Da pajelança à evangelização: reflexões sobre o xamanismo paumari

Abstract

This article discusses shamanism among the indigenous Paumari people of the Arawá linguistic family, located in the Purus River Region in the State of Amazonas. After the work of the missionaries of the Summer Institute of Linguistics there was the evangelization and conversion of the Paumari to the evangelical religion. The article presents elements of mythology and its relation with shamanism, healing of diseases and witchcraft. From the Paumari conceptions regarding beings of the spirit world, body, soul and spirit of humans and not humans, we investigate the way these elements are operationalized and are associated to the conceptions of health and disease, it is associated with the theft of the soul, the theme found in studies of various peoples and whose cure is related to shamanism. From the evangelization, the traditional cultural elements are renified and the change of the social status of the shaman in the face of the evangelical presence in the paumari communities.