Abstract
The reflection that we propose in this article consists in an interrogation about the nicknames, buere wame in the Tuyuka language, “apelidos” in Portuguese, in the broader context of personal and collective names. Reflection on the creation, attribution, and use of nicknames will aim to understand how these processes can respond to questions about relationality and sociality, which are expressed in the relationships of consanguinity and affinity, between male and female, indigenous and non-indigenous, human and non-human. The approach adopted here is therefore connected with kinship and gender relations, sexuality, and individual and collective identity, seen particularly through humor. We will seek to understand the meaning of nicknames by analyzing mainly linguistic and sociological aspects, through the study of the logics inherent to their attribution and their use in everyday and festive contexts. To investigate these issues, we will present some ethnographic examples of personal nicknames viewed through the lens of principles of creation, as well as of the “stories of the origins” of these names.
Keywords
Names; Indigenous ethnology; Upper Rio Negro; Kinship