ABSTRACT
The history of Indian-white relations in Brazil has run along two parallel lines: manifested in the rhetoric of the ’noble savage’ living in a placid Eden of innocence and freedom and revealed in the attitude of the superior white whose moral responsibility it is to rescue the Indian from barbarism. This chapter discusses four moments of the edenic discourse: the first moment of bewilderment at discovery, the nativistic moment in the eighteenth century, the Indianist moment in the nineteenth century, and the ecological moment in the twentieth century. The nativistic moment in the eighteenth century and the romantic moment in the nineteenth century are best depicted in paintings, music and especially in literature. Both the nativistic and the romantic modes using Indian imagery to construct identities, be the indomitable colonizer or of proud nationalist. The specific brand of anthropology in Brazil combines the quest for scientific competence with the commitment to be socially responsible toward the people studied.
