideas to Postpone the End of the World
“In this extraordinary account, the rich experiences of a seasoned social
anthropologist are superbly sustained by novelistic insights. Aparecida
Vilaça takes us on a journey into a profoundly alien culture by entering
the mind of one man, Paletó. His life spanned, it seemed, an entire
history of human civilization. From an upbringing and early adult-
hood in an uncontacted tribe in the Amazon forest to the explosive,
savage intrusions of modernity, his outlook remained deeply humane.
Through him, Vilaça holds up a mirror to the unchanging fundamen-
tals of human nature.”
—Ian McEwan
“The wonderful draw of Paletó and Me is the courage of one woman
immersing herself in another culture and ‘making relatives.’ Through
her acute observations, Aparecida Vilaça conveys a way of being to
any reader who may not know how one indigenous community con-
tinues to exist.”
—Linda Hogan, author of
The Radiant Lives of Animals
“Paletó and Aparecida’s unlikely, potent kinship is narrated unfor-
gettably in this book, without the narrator glossing over any of the
violence of colonialism across which it happened. Kinship is always a
surprise, never to be taken for granted. Paletó and Me shows how such
a surprise continues to matter.”
—Donna Haraway, author of
Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene
“In this fascinating account, Aparecida Vilaça at times effaces her-
self—concealed by her friend’s lively voice—and at times reemerges
in the luminous form of her singular and personal writing. Far from
being a conventional anthropological text, Paletó and Me depicts the
inebriating journey between identities that reveal themselves to be
both ancient and fleeting.”
—Mia Couto, author of Sleepwalking Land
“Written in a conversational tone and guided by memories, Paletó
and Me is inspired by questions rather than conclusions and com-
pletely forsakes ideology, rendering Aparecida Vilaça’s memories into
a delightful story.”
—Paulo Roberto Pires, Época Magazine
P A L E T Ó A N D M E
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P A L E T Ó
and M E
Memories of My Indigenous Father
A P A R E C I D A V I L A Ç A
Translated by David Rodgers
stanford University Press
Stanford, California
stanford University Press
Stanford, California
English translation © 2021 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior
University. All rights reserved.
Paletó and Me was originally published in Portuguese in 2018 under the title Paletó e eu:
memórias de meu pai indígena © 2018, Todavia.
Images are published with permission.
Beto Barcellos: pp. 21, 22, 26, 28, 32, 92, 174
Archives of the Prelacy of Guajará-M irim: pp. 138, 139
Gilles de Catheu: p. 157
Carlos Fausto: p. 218
All other images by Aparecida Vilaça.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press.
Printed in the United States of America on acid- free, archival- quality paper
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Vilaça, Aparecida, 1958- author. | Rodgers, David (Translator),translator.
Title: Paletó and me : memories of my Indigenous father / Aparecida Vilaça ; translated by
David Rodgers.
Other titles: Paletó e eu. English
Description: Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2021. |“Originally published
in Portuguese in 2018 under the title Paletó e eu: memórias de meu pai indígena.” |
Includes bibliographical referencesand index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021018476 (print) | LCCN 2021018477 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781503629332 (paperback) | ISBN 9781503629349 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Vilaça, Aparecida, 1958- | Paletó, - 2017. | Pakaasnovos Indians—
Brazil— Biography. | Women ethnologists— Brazil— Biography.
Classification: LCC F2520.1.P32 V56513 2021 (print) | LCC F2520.1.P32(ebook) |
DDC 305.80092 [B]— dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021018476
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021018477
Cover design: Kevin Barrett Kane
Cover image: Aparecida Vilaça
Text design: Kevin Barrett Kane
Typeset at Stanford University Press in 11/15 itC Galliard Pro
CONTENTS
1. Death without Cannibalism 1
2. The Encounter 15
3. The Peccary Brother 34
4. The Houses 44
5. Escaping Death for the First Time 67
6. The First White and Other Wars 79
7. The Stone Axe, the Dream of Paris,
and the Bachelor House 84
8. The Jaguar Mother-i n- Law 93
9. The Wives 100
10. Escaping Death for the Second Time:
The Massacre 107
11. The Bewitched Bride and Poison
in the Houses 115
12. Meeting the Whites 119
13. Sexy 126
14. Talking with the Bishop and
the Misunderstandings of Contact 134
15. The Epidemics 143
Contents
16. Guajará- Mirim, Brazil 148
17. Meeting the Missionaries 154
18. In the Land of the Priests 158
19. Becoming a Believer 165
20. One Coach Station, Two Airports,
and a Titanium Leg 173
21. Where the Water Meets the Clouds
and the Fish- Men 178
22. The Animals Who Are People, the Big
Rock, and the Bones of the Dead 191
23. The Slippery People and the
Big Television 196
24. Making Kin 202
25. The Farewell 208
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