Concepções sobre língua, cultura e educação: a Escola Indígena Para Poty Nhe’e Ja e o curso Mbya Nhe’en Xarau Porã

Abstract

This research is the result of a study carried out with individuals of the Guarani Mbyá ethnic group living in the Mata Verde Bonita village (Tekoa Ka'Aguy Ovy Porã), located in São José do Imbassaí Environmental Reserve, in the municipality of Maricá, state of Rio de Janeiro. The Guarani Mbyá, together with Nhandeva (Chiripá/Txiripa/Xiripá or Ava) and Kaiowá, form the Guarani complex, which belongs to the Tupi Guarani family, within a Tupi linguistic trunk. The objective of this research is to contribute to the discussion on the importance of maintaining and strengthening Brazil’s Indigenous languages, not solely through the lens of linguistics, but especially through the knowledge and wisdom that these peoples claim as vital for their survival and for their teko (the Mbyá way of being). We aim to reflect on the importance of Indigenous schools within the villages, on the territory as a place to live and to recall customs and traditions. We explore how schools can express the ethnic identity of indigenous groups, manifested primarily through language, in which myths, songs and dances are revived, materializing memory. For this purpose, it is necessary to understand whether the relationship between language, memory, and identity takes the form of a dynamic process that unfolds over time, having as its main element the Guarani Mbyá people’s sense of belonging to their origins. Observing the communication relationships established between indigenous languages is essential to understanding the different dimensions, internal not only to culture and society, and to the language, but also to political, symbolic and historical. We seek to examine this information in order to foster knowledge about the diversity found in the Mbyá way of life. We identify what the Mbyá indigenous people carry in their memories, what they consider to be a loss, since contact with the colonizers and in contact throughout history, and what has been preserved and recreated, such as myths, songs, festivals, and other identity elements that are part of being Guarani Mbya, both in the Indigenous Para Poty Nhe'e Ja and in the university extension course Guarani Mbya Language and Culture, NHE'EN XARAU PORÃ. The intention is to enable the creation of pedagogical materials that can be used in Basic Education, so that children, from an early age, have the opportunity to learn about the indigenous populations, who have resisted all attacks and attempts at extermination by non-indigenous people. We intend to promote respect for and the advancement of Indigenous peoples so that no more groups disappear, and to preserve their cultures, languages, political organizations, and territories. We defend that the promotion of indigenous peoples must include learning and understanding their ways of life, their cultural values, and their practices of sustainability that have been present throughout the country’s history. This work is carried out through ethnographic research conducted in two contexts of use of the Guarani Mbyá language one is the Guarani Municipal Indigenous School Para Poty Nhe’é Ja of Tekoa Ka'Aguy Ovy Porã (Mata Verde Bonita Village), located in the São José do Imbassaí Environmental Reserve, in the municipality of Maricá, state of Rio de Janeiro, the other context is the Guarani Language and Culture extension course, taught by a Guarani teacher, which is part of the extension project "Cultural Heritage, Traditional Knowledge, and Indigenous Education" of the Fluminense Federal University (UFF).