PEACE LESSONS FROM A BULLET ANT (TUCANDEIRA) DANCE AMONG THE SATERE-MAWE

This book chapter by J. P. Linstroth, titled: “Conflict Avoidance among the Sateré-Mawé of Manaus, Brazil’, and Peacemaking Behaviours among Amazonian Amerindians” (2016), there is a general discussion of Amazonian Amerindian practices of peacemaking and then analysed different aspects of Sateré-Mawé culture, mythology, and ritual. This led to an interpretation of urban Sateré-Mawé conflict avoidance behaviours in Manaus, Brazil. As such, the urban Sateré-Mawé of Manaus, Brazil, are different from other Amazonian peoples and even the Sateré-Mawé in the interior because they have lost many of their traditions by living in the city, such as the tradition of the cultivation of guaraná. Like their Christian Sateré-Mawé Protestant crentes (believers) in the interior, the urban Sateré-Mawé Seventh-Day Adventists (adventistas), because of their Christian beliefs, have altered the meaning of the tucandeira ritual. In Amazonian societies, conflict avoidance behaviours are often about ontological states of personhood and socialization of learned emotive con- duct whereas such states of being are less likely among urban Sateré-Mawé because of their life in the metropolis and therefore forgetting a traditional way of life. Hence, I analysed some Sateré-Mawé leaders (tuxauas), Paulo of the CA, Waldir of the AM, and Soraya of the AMIA, but concentrated on Paulo for his conflict avoidance behaviours because of his psychological perspective in doing so. I believe much of Paulo's disposition has to do with his Seventh-Day Adventist faith and Christian beliefs developed from the New Testament as he avoided conflict as much as possible. Modern day Sateré-Mawé tuxauas like Paulo no longer rely on the cult object, the puratim, to resolve conflict based upon Sateré-Mawé moral codes. They handle and avoid conflict through their own leadership skills and what they know from the Christian message in the New Testament. Urban Indians like the Sateré-Mawé are not unlike other Amazonian Indians in the interior as they supposedly do lead more harmonious lives than white people in the city. They reiterated to me on several occasions how different they are from white people and that they care for one another, in other words, their form of "conviviality."ll! As such, even though urban Satere-Mawé in general have lost many of their traditions, they are still Indians all the same and try to live harmonious lives in the city,