Thinking about origins and candomblé with the Mapuche: ethnographies through Afro-Indigenous encounters

Resumo

The text focuses on ideas around origins and personhood, based on collaborations between an Afro Brazilian anthropologist, who is a member of a candomblé terreiro in Brazil, and Mapuche people living in Patagonia, mainly in the Argentinian side of the Andes Mountains. Using the narration of encounters between humans and more-thanhumans as a methodological approach, I consider the potential of these ethnographic accounts to think through ideas of body-territory (as a fundamental aspect of a person’s origins). The article demonstrates that the connection between family and territory is at the center of Mapuche notions of origin, the extension of the idea of being originario to Afro Brazilians, and how Afro-Indigenous alliances have been built, indicating the potential of ethnographic work to map them.