Indigenous witchcraft and the capitalist sorcery

Abstract

The perception that the Upper Xingu, a multi-linguistic community of indigenous peoples that inhabit the upper reaches of the Xingu river, is going through significant chances associated to the increasing flux of money and manufactured goods over the last decade or more seems to be shared by many researchers working on the area. What follows is a preliminar hypothesis about a particular aspect of this context – the issue of a possible relation between these chances and indigenous sorcery – based on the ethnography of the Aweti, a tupi speaking xinguano people. To resist the temptation to think that we know better them themselves what is going on, and that we know what is best for them, is also to understand what forms the resistance to capitalist capture can take in their world.