Roberta Pôrto Marques · Espaço Ameríndio, Porto Alegre, 6(1), 2012, pp. 97–118.

This ethnographic study examines tobacco use and the pipes known as petynguá among Mbyá-Guarani groups in villages near Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul. The author draws on fieldwork conducted between 2008 and 2009, ethnographic references and the framework of Amerindian perspectivism.

The article shows that the petynguá belongs both to everyday life and to healing, singing, dancing and ceremonies in the opy. Wood, clay and bamboo are not merely technical choices: the pipe is presented as an agentive object, an extension of the person and a means of relating to other domains of the cosmos. Smoke, or tatachina, is described as a force that can protect, inspire wise speech and make what is normally invisible perceptible.

Original article: DOI 10.22456/1982-6524.26679
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Published by UFRGS under a CC BY-SA license. The text above is an editorial presentation of the study.