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Kim — U of N Press / Page 57 / / I Foresee My Life / OAKDALE [57], (3) Lines: 32 to 84 ——— 0.02pt PgVar ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [57], (3) 3 THE SELF-CONSCIOUS ‘‘INDIAN’’ The important thing about leadership is understanding the situation of the other. chief joão, 1992 As São José do Xingu, the Brazilian town located just outside of the northern perimeter of the park, was preparing for mayoral elections, an event that involved many candidate-sponsored festivities, Chief João called a village meeting in Kapinu’a. In his meeting João addressed the dangers of drinking alcohol when visiting São José. In the course of describing the problems that could ensue from drinking, he admitted that he himself had drunk beer in town and that afterward others had counseled him not to do so. Sitting in the audience, my first thought was that his admission was rhetorically just about the least effective thing he could have said. How, I wondered, could his admitting that he had done what he was advising others not to do convince people to behave appropriately? After listening to other comments by João and other leaders, however, I began to see that his admission fit within a more general pattern of leading followers in a nonauthoritarian manner. His account of his own past behavior, combined with the fact that villagers knew him as someone who currently did not drink, provided a model for others of how to move from wayward to correct behavior. In this chapter I focus on two examples of public addresses given by leaders that also include autobiographical accounts. These addresses concern how the speakers have navigated facets of Brazilian Indian identity at play for inhabitants of the Xingu Park. Much as elsewhere in lowland South America, notions about Indian identity coming from sources external to indigenous communities are increasingly influencing contemporary self-representations (Conklin 1997, 2002; Conklin and Graham 1995; Jackson 1989, 1991, 1995a, 1995b; Ramos 1998; Turner 1991, 2000; Whitten 1981). In one address Chief João describes his own confrontation with aspects of Brazilian Indian identity during his 1992 trip to Rio de Janeiro to participate in the Earth Summit, a Kim — U of N Press / Page 58 / / I Foresee My Life / OAKDALE part 2 [58], (4) Lines: 84 to 94 ——— 6.5pt PgVar ——— Normal Page * PgEnds: Eject [58], (4) global conference on the environment. In the other, the elder headman Amapá recounts how he reacted to facets of Brazilian Indian identity during his 1966 relocation to the Xingu. I compare these accounts with the advice these leaders give their followers concerning how to most powerfully engage with aspects of this imposed identity in the present. While many Kayabi people living in the Xingu Indigenous Park appear to be conscious of their Indian identity in the eyes of Brazilians, not all have the same understanding of what this identity entails nor do they know all of the associated terms, such as culture. Many Kayabi are, for example, just beginning to think about themselves in terms of the category “Indian” (see Jackson1991).Thetwomenwhoappearhere,however,areleaderswithshrewd appreciationofthemanyfacetsofBrazilianIndianidentityatworkintheXingu as well as ideas about what this entity called “culture” might entail. Their comments display what Terence Turner has called a historically “appropriate” social consciousness involving “an awareness of the ambivalent import of their ‘ethnicity’ as a pretext for subordination by the dominant society, but also a potential basis for the assertion of collective autonomy” (1991, 293). In the addresses presented here each man draws on opposite sides of this “ambivalent import.” The young chief’s comments point to the subordination of an unreflexive Kayabi by the dominant society, while the elder headman’s focus is on shared ethnicity or “culture” as a basis for group autonomy. Although the speakers gave their addresses several weeks apart, they were in effect in dialogue with each other. In addition to making statements about how to most effectively engage with facets of contemporary Indian identity, they also made claims as to which sort of leader, young or elderly, is most effective for the present. Both made the argument that leaders should possess the most current and up-to-date knowledge about Indian identity and know how it works within the contemporary world. Indianness and culture, as others have pointed out (Jackson 1995a, 4, 14), are not fixed with respect to what they entail but rather are dynamic and changing. According to João, youths, who are more in sync with...

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