"Obscure cultural tradition" - representations about the indigenous people in the work Capitania d'El Rey (1964)

Abstract

From the discursive analysis of Moysés Vellinho's writings in Capitania d'El-Rei (1964), we sought to understand the ways in which the author represented the indigenous people in his language play. In this way, the writing of Vellinho's history was analyzed from the observation of the social places occupied by the author, from his professional career to his performance in different spaces of knowledge, especially the Instituto Histórico e Geográfico do Rio Grande do Sul (IHGRGS). Using the decolonial analysis perspective, which emphasizes the symbolic and cultural permanencies of the colonization periods, we observe the historiography of Vellinho from the constructs that the author mobilized around the indigenous people as a group, as well as (and above all) women indigenous. In other words, it started from the need to analyze Vellinho's speech through a critical bias, dismantling discursive formations that perpetuate erroneous, prejudiced and violent views.