Coleções etnográficas do século XIX: levantamento e pesquisa documental

Abstract

Since its creation in 1866 by Domingos Soares Ferreira Penna, the ethnographic collection of the then Museu Paraense was formed through requests addressed to the headquarters of Amazonian municipalities. At that time, artifacts in large quantities, mainly from the Lower Amazon, entered the institution with little or no record of their social and spatial origin, collector, and dating. Realizing that material culture is a document for anthropological and historical studies on indigenous populations, the present work aims at the museological, ethnographic, and historical documentation of 556 artifacts identified as eighteenth-century, dated up to 1900 and present in the "Curt Nimuendajú" ethnographic collection. Of this set, special attention was given to objects for domestic use. These objects include four of the nine craft categories listed by Berta Ribeiro (1988), namely: ceramics; braiding; cords and fabrics; and wooden and other material utensils. To document this collection, primary sources were used (Bulletins of the Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi from 1894 to 1910, and reports of travelers who went to the Lower Amazon in the 19th century), pertinent bibliography on art, material culture, MPEG's history, and the artifact itself. From the data analyzed, each piece is being catalogued, documented, and stored in the ethnographic collection cabinets in the technical reserve. Given the difficulties in obtaining data about the provenance of the artifacts, the work is still in progress.