ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the funerary patterns and ceramic iconography, which helps to understand the ancient Amazonians' social organization and the particular ways through which they the Marajoaras in particular related to their real and mythical landscape, transforming it into the land of their ancestors. Several anthropologists have emphasized the importance of the 'construction of social bodies' through ritual in the formation of social identities, as certain rituals are meant to reassure hierarchical relations within society. An analysis of ceramic tangas tells that Marajoara women and girls wore them on at least a few occasions. Some of them may have been worn during rites of passage. In Marajoara funerary vessels, this would be accomplished by demonstrating genealogical ties to ancestors in the iconography to empower the new generations. In this sense, funerary vessel style was likely used to reinforce genealogy and tradition.
