Archaeologies of gender, kinship, and mobility in Southeast Brazil: genealogies of Tupiniquim women and the itinerancy of ceramic practices

Abstract

The Brazilian colonial context led the Tupiniquim, an Indigenous group, and the Portuguese, a colonizing group, from the São Vicente area to connect with two places in Rio de Janeiro. In this scenario emerges the genealogy of two Tupiniquim women of the 16th century from São Vicente, which allowed us to trace six generations of women who formed kinship relationships with Portuguese men. They moved to Rio de Janeiro to create the Cara de Cão fortification and Camorim sugar plantation. They were members of the communities that appropriated and transformed Portuguese coarse ware ceramics into what is now termed Paulistaware. This article shows a new understanding of the social role of Indigenous women and the entry of European men into symmetrical gender relations based on the logic of Tupiniquim social collaboration. Tupiniquim women initially produced Paulistaware before 1550. After 1600 these ceramics were also made and consumed by people from the African diaspora and others from outside, adding decorative elements found in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The intensive analysis of archival data breaks the traditional model of homogenization and Europeanization of historical processes and events, highlighting the itinerancy of practices and mobility of people.