“Wajãpi, cidadãos do mundo”: o Kusiwã e o processo de reconhecimento dos índios Wajãpi como patrimônio cultural da humanidade pela UNESCO

Abstract

The Wajãpi are a people of tradition and Tupi, who currently inhabit the region bounded by the rivers Oyapock, Jari and Amapari in the state of Amapá, extreme northern Brazil. The graphic Wajãpi have a well-defined and characteristic, the Kusiwã, which are either ethnic or traditional ritual symbols, which decorated bodies and objects, which was recognized in 2002 by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The scientific objective of this article is to analyze the recognition process Kusiwã and influence in the experience of the Indians Wajãpi, taking into consideration their customs, political and social relations, the visibility that Kusiwã provided to indigenous and some reflections on their past ten years of recognition. To achieve the proposed objective in the study used the dialectical method, which performed a literature search on the topic, and directed interviews with indigenous leaders and the coordinator of the Indigenous Area Wajãpi - AIW.