Abstract

MORAIS, Marília Caetano Rodrigues. Technique and apprenticeship: bykyrè and Iny mats from the William Lipkind Collection (1938). Etnográfica [online]. 2021, vol.25, n.2, pp.541-554.  Epub Nov 25, 2021. ISSN 0873-6561.  https://doi.org/10.4000/etnografica.10524.

Among the Iny, indigenous peoples of Brazil best known in ethnographic literature as Karajá, one of the most present artifacts in the villages is a bykyrè, a term in the Iny language used to refer to mats. In this article, I propose to reflect on how the ethnographic study of bykyrè, conducted with Iny teachers, from a procedural approach of technique and of learning, can contribute to understanding persistences and transformations of technique from one generation to the next; and what is the place of the photographs and documents from the Lipkind Collection (1938) of the National Museum (UFRJ) in this process. Following the appointment of Ingold (2000, 2012) in trying to bring mats of Lipkind collection back to life, after the tragic fire that destroyed the collection in 2018, it is argued that understand how the child’s entry into the production of the bykyrè and the place of the Lipkind Collection, goes through a fine ethnography of the mats while learning a technical process and needs to be strongly linked to an ethnography of the relationship between different generations.

Keywords : anthropology of technique, learning; museums and ethnographic collections, material culture, Iny Karajá.

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