The Travel of the Xerant

Abstract

The purpose of this text is to specify the contacts, confrontations and resistances of an indigenous people – Xerente –, which traced a specific history, without ceasing to be immersed in the broader political conjunctures imposed by the rulers on the native peoples, in the colonial and subsequent contexts. The text points out the research process initiated by the location of a photo in the magazine A Cigarra, from 1921, in the digital collection of the Public Archives of the State of São Paulo (APESP), recording the gift of a group of Xerente in the city. To understand this visit, the text presents the process of consulting different documents to better understand this and many trips undertaken by this indigenous people, to Rio de Janeiro, passing through São Paulo. As the title indicates, the text focuses on the history of the Xerente’s travels, from the 18th century to the first decades of the 20th century, in an effort to understand their motivations.